Hello,
My husband and I are going to Europe August 2017. It will be my first time and my husbands second time. We will be going for 18 days. Our main destinations will be Amsterdam, Paris, and Italy. I want to see all of Italy but have heard its better to stay in a few places for a longer amount of time. I can't decide which place to cut out. Our top destinations would be Venice, Rome, Florence, and Amalfi Coast. Any suggestions would be helpful!! Thank you!!
If Italy is the main focus of your trip, then why not cut Amsterdam and Paris and devote all your time to Italy?
Have you booked your flights? Don't do that until you have drafted an itinerary.
And you can't see all of Italy in 18 days, so you'll have to narrow things down.
In your "Rich Steves Italy 2016" under Tour Priorites you can find well laid out planning guides and suggestions.
If you concentrate on your top destinations of Venice, Rome, Florence, and Amalfi Coast, it is doable. If you keep Amsterdam and Paris in the mix, you will run yourself ragged. It definitely better to stay in fewer places longer so you don't lose time just getting from one place to another. That always takes longer than one plans. Consider flying into one place (perhaps Venice) and flying back home from another (Naples or Rome) as it is generally cheaper that way. In addition, you will not lose as much time back tracking.
Our top destinations would be Venice, Rome, Florence, and Amalfi
Coast.
If these are truly your top picks, then drop Paris and Amsterdam as you'll only scratch the surface of Italy in 18 days! :O)
How many nights abroad do you have to work with? If the 18 days you're counting includes your arrival and departure days, you have closer to 16 sightseeing days to work with...and that can easily be eaten up doing just the 4 locations above. You also have to factor in time which will be lost every time you make a move from one location to another.
And what sorts of things are you interested in seeing and doing in Italy? That can determine how long you might want to stay in a particular location. Additionally, it's going to be very hot in Italy in August so an itinerary which allows for a relaxed sightseeing pace and plenty of breaks is advised. Too much rushing about trying to cram everything in isn't going to make the heat any easier to manage!
To do Italy properly, you need all 18 days.
Venice min of two days
Florence min of three days
Rome min of five days
Naples, Pompeii, Sorrento, Capri, Amalfi Coast min four days
The rest of the time consider Sienna, Ravenna, Pisa, Lucca
It is hot in Italy in August, so if you decide to see Amsterdam and Paris
Amsterdam 3 days
Brugges, Gent and Brussels 3 days
Paris 7 days
Side trip to Luxembourg or Normandy 2-3 days
To do Italy properly you need all 18 days."
Some would say that to experience Italy properly, you need a lifetime.
Amsterdam, Paris, Venice, Florence and Rome are doable and in that order. You could flip Paris / Amsterdam as there are many flights to Venice from either destination. 3 or 4 nights each with train rides except for Paris to Venice which you should fly. My only caveat would be Italy in August, especially Rome.
Yes, less is more. For every hotel change you lose a half day, for these long distance moves Paris to Rome you lose an entire day. What are your priorities? 16 days you need to cut it down. For your first time in Italy, I would recommend flying into
Venice, 4 N
Florence, 4 N day trip to hill towns
Amalfi, 4 N
Rome, 4 N, Fly Home
This is a good balance. Venice is better to fly into than out.
Geovagriffith has a good plan from Amsterdam, but I would go on a tour of Castles of the Loire Valley as a day trip and day trip to Mont St. Michel.
Amsterdam, 4N
Paris, 4N
Venice, 4N
Rome, 4N
Look up pictures of these sites and cities and see if it interests you. You will need to plan a down day to rest and do laundry.
If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium.... You need to decide what interests you and your travel style. Some folks like to check off a long list of seen this, done that. Others prefer to just enjoy absorbing the ambiance of places new and different. Some like to zoom through and past scenery, others like to stop and smell the flowers.
That said, read Rick Steve's Europe Trip Itinerary Tips , splurge and buy a copy of Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door for generic planing advice and Rick's or other country specific guide books.
Thank you for all of your replies. Our traveling style is very much relaxed but I also want to enjoy some tourist like activities. We are both very active and enjoy walking/hiking/biking. Sightseeing and exploring on our own is a priority. We also love to just sit and drink wine and talk for hours. I think we are comfortable with keeping it at Amsterdam, Paris, Rome, and Florence. Wine country and hiking in the Cinque Terre sound right up our alley. However, is it possible to do a day trip to Venice from Rome? The canals sound beautiful.
is it possible to do a day trip to Venice from Rome Only if you want to spend the day "just sitting and drinking wine and talking for hours" on the train. It's nearly 4 hours each way. Even from Florence, it's two hours on the train . . . and you'll be there during the peak day-tripper hours, so it'll be hot and crowded.
