Trip advice-London and Italy

Maybe too much. Especially considering how much time you will spend looking out train windows.
Rough estimates for NIGHTS needed: Rome- 3 or4, Florence 3, Venice 3. Add ons: Pompeii- add a day to Rome for day trip. Lucca and Pisa - add a day as combined day trip from Florence. San Gimignano- add a day as day trip from Florence. Lake Como- add 2 nights. Milan - add one or 2 nights and fly home from there.

So that's 9 or10 nights without add ons (and flying home from Venice). And that's 16 or 17 nights with all the add ons.

To cut it down to 11 or 12 nights in Italy, what would you eliminate?

Travelislife,
To get down to 12 nights, I would spend 6 nights in Rome. This includes a day at the Vatican, and four days in Rome itself, where you could spend six weeks and not see it all. Then 3 nights (2 full days) in Florence and ditto in Venice. A Pompeii trip from Rome will be a long one and take a full day away from Rome, so I would save that for another trip when you could see the Amalfi coast as well . If possible,take a half-day to Pisa from Florence, maybe the afternoon of your transfer day from Rome to Florence. (I don't know the logistics of trains for that, etc.) Otherwise, Florence has so much, I would forgo Pisa if you only have 2 days in Florence.

Have a great trip!

Buy Rick Steves London guidebook: https://store.ricksteves.com/shop/p/london-guidebook and take his five self-guided walking tours so you don’t miss seeing anything. If it rains one morning visit the British Museum. You may want to visit Westminster Abbey but rent the audio guide so you can gain an appreciation for Britain’s history. Another museum you might like is the Victoria & Albert Museum. Allow six nights for London and if you take day trips add a night per trip.
Buy Rick Steves Italy guidebook: https://store.ricksteves.com/shop/p/italy-guidebook
Rome – five nights if you add Pompeii.
Florence – four nights if you include a day trip to Lucca and Pisa. Get an early start so you can visit Lucca and Pisa the same day.
Will you rent a car? If not, remove San Gimignano from your itinerary. Visiting the Tuscan countryside is best by vehicle.
Venice – three nights
Milan – three nights that includes a day trip to Lake Como.

Just to explain, don't count your travel days as tourism days. For the most of those days, you won't have time to do or see much. Hence the recommendation that 3 nights equal 2 days. (Day 1 Spain to Rome, Days 2-6 Rome, Day 7 Rome to Florence, Day 8-9 Florence, Day 10 Florence to Venice, Day 11-12 Venice. Day 13 Depart. That is 12 nights spent in Italy.

Thank you for all of the advice! I have eliminated London on this trip. I am trying to decide between time in Florence versus two nights in Milan with one day being a full day trip to Lake Como, Bellagio, and Lake Lugano. It’s all supposed to be so beautiful and I’ve always dreamt of going there. Has anyone ever visited those places? Should I not be giving up Florence? I know it’s really beautiful there as well, and I would be missing Michelangelo‘s David which I’m super disappointed about, but I also don’t drink so I won’t be there for any wine tasting or wineries. Unfortunately, I can’t do both. Thoughts?

One thing to add, it’s quite a bit more expensive to do Milan rather than Florence.

Travelislife,
You are wise to forgo London on this trip. Just one thought, and it is only my opinion, but to give up Florence for Milan and Lake Como is not what I would do. Florence is a jewel box of art. But each destination has so much going for it, in different ways, that you will enjoy whatever you decide.
Bon voyage! Amusez-vous bien!

Please tell us a bit more about what sort of things you like to see and your travel style. For example, we usually stop for lunch when in Italy, because we do travel for the food as well as for excellent churches and museums! Do you prefer countryside, as you've said you'd really love to visit Lake Como, or large or smaller cities? You mentioned the Vatican, best to plan on spending the whole day, the museum and St Peters requires a lot of slow walking. There's lots written here about it. Use the search bar above.

Now that you've dropped London, are you still going to Alicante and then on to Italy? Have a look at Multi leg flights, perhaps into Venice and end in Rome?

