10 days in Italy - 2 cities or 3?

Do you have your airline tickets yet? It's best to fly into one city and out of another. You can do this scenario and get a decent feel for each location, knowing that you will lose time in transit from place to place. I would fly into Venice, train to CT, then train to Rome. Fly out of Rome. There are two reasons to do it this way. First, Venice is a nicer place to get over any jetlag you may have. Second, it can be difficult to get early morning transportation to the airport in Venice for a flight home.

For me it would be too much. The train ride alone from the CT to Venice is over 5 hours long. I would stick with Rome and Venice. Try flying into one and out the other to save from back tracking.

Donna

happy,

IMO, three locations are not too much in 10 days, however to make this work it will be necessary to use open-jaw flights and minimize travel times between each location.

I'd also suggest flying inbound to Venice, train to Cinque Terre and then Rome. Using the high speed trains where available will keep travel times as short as possible.

For your stay in the Cinque Terre, you'll first have to decide which of the five towns you want to stay in. It would be a really good idea to get accommodations booked soon as that area will be very popular in May.

I think it's doable - it just depends on what kind of vacation you want. If you want more leisure time, then just do two. We did Rome, Florence, the CT, and Siena in 11 days. I totally agree with the others, though - our biggest mistake was flying both in and out of Rome. Fly into Milan and out of Rome, and I think you will totally be okay. Ask around a bit about Venice, too. I know a lot of people who say that they didn't need more than a full day there. That might get you some extra time in CT. Stay in Vernazza!

I like what Donna said. 5 Terre is nice but it is out of the way for such a quick trip as you have planned. If possible add a day or two. There are other great sites and sights to see between Venice and Rome too, you don't have to go to 5 Terre to see great things.
3 nights =2 days so you really have limited time. Your 5 Terre plan is eaten up mostly by travel. I suggest your reconsider. You are going to love Venice and Rome and will wish you spent more time there.

My daughter and I did Venice, Florence and Rome in 10 days and had an excellent trip. 3 nights Venice, 2 nights Florence and 4 nights Rome. Flying into Venice and out of Rome worked very well for us.
Good luck.

You have all been most helpful. Thank! I think we may skip CT this trip and do Venice and Rome. I want some leisure time and don't want to waste large chunks of time going between cities.

happy,

Just for information, the quickest trip from Venice to the Cinque Terre is 5H:33M, with two changes. That's not an excessively long time, but still the better part of a day.

If you want to minimize travel times, another option you might consider is visiting "the big three" - Venice, Florence and Rome. That's a perfect combination for a 10 day time frame. Florence is a beautiful city with lots to see, and it also makes a great home base for visiting other locations in Tuscany. A day trip to Siena or Lucca are some of the possibilities. You could also make a day trip to the Cinque Terre from there, although that will be a long day.

We did Rome for 3 days and Venice for 3 days a few years ago. One extra day in Rome and one less day in Venice would have been better. Also, we skipped Florence on that trip and I wish we would have spent at least a day there. I think that you could get by with 2 days in Venice, unless you fly in there first and need to recover for a day before doing a lot of sigh seeing. We spent one day in Venice just exploring the city and then took the ferry to Murano which was very cool. It's very easy to get from Venice to Florence to Rome by train- 4 hours total train ride between Venice and Rome.

I would do it. Fly into Venice. Spend your 3 nights.

Leave as early as possible in the AM for CT, you can get a train leaving at 7:25, arriving Monterosso 12:52, which gives you most of the day in CT, and you still have the next full day (and 2 nights).

Then leave for Rome for 3 nights. Since each city is SO different, you might regret not seeing all 3.