Have you considered an RS tour? The 14 day family tour starts in Amsterdam and ends in Rome, stopping at Venice and Tuscany. Amalfi would be an add on at the end. Paris could be tacked on the front. It depends on your priorities. The family tours do not preclude folks without children; their timing is in the summer when kids can travel, though.
https://www.ricksteves.com/tours/europe/family-europe-amsterdam-rome
Debbie
Our traveling style is very much relaxed....We also love to just sit
and drink wine and talk for hours.
If this is the preferred style, I don't know as I'd recommend an RS tour. It sounds as if you travel much the same as we do, and having that sort of time is why we do it independently. But it's also the reason we tend to stay longer rather than shorter in one place.
Wine country and hiking in the Cinque Terre sound right up our alley.
However, is it possible to do a day trip to Venice from Rome? The
canals sound beautiful.
Again, consider that you're going to lose a big chunk of a day moving between cities; more than that between Paris and Rome or Florence (I assume you'll fly). You'll lose some transferring between Florence and Rome as well. There is a LOT to see in Rome so you'll need every bit of your 3.5 days to barely scratch the surface. Venice is much too far away, and you really don't want to devote hours and hours to a train that you could spend sightseeing? Save it for another trip.
I'll say the same for Florence: you'll have 3 full days and are already looking at spending two of them on day trips. While smaller than Rome, there's still a lot to see so please don't cut that one short unless you know you're not interested in much that it has to offer?
The Cinque Terre: will be insanely busy in August so that might be a good thing to be aware of? Honestly, the best way to do that one is to STAY there: the golden hours are in the early mornings before the mob of day-trippers arrive, and in the evenings after they depart. Just as with Venice, I'd save that one for another another trip.
With the exception of a train mentioned in a previous thread linked below (don't use the train numbers; just approx. departure times and stations) you'll also kill about 5 hours of the day or more just getting there and back to Florence.
You can take a 5-minute train from Santa Maria Novella to Campo di Marte but the transfer time is another 25 minutes so.
I'm not trying to throw a wet blanket on your enthusiasm (really, I'm not!) but I see you already piling too much on that will leave you little for the relaxing times you're so looking forward to! If you want to take a day trip from Florence - and I don't know as I'd do more than one - you might consider Lucca or Siena instead? Both take less time to get to than the CT.
With only 18 nights to play with, I think it's a case of having to make a choice between Amsterdam and Amalfi Coast.
Arrive in Paris - 4nts
Either, Train to Amsterdam - 3nts
Or, Fly to Naples for Sorrento - 3nts
Fly/train to Rome - 4nts
Train to Florence - 4nts
Train to Venice - 3nts
Depart from Venice
I would definitely suggest focusing on Italy. 18 days in Italy would really allow you to really dig in and enjoy it. There are so many posts on this board about how people want to combine Scotland, St. Petersburg, Spain, and Greece on one trip over 12 days (I exaggerate only slightly). I am not trying to jump on you at all--it's a natural inclination to want to visit all of your ultimate destinations on this particular trip. Resist the temptation and you will have a better trip. As Rick says, assume you will return. I have lived in California for all of my 50+ years and have not seen all of California. You are not going to see all of Italy even in 18 days. You could not even see all of Rome in 18 days! Your job is to fill 18 those days with the best travel experience possible. Early in our travels (speaking about my wife and myself), I tended to overextend, to tack something on extra at the expense of savoring the experience. We saw a lot of places but many I long to return to because we blasted through in too little time. We might never make it back to all the places that we saw too briefly. Now I plan trips covering less distance with longer stays. Part of it's an age thing, younger people can move faster and more frequently, but just because you can does not mean you should. We are a early 50s/early 60s couple and very fit, so we are not physically limited; our change in travel style was based on experience rather than physical necessity. So, I think Italy for 18 days would be awesome.
It's a balancing act really. What your wishes are, what's the best value for your time and money, plus doing fair justice to the places you choose. My advice is that an adequate amount of time does not have to be an inordinate amount of time. Paris and Rome are easy to fly to 'gateway' cities, so you can always return for a more 'in depth' exploration - 4 nights in each is good for a first time.
