14 Night Travel update

Too much in 13 nights. You really only have time to stay in 4 places. Your first half day, if it is your arrival day from North America, will be a loss due to jet lag, so you essentially two days for Rome. Not enough. A car is not needed for, and is indeed a hassle, for most of Italy unless you plan to tour rural areas like Tuscany. You do not have time for that with everything else you want to do.

If your flight arrives before noon, go directly to Florence by train and put all of your Rome nights at the end.

3 nights Florence (2 full days there) then train to Venice

3 nights Venice (2.5 days there if you arrive by noon from Florence) then train to Lake Como or the Cinque Terre. Pick one. It will take much of a day to transfer from Venice to either location.

3 nights Lake Como OR the Cinque Terre (2 full days) then train to Rome

4 nights Rome, giving you three full days to sightsee.

We fly in late at night and then have two and a half days already booked in Rome at the beginning to help get rid of jet lag.

Any suggestions on where to stay in the cities you suggest?

Laurel has set up a great itinerary. Yes, you have WAY too many locations for 13 nights and none of the them are "off the beaten paths" at all. They're very popular - even crowded - destinations. I'm also pretty sure your son wouldn't be fishing in Milan, Florence, Rome and Bologna. Maybe he can fish in Venice, Lake Como or the Cinque Terre with paid excursions but, well, that's not what people usually go to those places for.

So you might want to narrow down your agenda based on what is the MOST important thing to get out of this trip? If it's fishing, then I'd cut almost all of the cities. If it's seeing some of the Italy you've probably seen most often in pictures, then you might want to readjust the fishing plan?

As to where to stay, so much depends on what your family needs. Do you have a good guidebook to help you with neighborhoods and transportation? I usually use a booking site like www.booking.com to help me find rooms once I have a feel for where in a city I want to stay.

Have you Googled fishing in Italy? A quick search shows that as a non-Italian citizen you will need to apply for a tax identification number and then purchase a Type D fishing license for freshwater fishing. Maybe you can contact fishing guides in the locations you want to fish and they can advise you.

When is your trip?

Way too much planned for 13 days. Also 2 1/2 days in Rome is about half what you need there at a minimum.

Before you rent a car in Italy, read these boards about fines people are getting in the mail months after they leave Italy, sometimes for hundreds of dollars. Also, one person got a ticket for speeding for going 2KM per hour over the speed limit.

Stick to Rome, Florence and Venice for 13 days and take the train.

Thanks for all the responses. We are traveling in June and we would love to stay outside of hotels if possible to experience more of the culture.

As far as fishing we are looking into it more and plan on some fishing around Como or Cirque Terra

Right now we have 2 1/2 days planned in Rome and then onto Florence for a day or two. Then Venice for two days and Lake Como or Cirque Terra For 3 days and then back to Rome to fly out. We know we are traveling a lot but we are younger and think we can do it without the car. Any great places to stay or B&B ideas?

Thanks

We are traveling in June and we would love to stay outside of hotels
if possible to experience more of the culture.

With the very short amount of time you have in each location in Italy, you won't experience any more "culture" staying in apartments or other types of accommodations than in hotels. For the first-time traveler to Italy, the plus about hotels is having desk support at hand for any questions or problems you might have.

It's not really possible to recommend properties without an idea of how much you want to spend per night and what sort of amenities you desire. The best idea is to explore your options on www.booking.com based on your personal budget and comfort requirements. For June, I would recommend a property with air conditioning: not a given in Italy. You'll also need a "family room" which can accommodate 3 adults. Rooms with 2 queens or 2 doubles are not nearly as common in Italy as they are in the U.S.

Your trip is coming up quickly so I'd put the giddiyup on booking your rooms. Accommodations in the Cinque Terre, especially, started booking up early in the year for high season. If you can't find what you need in any of the CT's 5 villages (you have to search by Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola or Riomaggiore as there no single location called "Cinque Terre" on booking sites. Same for train schedules.) then try Levanto. For the cities, you don't want to book something out on the fringes. The things you'll want to see are largely in the city centers so you'll want to be where that action is.

Again, Laurel's itinerary is a winner.

(Edited)

We know we are traveling a lot but we are younger and think we can do it without the car.

Age isn't really the issue. When you say a day or 2- does that mean 1 night or 2 nights?
2 nights really means you have 1.5 days in that location. Count your trip by nights not days.

Rome, Florence and Venice all deserve more than what you are giving them.
I assume you have already booked flights?
If fishing is important you might consider dropping one of the cities- Florence or Venice- as it is you hardly are there long enough to enjoy.