Italy must do’s: Rome, Vatican, Florence, Venice. If this trip is mostly Italy, end May to June 13th, here are some ideas - Because Forum members have reported flights out of Venice are very early in the morning, consider starting in Venice for 3-4 nights. Florence ideally 4 nights, lots of art, lots of walking & perhaps that day trip to Pisa. You can easily spend 5 nights in Rome, (seriously our last trip was 8 nights, 5 days barely scratches the surface).

Tammy's excellent trip report about Venice & Florence might be a good place to start looking at those cities - https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/a-return-to-italy-october-2024

Yes, we've been to Lake Como and Milan, so do come back if you've carved out more time for your trip, but as another poster mentioned, I would be loathe to give up Florence. Let us know what you're thinking, with travel dates if possible.... And have a great trip!

I am still new at traveling abroad, so I'm pretty open. For example, I love NYC and Paris for culture and the arts and good museums. I also love Whistler, Sedona, and Bend, OR for beautiful country and a low key vibe. Also love to go tropical at a beach in Hawaii. I want to see it all! Regarding the food thing, that was actually something I was going to post about soon because I have a gluten allergy and will need to research that. I love trying food in new places and I'm especially looking forward to Italian!
I am still going to Spain to meet my daughter who lives there.

What I currently have tentatively scheduled:
Nights 1-3: Madrid for 3nts
Night 4-7: Alicante for 4nts
Night 8: Madrid for 1nt (airport)
Nights 9-12: Arrive at 2pm in Rome, stay for 4nts. See the Spanish steps, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, and Piazza Novana same day. I would have liked to have an earlier arrival but it would mean taking a 5:50am flight! I could maybe change to a different airline that would have an arrival of 11am.
*First full day: AM tour of Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica for approx 3hrs
*Second full day: full day tour to Pompeii and Sorrento
*Third full day: AM tour of Colosseum/Palatine Hill/Roman Forum for 2.5hrs
Nights 13-15: ??? for 3nts
Nights 16-18: Venice for 3nts
Next day: Fly home out of Venice (Very early flight but flying out of Rome is not really any better).

I also found a 4nt/5day tour of Italy, so the trip could look like this:

Nights 1-8: Spain
Nights 9-13: Arrive at 2pm in Rome, stay for 5nts. See the Spanish steps, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, and Piazza Novana same day. I would have liked to have an earlier arrival but it would mean taking a 5:50am flight! I could maybe change to a different airline that would have an arrival of 11am.
*First full day: AM tour of Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica for approx 3hrs
*Second full day: full day tour to Pompeii and Sorrento
*Third full day: AM tour of Colosseum/Palatine Hill/Roman Forum for 2.5hrs
Nights 14-17: 5-day tour of Italy
-Day 1 Rome: Rome > Assisi > Siena > Florence.
-Day 2 Florence: In Florence we will have a free afternoon in which the group usually takes an optional
tour to Pisa, but we can choose to stay in Florence and visit the Accademia Gallery on our own.
Day 3: Florence > Bologna > Padua > Venice.
Day 4: Venice. We will have activities until 1 or 2 pm and then free time the rest of the day. Stay in Venice.
Day 5: Venice > Montepulciano > Rome. We will have around 90 minutes to visit + 1 hour of lunch time approximately.
Night 18: Rome, return home next day

Travelislife,
Nights 14-17....Florence, with a side trip to Pisa (about 1/2-3/4 opf a day, with an early start).

I would not take a combination tour to Pompeii and Sorrento from Rome. Going to Pompeii from Rome is pushing it but doable. Adding on Sorrento guarantees that you won't have much time in Pompeii, and you won't have the freedom you'd have if you just took the Freccia train to Naples and then hopped on the Circumvesuviana. I haven't been to Sorrento, but the main reason people stay there seems to be its convenience as a base for going to Capri, the Amalfi Coast and Popeii. Sorrento itself is not an historic town, so to travel on from Pompeii to see Sorrento for an hour or two doesn't seem logical to me.

Be careful about a short visit to Venice. Folks who go there for a day often dislike the city, because they spend practically all their time as part of the mob walking from the train station to the Rialto Bridge and on to San Marco. It feels like Disneyland. You need multiple days in Venice so you have time to wander the back canals. It's a very bad place to be, in essence, a daytripper.

Yes. take some time to visit Pisa/Lucca. To many days of Florentine art is detrimental to the senses.