12 days itinerary

And hit the big three?

Yes, hit the big three. This might sound crazy, but it's what I'd do.

Upon arrival in Rome, go straight to Venice. Then work your way back to Florence and then to Rome for departure back to the U.S. Doing that will eliminate quite a bit of time lost to backtracking.

Yes, your initial travel day will be long, but Venice is a wonderful place to recover from jet lag and become acclimated to Italy. And it definitely deserves more than just one full day. Three at the least to just start to do justice to one of the great cities of Europe.

Thanks for the reply!

Unfortunately we already bought our flight. Arriving into rome and flying out Venice. I know there's mixed opinions on this. Will look into adding more days to venice. Appreciate it!

At the suggestion of someone on this board, we dropped Amalfi and hit orvieto after landing in Rome, visited in venice and flew home from Florence.

Orvieto was easy on the train from Rome and also easy to Florence (you could then go on to venice). We were in orvieto 3 nights which wasn't really necessary, but did a day trip on bikes to Civita one day. I think 2 nights is likely enough. It was very chill and mostly Italian tourists.

All this being said, Orvieto was the highlight for me. If I ever get back to Italy I will do a full hill town tour.

My 17 year old, loved venice though -- I found it disneyesque, but would perhaps feel differently had we spent more time and gotten off beaten path. My 20 year has been in Florence studying since January and I don't think she's seen all of it yet -- there's a lot. Have fun!

I would hit big three as well, knowing they will be packed and it’ll be hot but it’ll be quite the amazing vacation. There’s no way to see it all. I’ve been to all three 4 times each and still feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface.

Enjoy!