Hi it is 14 nights overall. The plan is to spend 3 nights in Rome 2 nights in Florence 2 nights in Venice 3 nights Como and 3 nights in Cinque Terre and then Rome 1 night and the whirlwind will be over

Besides cutting out Como or Cinque Terre any other thoughts

You have determined that sport fishing is "in season " and determined what permits you need?

These may help you decide where your son might enjoy fishing.

Requirements.

https://www.fisherguiding.com/blog/fishing-in-italy-everything-you-need-to-know-before-you-go

Places to visit for fishing.

https://www.fisherguiding.com/blog/fishing-in-italy-everything-you-need-to-know-before-you-go

Does everyone still think that we are trying to do too much?

Please let me know Thanks!!!

Does everyone still think that we are trying to do too much?

soularium, there's no black-and-white answer for that as its really up to personal travel style and interests. Would it be too much for me? Definitely. We wouldn't try to cover that many locations over 2 weeks, and we've booked longer stays in places like Florence which offered a great deal of personal interest to us to explore. You may feel differently.

Every move eats time - more time than you think it will - and money that could be otherwise spent sightseeing. It can also take a day to get your bearings in a new city, and you don't want that one full day you've allowed to sightsee be the one the main museums might be closed.

Your Rome stay would also have been a bit more efficient if you'd have booked all 4 nights there at the end of the trip and either flown into Venice or planned to take a train directly to Florence or Venice upon arrival and work your way south.

have you looked at train schedules? Venice to Cinque Terre is at least 5 hours just on the train and at least 1 train change (depends on which CT village you choose). It's about the same from the CT to Rome. to Rome from the CT, you have to take a local train to La Spezia. There are 2 fast trains a day from La Spezia to Rome (travel time 3 hours). One leaves at 7 am, the other at 8 pm. Remember that before you board the train, you have to pack, check out, get to the train station and find your train. Then when you get off the train, you have to take your luggage to your hotel and check in. So the early morning train probably means getting up well before 6 am and only rid of your luggage at 11 am. Taking a later train means at least another hour travel time and getting into Rome hours later. This is the problem when you are planning to visit locations that are farther from the major cities and without the convenient rail connections those cities enjoy.

How many locations you end up with is a personal choice. Most, though far from all, of the folks here prefer a slower pace. As for fishing, it's not something I've ever been interested in doing. However, I do love to read books. And while I am sure I'd enjoy reading a book more on the shore of Lake Como rather than in my living room, the minor enhancement would not justify spending my time in Italy in an activity I can darn well do without long flights and expensive lodgings. Using Google, I found this website to give you an idea of possibilities and prices.

And speaking of lodging, your trip is only 2 months away and it's high season in Italy, so start looking for hotels soon! I don't understand your comment that staying "outside of hotels" would allow you to "experience the culture." Do you mean staying with families? If you rent an apartment, consider that you may have very limited arrival and departure hours and you will not have 24/7 staff to answer questions, give directions, and offer suggestions. Other than that, there's little difference between a hotel and apartment experience.

Chani and I are in agreement about the need to get bookings done very soon, and the realistic expectations of "experiencing the culture" in short apartment stays, if that's what you had in mind. With limited time, you won't (or shouldn't anyway) spend much of that at your accommodation other than to shower and sleep!

Another bonus about hotels is that they'll almost always store your bags if you arrive before afternoon check-in time, and keep them for you if you have sightseeing to do after check-out/before your next train onward. It's an amenity we've used a LOT.

I just returned from 11 nights in Italy with my 12 year old daughter and 69 year old dad. We did 4 nights in Rome, 3 nights in Cinque Terre (Monterosso), 1 night in Florence (I couldn't be there without going up the steps in the Duomo!) and 3 nights in Venice. For us, this wasn't too much--I wish I had had more time in Florence, but I was glad to have that brief stay. If I had a few more days, like you, I would simply do a day trip from two locations--such as Pompeii from Rome and Genoa from Cinque Terre. That would allow me to see a little more but still stay put in my own hotel room.

I LOVED our tour guide in Rome--I posted her information the other day (scroll down). Her name is Lavinia Collodel.

I just returned from 11 nights in Italy with my 12 year old daughter and 69 year old dad. We did 4 nights in Rome, 3 nights in Cinque Terre (Monterosso), 1 night in Florence (I couldn't be there without going up the steps in the Duomo!) and 3 nights in Venice. For us, this wasn't too much--I wish I had had more time in Florence, but I was glad to have that brief stay. If I had a few more days, like you, I would simply do a day trip from two locations--such as Pompeii from Rome and Genoa from Cinque Terre. That would allow me to see a little more but still stay put in my own hotel room.