Two Week Trip to Lisbon - Madrid - Rome

I wrote a rather lengthy response but the forum crashed before I could post it, so please forgive my brevity:

How many nights do you anticipate spending in Europe, not counting the overnight flight? Your arrival day is probably not going to be very useful for traditional sightseeing because you and/or your wife may well be a walking zombie after the sleepless night on the plane. Therefore, most of us figure that the number of days we have in Europe is one less than the number of nights we spend there. So will you have 13 days? 12 days?

This is definitely not a driving trip. ViaMichelin estimates the distance by road at about 1700 miles and the driving time at over 25 hours. That's with no stops whatsoever, and that's just Lisbon-Madrid-Rome, not including any other places in Portugal. So you'd lose 3 days of your relatively short trip, just sitting in a car.

In addition, renting a car in one country and dropping it off in another virtually always incurs an extremely high international drop-off charge--at least hundreds of dollars. The rental-car company would have to pay someone to drive the car back from Italy to Portugal.

The only way to combine Lisbon, Madrid and Rome on a trip of this length is to fly, probably both international legs because ground transportation between Portugal and Spain is shockingly limited.

Personally, I hate mid-trip flights. There's just nothing relaxing about dealing with airports, and it appears that you'd have to do that four times within 14 days. That is not my idea of a pleasant vacation.

I urge you and your wife to reconsider your plans. You can have a wonderful 2-week vacation seeing part of Portugal, part of Spain or part of Italy. That will be much nicer than a vacation that is effectively 2 days shorter (those airport days) and tries to see a bit of three different countries.

Portugal, Madrid and Rome as major stops.

For a 2 week trip this is extremely ambitious

s it reasonable to rent a car and drive the entire trip?

No-- The one way drop fee of $800+ ( on top of the regular rate) should be adequate dissuasion.... if not, more reasons can be supplied upon request

My wife wants to see the Vatican to see one of the Papal services, so Rome on a Sunday is a key target date

Check the Vatican website for the Pope's schedule. There should be info there on the Wednesday General Audience. If you are seeking to attend a Mass celebrated by The Pope, that is something different. It may not be on a Sunday and not necessarily at St Peters. We attended a Mass celebrated by the Pope, at St John Lateran,( The Cathedral church for Rome) on a weekday at 5(or6)PM

You need to get guide books for Portugal, Spain and Italy/Rome and decide what you/she really want to do. Ithink you will find all 3 is way too much for 2 weeks

Thank you both for the quick replies. I will let my wife give these a quick read and I will get back to the forum when a decision is made :-)

You'd fly "open-jaw", into Portugal (probably Lisbon) and out of Rome. I have done mid-trip flights and it's a bit more of a hassle than taking the train. For one thing, you're flying within Schengen so you don't have to go through passport control. There are several airlines that fly Lisbon-Madrid and Porto-Madrid. Depending on how much time you have for Italy, you could fly into a smaller airport than Rome (Venice, Bologna, Florence).

Give us an idea of what your wife (and you too) want to see and do in each place. Then we can give you suggestions for how long to spend in each and how to get from place to place.

It sounds like you haven't been to Europe before. A good introduction is the Rick Steves Europe Through the Back Door.

For only two weeks, I suggest sticking with Italy.

Florence and Venice are a great addition after Rome (or you could add Naples, Sorrento, Capri and Pompeii for 3 days.
Rome alone deserves minimum of five days.

Forget renting a car. Gas is $8 a gallon in most of Europe and you can pick up expensive speeding tickets easily.

You can't cover Portugal and Madrid in two weeks.

So it has finally been accepted that we will only travel to Italy.

We have a flight special to Lamezia Terme and want to rent a car to spend two weeks driving North stopping in Rome (most important to my wife) and possibly getting up to Venice.

So with these major points of interest and with the questions as previous, does this drive seem to be over ambitious for two weeks?

I have heard/read that Rick does not necessarily pre-book hotels, but a traveler friend who is tripping frequently said that this is for "experienced" travelers and I should definitely book ahead.

As we do not have a real itinerary (and I don't want to strictly limit the trip to milestones), I don't know how pre-booking would work effectively.

I look forward to all the expert replies.

Thanks

Interesting choice of arrival airport.

September is stil a busy tourist season, so just stopping somewhere to get a room is a risky plan.

A rental car in Rome and Venice is a definite liability.

Suggest you get a tour book or two of Italy to get some idea of where and what you want to do.

Where is your departure flight? Suggestions on where to go will be affected by where you must end.

You should start a new thread in the Italy forum which gives your travel dates, your arrival and departure airports and the comments and questions in your last response.

To help yourself and the rest of us, you could add an edit to your original post to advise that you've changed your plans and posted on the Italy forum.

I'll save my other suggestions for your next post.

TWO WEEKS to visit Lisbon, Madrid and Rome.

All these places are wonderful, but you have built in way too much travel. Yes, you could book an open jaw ticket, fly into Lisbon and out of Rome, but then you have to fly from Lisbon to Madrid and Madrid to Rome. Not sure that there is an overnight train from Lisbon to Madrid anymore. Those cheap discount flights in Europe don't allow much luggage.

Don't even think of driving, even from Lisbon to Madrid, since crossing a border the drop charge will be awful.

I have been to Portugal twice and the last time for two weeks. You could easily spend two weeks just in Portugal and still not see some great places.

Madrid and surrounding area, you need at least a week.

Rome, a week is deserved there.

I have moved the conversation to: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/toronto-to-lamezia-terme-14-days

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions.