planning Italy to Ireland need help

Do your 10 days include your travel days? You can't really count the day you arrive or the day you leave. How old is your daughter?

It's easier to plan by how many nights you will spend. If you stay somewhere 2 nights it gives you one full day, 3 nights gives you 2 days, etc. You are going in peak season, so expect crowds and in the case of Italy expect heat.

In Italy you want to stay in Florence, but do day trips to Siena and the Cinque Terre? You would need at least 5 nights to give you 2 days in florence and one each in siena and the Cinque Terre. What is your expectation in the CT? Do you want to hike? Explore the towns? Go to the beach?

Then there's Ireland. Where do you want to go there? Just Dublin? You can see that in a few days. If more than Dublin you will see more with a car. Would you be willing to drive there?

Don't forget to allow travel time to get between Italy and Ireland. I assume you plan to fly open jaw (multi city).

If it was me with a maximum of 10 days, I would stick to Italy.

Going to the Cinque Terre from Florence is really not a day trip because of the need to change trains and the fact that they are the local, slow trains. Siena is an hour by bus from Florence, the CT is more like a 3 hour trip.

You will lose most of a day flying from Italy to Ireland. Have you looked at the Ryan Air website? They fly from Pisa and from Bologna to Dublin. The Bologna flight leaves around 11 a.m. July 30. There are frequent trains from Florence and the trip is about 35 minutes, so you may have time for an early breakfast before heading to Bologna. It depends on how long it takes to then get to the airport. You'll probably have to be there by 9 a.m. for security procedures, luggage check-in, etc. The next flight is on August 1 at around 2 p.m. The flight's about 3 hours (2 on the clock, because you gain an hour going west). After you land, you'll have to collect your luggage, then make your way to your hotel. At best you'll have the late afternoon to get your bearings in Dublin and have dinner. The flights from Pisa are also during the day. There are frequent trains there too from Florence, but most of them take over an hour. One of the things you need to find out is how to get from the train station to the airport. The flights I looked at were considerably cheaper from Bologna, still over $100 without fees, baggage, etc.

Use the Ryan Air and the Trenitalia websites to see what your options are.

In the end, I think you should take Andrea's advice and stick to one country with so little time.

Unless you can spread your trip a few more days, I too would suggest you stick to Italy. I'd suggest flying into Venice for 2 nights, take a train to Florence for 3 nights and spend the balance of your time in Rome.

Rome is the preferred city to fly out, but don't sign on to one of those 6:00 a.m. flights. There are late morning flights directly to the U.S.

Italy has so much culture, history, architecture, art and food that shorting your time there just wouldn't be best. I always try to see Venice, as it's such a unique place. Tuscany and Rome are where modern society was formed, and you want to travel these areas the right way--slower.

The Irelands can be saved for a later date, when there's also time to take on London and/or Scotland.

It seems like everyone has covered the flights, so I won't add anything more. However, if you are planning to travel around Ireland and end up in Killarney. This B and B is great. It is called the Friars Glen, their website is friarsglen.ie. The place is clean close to the city, food was great, the owners were very helpful and small 12 person tour buses will come and pick you up and give tours in the surrounding area like Dingle etc. Thier phone number is 1-353(0)64 663-7500.

If you insist on combining Italy and Ireland, two sites can help you find no-frills flights: www.skyscanner.com and www.whichbudget.com. With your short vacation, stick to the direct flight even at extra cost.

One way to expedite things is skip Rome; save it for another trip when you can give it proper time. Florence, Bologna and Pisa, all within easy train rides of each other, also all have airports. So does Venice, a bit further away. Fly into one, out of another, en route either to Dublin or home.
If you are content to stick to the north, you could rent an apartment in Florence or Bologna for the entire time, saving money over a hotel, and do day trips. Or enter at Venice for a couple of nights and then a week in Florence or Bologna. But fair warning: Venice in particular will be jammed with tourists and hotel prices will be at their highest.

Train information and strategies: www.seat61.com

I think we are just talking to ourselves, since gkpowers hasn't bothered to come back and answer any questions or react to any of the sought after suggestions/comments.

Thanks for all the great information and it has helped us to decide to skip Italy this trip and spend all of our time in Ireland. Thanks for the B and B info we will look into that. Any advice on car rentals? From the reading I have done CDW is a must as well as a GPS. We will also get an automatic. Any other must haves when it comes to the coverage. Dooleycarrentals.com looks like our best option at this time.

Ok, you decided on Ireland. Suggest you get a good guidebook, sit down with your daughter and come up,with a plan on your must see things, what you want to do, budget, etc. then come back to the Ireland site here with questions. We have rented from several car companies and not had a problem, go with one that gives you best rate. Also you must get CDW for Ireland. Also really stress automatic. Have done both types several times and automatic is much better for driving on left, in my opinion.