Narrowed it down, now need some logistically help

For Italy I would neatly split your 15 nights into 5 stays of 3 nights each.

•Venice
•Florence
•Cinque Terre
•Lucca - & visit Pisa
•Naples - & visit Pompeii/Vesuvius

Fly direct to BCN from Naples with easyjet, Vueling or Ryanair

Just to add to David's recommended itinerary- perhaps look at doing Cinque Terre early in the trip. Even mid October is late in the season for that area.

Yes, a number of different logistics are possible for CT, Lucca and Florence. Any order can be managed depending on personal preference.

Can you fly into Rome? Stay there for day trips to Pompeii and Orvieto, then train to the Cinque Terre. Then base in Florence for Lucca and Pisa (can even be one day trip for both). Then Venice. Of course you can do it in reverse, but that puts you in the CT later.

You could consider something like this.....

• Flight inbound Venice - 3 nights
• Train to Florence - 4 nights. Florence makes a great home base so you don't have to change hotels. From there you can easily take day trips to Pisa, Lucca or Siena (all about an hour each way, with Siena by Bus). Other than the tower, I'm not sure Pisa is worth a stop.
• Train to Cinque Terre - 3 nights. You'll have to decide which of the five towns you'll be staying in. It would be better to do this relatively early in your trip, as some businesses may start closing for the season in November. You may get rain in October, but you'll have to take your chances.
• Train to Orvieto - 2 nights. Take guided tour of caves and tour St. Patrick's Well on your own (incredible engineering achievement).
• Train to Naples - 3 nights? Tour Pompeii, Ercolano, Vesuvius. Visiting the Archeological Museum in Naples would also be worthwhile, as some of the artifacts from Pompeii are there. You could also consider staying in Sorrento as it's easy to get to Naples airport using the Curreri Viaggi Bus.
• Budget flight from Naples to Barcelona - 5 nights (as mentioned earlier). easyJet would be my choice, but they don't offer flights every day in November.
• Outbound flight BCN to London

I'd suggest referring to a guidebook (Rick Steves preferably) to plan your activities for the number of days you'll have in each place. Keep in mind that a two night stop will mean about 1.5 days for actual touring, as it normally takes at least half a day to change locations.

I vote for Ken's suggestions.

I want to talk about logistics of another kind..... Schooling. Perhaps you homeschool or this vacation coincides with a break in the school. In that case, no problem

If however, you are planning to remove your children from school for three weeks, you need to also be planning the logistics of how to make sure they learn the key concepts that will be covered in their classes while they are absent.

Thank you all for the itinerary ideas 🙂....very much appreciated! Lots for me to think about and tweak our stops. Never enough time to do it all!

Carol - we homeschool, year #3...this year we are taking our schooling on the road...a much thought out, planned dream come true for us!
As a former elementary/special ed, teacher with 15 years under my belt, I feel confident that I have the expertise and knowledge to teach my kids the concepts they need to be successful in the world. Feeling very grateful that we have the opportunity to do that from around the world this year.

Since we are doing a week in Rome in late November, should I just save Orvieto and Pompeii/Vesuvius for then? That would give us more time in the other Italian cities...or we could scoot over to Spain sooner?? Any other Italian cities/town that are must sees for kids?

Since we are doing a week in Rome in late November, should I just save Orvieto and Pompeii/Vesuvius for then? That would give us more time in the other Italian cities...or we could scoot over to Spain sooner?? Any other Italian cities/town that are must sees for kids?

Yes, save Pompeii and Vesuvius for when you are in Rome. You could even do this as a day trip....a long day trip.

Do the trip as planned moving in one direction.....Venice, Florence, Pisa, Lucca, and then go to Milan for your flight to BCN. (There is only one nonstop out of Pisa to BCN and it is at 10:30 PM.)

I agree that you might also look into Siena, Verona, Padau and Bologna as places to see. Since the kids are foodies, Parma might be an intersting stop.

In Lucca you can rent bikes to ride the walls. Hiking is excellent along the CT. Churches are every 500 meters in Italy. I think it's the law.

Are you stopping at all in London? It's worth a visit.

We are actually in Europe for 9 weeks. Husband will be working out of London for the first 3 weeks, so we will be based there. The second 3 weeks we will do the traveling to Italy/Spain. The last 3 weeks we will be in London for a week (family coming to visit) , traveling (Paris on the itinerary) for a week, and then Rome for a week.

There's never enough time in Barcelona. Lots to see and do plus several day trips.