10 days in italy -- would you start north or south?

With only 10 days I would pick either north or south but not both. Either Venice, Florence (Tuscany), Rome OR Naples, Sorrento, Pompeii, Amalfi Coast. Because of the distances and travel times it's nigh on impossible in 10 days to do any combination of north and south, and do any kind of justice to the places you see.

Will you have 10 full days in Italy, not counting day of arrival and day of departure? That will determine how wide-ranging your itinerary can reasonably be. Plan at least 2 nights in each place, preferably alternating 2 nights here, 3 nights there. Out of each 6-7 days, plan a "day off" to do laundry, sleep in, or do whatever else strikes your fancy. Wherever you go in Italy, you won't run out of fascinating sights and experiences.

As for your question of north vs. south, in October the weather will be turning autumnal so if you want to enjoy balmy temperatures and perhaps even sit on the beach you'll be better off in the south. One good thing about traveling in October is that the highly touristed places like Venice and the Amalfi coast will be less crowded. One drawback is that the days are short (shorter than in most parts of the USA -- it's easy to forget how far north Italy is!), so you won't have evenings to see the countryside.

venice, florence, rome, sorrento, amalfi coast, bologna, naples...pompeii, tuscany region, and on and on

So, before you get to such fine details as north-to-south versus south-to-north, lets do the math for a second.

You have 10 days, and 10 locations before you even get to "an on and on!" When you decide which order to do them in, I suggest you plan a visit to a hospital after you've blown through about 6 of these places, because at the pace you're planning, you will be in serious need of some medical attention.

To put it gently: your plan is not realistic.

You have 10 days? First of all, is that 10 full days, on the ground, not counting your arrival nor departure days? If so, then you have time for about 3, maybe 4 locations (if it's "10 days including travel" then you have enough time for 2, maybe 3 locations).

Your enthusiasm is charming, but I suggest you start by being sober and realistic. Please post your proposed arrival and departure dates - that is a prerequisite before anyone can give you more specific advice about an itinerary or route.

Do one or other. If you long for Venice then add Padua, or Verona & bologna, minimize your travel time and enjoy. These cities are an easy short train trip from. Venice.
Leave other parts of Italy for another trip. One can lose alot of time in traveling distances.
Reserve lodging as soon as u know your dates.

Since you have 10 days, I would suggest Rome, Florence and Venice and divide up the days as you wish. I wouldn't worry about North or South in October. Start and end wherever your flights are the cheapest.

thanks all for your quick responses and suggestions. does northern italy have a completely different "feel" than southern? it seems like we should just pick north or south and stick to one (or else extend our trip :)!!!) so many options and so much to see!

david - i'm sorry you didn't understand my question ... we would never intend or plan on seeing all these places in 10 days. for the record, i am both sober and realistic and, yes, definitely charming. thanks for your input.

well, good - it's a good combination. ;)

Sorry, I took your post literally. There are a lot of folks who post here with proposed itineraries that actually go like that, and they need to be metaphorically grabbed by the shoulders and shaken into sanity. Sounds like you're beyond that step in the process.

As to a difference in feel between the north and south...yes, there is. Rick once said that Italy becomes in increasingly "intense" as you go from north to south -- he suggested that first-timers begin in the Alps and progress southward, upon arrival in Rome, assess how you like it, if you're loving it, keep going south, if not, stop and/or turn around, because the further south you go, the more intense things get. That is, of course, a vast oversimplification, but I think there's a germ of truth in it.

Since this is a first trip to Italy, and mostly because you don't have enough time to do both, I'd do the north. If you love it, come back and do the south on another visit.

Choose north or south. I didn’t go south of Rome until my 6th trip to Italy.

Yes, you are right - northern Italy has completely different feel than southern. For example Milan in north Italy. Very civilized, sophisticated. You can find something similar in Germany, Switzerland, Nederland, etc. Or Naples in south Italy - very intense, exotic, I would not recommend to drive there. So north is more orderly, south more exotic, intense and may be messy. Otherwise you got very good advices. With only 10 days I second suggestion of Rome, Florence, Venice.

I gather this might be your first trip to Italy. With only ten days on a first trip--Venice Florence Rome in that order. 4-2-4 nights would be a good plan, with train to Rome late on the last day in Florence. Definitely fly into Venice and out of Rome.

Agree with others that I would stay within the northern section of Italy, down to Rome. The default locations for first time to Italy are Venice/Florence/Rome, but I feel you’re missing out if you just go to the larger cities. Did I interpret one of your comments that you might have flexibility in the number of days? With 10 days in Italy, I would do this:
Venice - 3, Florence - 2, Siena - 2, Rome - 3. Some may say just to do a day-trip to Siena, but evenings and early mornings are when those smaller towns are even more special!
If you could squeeze out a couple of extra days, I would stay at an additional smaller town between Florence and Rome, such as Orvieto, or Montepulciano.

I’ve been to Italy five times and still haven’t been south of Rome. There’s so many amazing towns and wonderful food!

With the exception of Venice, I find that there's much more of a different feel between small towns/villages and large cities. Well, maybe Bologna had a different feel as well. I always recommend starting in Venice because it's relatively quiet, slow-paced, has no major sights, and is totally magical most of the time in most of the city. If you want more low-key, Bologna is good, especially because it's a rail hub so you can park your bags and day trip to as many towns as you have days there. If you love Renaissance painting, sculpture and architecture (or are ready to learn to love them), allow at least 3 days in Florence.

