12 Nights - Venice - Florence - Rome

Firstly, I think Venice needs a 3rd night, especially being first up, post wedding, and possibly with jet lag.
Are you planning to get a car? If so, an Agriturismo near Siena for your time in Tuscany would make sense. Depending on your love of art and churches, then you may be happy with just a day visiting Florence. You have Pisa and Lucca to the north, Montepulciano and Pienza to the south, as well as being close to both San Gimignano and the Chianti hills. Four nights (3 full days) is fine for Rome.

Feb 21 - Arrive Venice - 3 nights
Feb 24 - Agriturismo in Tuscany near Siena - 5 nights
Mar 01 - Rome - 4 nights
Mar 05 - Depart Rome

Congrats to you both.

Don't shortchange Venice - there's no other city in the world like it. Yes, it's overcrowded during the day around San Marco. You can just avoid San Marco from about 10:30 until the later afternoon when all the throngs of daytripping tourists head back to their cruise ships and other places of origin. Then Venice is magical.

You can do all that you outlined with only 12 nights, but personally I'd spend most of the time in Venice and Florence. After all the stress associated with most weddings, you might really want to gear down and relax. Venice is a great place to get over jet lag, adjust to a new environment, and chill out. You can do day trips from both Venice and Florence, and not "waste" a lot of time going hither, thither, and yon. It almost always takes more time from Point A to Point B than one would think, and that is just time lost forever. My thought is you want memories of people, food, wine, places, and such -- not just blurry memories of train stations and driving around not sure where you are.

Todd, check out the Rick Steves Tour for Venice-Florence-Rome, (on this page) which shows a good itinerary of highlights. We did this tour, and by the time we got to Rome, we were exhausted and had enough sightseeing. I agree with more time in Venice, especially for a honeymoon. It is too unique to shortchange.

One problem with comparing traveling on your own to guided tours is that you have to make all the arrangements to get to the transportation that will get you to the next stop; the RS bus is waiting for you, and generally there are no errors that require time to sort out. So, great itinerary, but don't think that you can match the pace exactly.

Please be aware, Carnival will run between the 18-28.
Book your lodging as soon as possible, add a night if you don't mind the crowds.

Thanks for the info so far. Hopefully I can get a couple more tips/advice to round out my decision. I think the wine , food , and people / culture are the most important. We will see our share of museums and historical sites. Would you recommend driving from Florence to Siena/Montepulciano and then to Rome instead of train? Also any recommendations on the best bed and breakfast in Venice or Rome? I booked Deko Rome which has 6 rooms but I may keep looking.

Definitely add another night to Venice.

You are planning to be in Italy during low season, when crowds will be minimal, except in Venice, which will beat its most crowded and most expensive, especially from the 25th through the 28th. It's a fabulous time to experience Carnevale but not, not a place to relax and sightsee.

If you want to enjoy wine at lunch, and/or an afternoon aperitif, and/or wine at dinner and/or a liqueur with your coffee, you don't want to plan on staying in the "boonies" and driving around. Also, sunset's around 6 p.m. while you're there, so you won't have much to see in the evenings.

If you want to avoid Venice, you could spend your first couple of nights in lovely Verona, and a couple in nearby Padua with the possibility of day-tripping to Venice. Then Florence and Rome.

Yes, especially with Carnevale going on, spend another night in Venice. Leaving on the 24th means you will miss the weekend mobs and can still experience the costume contests in Piazza San Marco during the week.

I'd suggest travel by train and just rent a car for a few days when you get to Florence to visit the countryside. Get an International Drivers Permit at AAA before you go and bone up on all the driving don'ts like automated speed traps and ZTL's so you won't get any after-honeymoon post cards from the Italian traffic authorities reminding you to pay your tickets.

We spent 3 weeks in Italy and Venice and Florence were our favorites. We did Venice, Florence, Rome, Sorrento and Day trips from Florence with 'WALKABOUT FLORENCE' to some Tuscany towns. May want to check their website out, they have a great CHIANTI WINE & FOOD SAFARI TOUR which was wonderful, as was their BEST OF TUSCANY TOUR.

It may be too late, as we booked our B&Bs 6mo in advance, but in Venice, we loved CAMPIELLO ZEN . . . we found it on TripAdvisor. It was not in the main St.Marks district, but we wanted to be off the beaten path. It was steps away from the Vaporetto, which made getting around Venice very easy. The breakfasts were fantastic and it was close to one of the best meals we had during our 3 weeks in Italy- La Zucca (they even made the RSVP for us as they book weeks out). A B&B in Venice is a great idea because the owners are so helpful with maps, directions, how to use the Vaporetto, where to buy authentic Venetian/Murano Glass beads. We also loved our boat trip to the lace island of Burano while in Venice. The Rick Steves Italy book is so helpful . . . buy it. It also gives great walks thru all the towns you are visiting.

Since you are foodies, check out 'Eating Italy' in Rome - we did 2 walk/food tours with them that were wonderful. Plus a great way to see some areas of Rome you'd miss. Don't miss the Pantheon, Colosseum Forum, Vatican.

Florence has some amazing restaurants, but don't miss the famous Sandwich places are that listed in TripAdvisor . . . they happen to be in the top 10 best ranked - I'm not even a sandwich fan, and the breads and hams and salamis there are like nothing we've ever had. PM me if you need other restaurant ideas, we spent a week in Florence. We are planning to go back in Dec we loved it so much.

So we are getting a lot of emails stating that most of the Agriturismo are closed until March. We have decided to stay an additional night in Venice and have booked 5 nights in Florence however we can still cancel. We want to spend time in the countryside, so does anyone have suggestions if the Agriturismo are closed? We also decided on Deko Roma in Rome for 4 days, 3 nights so we could get more of the Tuscany region. Any feedback on where we should stay or visit in the countryside?