Hi fellow travelers,
In mid-May my girlfriend and I will be traveling from the US to Italy for 11 days and nights. We're flying blind here and are both having some trouble even knowing where to start. She's never been, and I went for about a week over 20 years ago with my AP Latin class (Positano, Capri, Pompeii, Sicily/Taormina/Mt. Etna, Rome) which was obviously a while back and a much different trip (focused on antiquity) than we're hoping to take, so we're approaching this as brand new for us both.
We'd like to hit Florence and Rome to do the touristy stuff (and probably some off-the-beaten-path stuff as well), but outside of that we are open to various places. We're both fit and enjoy walking around and taking in the sites, we love eating, and neither of us is a huge drinker. I like museums and architecture, and she's interested in seeing the "famous" spots; so, things like St. Peters/Vatican, Borghese gallery, other churches, Duomo, Academia, Uffizi, etc are probably the closest we have to "must-see" places on our list. While "sightseeing" is a sort of primary focus, we also want to just be able to explore without a lot of constraints. We've heard and read good things about Siena, Cinque Terre, Lucca, and Montepulciano/other hill towns, so I've factored some of them into my tentative itinerary. We both think that a night or two in an agriturismo (probably one with cooking classes or a food-focus) somewhere in Tuscany would be fun. I'm sure there are lots of other spots that we'd be open to adding as well, but we're getting overwhelmed with all of the material we've read thus far.
The only thing settled thus far is our flights, as we got a great deal on RT flights from JFK to Rome. We are originating in ATL, so we're going to have a long day/overnight travel to start things off. We arrive in Rome very early, and were considering landing and immediately hopping on a train up to Florence to start there. I made a sample itinerary, but I have no idea if it is optimized (from a travel standpoint) or enough/too much time in each place. We think that figuring out locations first and filling in the details later is the best way to go, so I don't have details yet other than cities/towns. Here's what I am thinking:
Day 1: Arrive in Rome early, go to Florence for a low key day recovering from travel and minor exploring
Day 2: Full day in Florence
Day 3: Full day in Florence
Day 4: Leave Florence early/midday and head to Cinque Terre (Monterosso al Mare, perhaps?); explore a little and spend a relaxing evening in CT
Day 5: Spend most of the day hiking/exploring various towns in CT then leave that evening for Lucca
Day 6: Full day in Lucca
Day 7: Leave Lucca early/midday and go to Siena
Day 8: Full day in Siena
Day 9: Leave Siena later in the day and head to Rome
Day 10: Full day in Rome
Day 11: Full day in Rome
Day 12: Morning departure from Rome
My gut is telling me that trying to do CT, Lucca, and Siena is probably a little ambitious. Also since we will probably be at the mercy of public transit (extremely slim chance we'd rent a car), it might be logistically difficult. Bookending Rome and Florence seems logical, but that's not final. We're open to making wholesale changes here, but we want to book things soon since we're going at the end of shoulder season and things are already booking up.
So, what do you all think?
Thanks in advance!!