I agree, with just 10 days, you are better off concentrating on the north. If you can, fly into Venice and out of Milan. Alternately, if it works better, you could fly R/T Milan and take the train to Venice on landing.

I did spend a few days in Naples 2 years ago and I enjoyed it, but I would not recommend it on a first trip.

While the big 3 are Venice, Florence, and Rome, I think to spend a whole trip in Big cities misses the slower paced flavor of Italy and the gorgeous natural scenery.

After living on Lago Maggiore for 5 months, and having just returned from 2 days in Milan, 3 in Turin and 2 in Lugano Switzerland, I realized that cities are great, full of museums, great architecture, restaurants, large piazzi, lots of people, and traffic. Smaller destinations can offer beautiful scenery (lakes, mountains, vineyards, hillsides, etc.). And traveling Internationally is intense and it’s nice to decompress for a day or two in a non big city to wander aimlessly. In your Itinerary, add a smaller destination- Orvieto if you go to Rome, maybe Siena.

We did a 10 night trip in 2015. We flew open jaw, into Venice, out from Naples. We took the fast train to each stop, except we took a private driver from Positano to Naples very early our last full day.

Venice - 2 nights.
Rome - 4 nights.
Positano - 3 nights
Naples - 1 night

We didn’t think it was too much at all. We actually enjoyed the down time on the train and thought that was a fun experience. I would recommend North to South, perhaps being able to relax some on the beach at the end of your trip. I totally agreed with your son, dirty and gritty. We hated Naples and in retrospect, wish we had taken the train back to Rome our last night.

I think you can do multiple cities, but what we did was probably the max one can do in my opinion, and still feel like you have a nice combo of relaxing and sightseeing.

10 days, stick with Venice, Florence and Rome. Skip Bologna, its OK, but pales compared to the big three.

thanks all for your quick responses and suggestions. does northern italy have a completely different "feel" than southern? it seems like we should just pick north or south and stick to one (or else extend our trip :)!!!) so many options and so much to see!

Karen wrote: While the big 3 are Venice, Florence, and Rome, I think to spend a whole trip in Big cities misses the slower paced flavor of Italy and the gorgeous natural scenery.

Off the top of my head, I can think of at least 5 distinct (unofficial) regions that are very distinct and have their own "feel". It goes well beyond north and south.

I completely agree with Karen. Instead of thinking north/south, you can also think city/country. It's easy to suggest the big three to someone going to Italy the first time, but if you just see Venice/Florence/Rome, you miss an entire, charming side of Italy which is arguably more of the essence of Italy's charm.

I've never been south of Rome, therefore I'm not qualified to compare it. However, I think you should do either Rome and south or Rome and north. While deciding though, consider that there are numerous harvest festivals in Tuscany in October. My wife and I hope to visit Tuscany in the Fall to take advantage of the festivals.

I suggest you consider dividing your time between city/country. How much time you give to each depends on your interests. Do you like ambling through the countryside more than the big city, or do you find cities exciting and rural areas less interesting? Personally, while we enjoyed visiting the larger cities, my wife and I had our most memorable experiences in the small towns and countryside of Tuscany.

ahhhh!!! have to express my thanks again for all your wisdom!! while my head is still spinning, i am definitely narrowing down where we need to concentrate our time. i love the ideas of combining big cities with small towns and agree that you defnitely get a different feel/perspective when visiting between the two.

thanks again everyone!!

p.s. no mention of cinque terre????

With only 10 days, Cinque Terre is a bit removed (more travel time) and you'd probably only have 1 day to give it. Of course it depends on what you want to do - it's your vacation. Maybe skip Venice and concentrate on the west - Florence, Cinque Terre, Rome - if you want more outdoor activities and less art and museums. Or, if you really want to get a taste of north and south, do Florence, Rome, Naples/Sorrento. Definitely limit yourself to a max of 3 major cities/destinations.

p.s. no mention of cinque terre????

Proceed with caution. There are some factors to consider. First, there's the weather. CT was hit by a big storm last Fall. Of course, the weather might be beautiful when you go, but there's at least a chance that it will be hit by a big storm. Some trails are closed and won't open in 2019. Finally, I don't know when the cruise line schedule tapers off, but if you are there when one or more of the cruise ship day trippers have been dumped off, you can have a miserable experience. See this article. CT, like Venice and to some extent Rome, are getting swamped by increased tourism and cruise ships are the major contributor to overcrowding.

Since you have so little time, getting there can eat up a lot of time and crowds/weather can be a crapshoot, I'd skip it this trip.

We are just finishing up a trip in Italy for 10 nights and had the same problem of deciding where to go at first! We relied entirely on train transport instead of renting a car which made hitting big cities easier and quicker. This was my husband's first trip to Italy so we wanted to do more of an overview of the most famous locations and come back another time with warmer weather to do the countryside.

We did a 2-3-5 night plan going from Venice to Florence to Rome with a side trip from Florence to Pisa. I think this gives a great chance to do northern and southern Italy if you dont want to chose! We didn't feel like this was a rushed trip and had time to see everything we wanted to in these locations. The only thing I would change is one less night in Rome and one more in Venice. If you want to try to do it all, this itinerary or a similar one could work well! If you'd rather linger or take in a few smaller towns, I'd follow the advice of others above and stay in either northern or southern Italy and plan on returning later to do the other half!