14 days - Christmas/NYE Honeymoon in Italy

Unless you have already purchased your tickets, you should consider open jaw - into Rome and home from Venice. It would be cheaper and more convenient than current plans. What you have proposed is more than adequate. I don't think you have time to add many of the extra activities you are considering. Remember the 24, 25th will be very dead time.

Thank you Frank for your Reply. We have already booked our tickets - and actually, we booked flying in/out of Venice because we saved nearly $300 per ticket this way. We are covered for the 24th/25th. We have tickets to Midnight Mass (10:30pm) at St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. We have opted to save tours for Cathedrals and religious sites for these days since they will be open and in full mode for the holidays. It is the towns in between that we are struggling to decide on visiting. We are looking for recommendations.

You have 13 days in total on the ground. If 7 are at the timeshare in Venice, that means that you are left with 6 for Florence and Rome (including train travel). In my opinion you don't have time to do much else but Florence and Rome in just 6 days. Considering that checking in and out of different hotels requires extra dead time, I would go straight to Rome. At most I'd stop in Bologna along the way for a few hours, leave the luggage with the baggage deposit (deposito bagagli) at the station, tour the city for the time you have, then proceed to Roma from Bologna at the end of the day. With an extra day or two in Roma, you could take a day trip to Orvieto (1hr) or Tivoli Hadrian Villa (less than 1hr) or even Pompeii (2 hrs). On the way back to VE, you stop in Florence for 2 days, then proceed to VE. One week in VE is a long time (in one full day you can squeeze everything in the city itself). I'd take advantage of the xtra days to take day trips to at least a couple of the following: Murano+Burano (a must, since it's so close) Padua (1/2 hr) Verona (~1+ hr by train) Vicenza's Palladian Villas (~1 hr) Abano Terme (Spa) (~1 hr) Lake Garda (although the season may not be the best for lakes)
Ferrara (1 1/2 hrs) Milano and especially San Marino will take a little longer to get to from Venice. There are no high speed trains from VE to those destinations.

A couple of thoughts. I saw your comment about saving cathedrals/sacred sites for the holy days since they'll be active at those times. I'm not sure what you intend in your visits, or what cathedrals/sacred sites you mean beyond the Christmas Vigil Mass at St Peter's... but if you are intending on making tourist visits during those days, it's likely to be very difficult, since there will be multiple liturgies ongoing. Many churches don't allow tourist visits during liturgies (you'd be surprised at how incredibly rude and distracting some people can be, particularly with flash cameras and talking), and even if allowed, as noted, such visits are distracting to congregants. And depending on your interests and the weather, you might enjoy having multiple days to spend within Venice itself. I spent a week there last year, and just came back from a trip with another 6 days --- and I would have loved to stay longer. Some wonderful museums, beautiful churches, lovely walks if the weather is OK, and I spent several days exploring the less-frequented islands of the lagoon (and had some of my favorite experiences on those islands). On this last trip, I just took some purposeless joy rides on the vaporettos and really enjoyed that sightseeing. Also, Context Venice offers great walking tours. I'd suggest keeping the day trip plans flexible, in case you want to spend the extra days in Venice itself.

Thank you all for your replies. I apologize, I was not quite clear on our itinerary. For the 7 day stay in Venice - I am aware that it really only takes 3 days to cover Venice, and maybe a day or half a day in Murano and Lido. That could potentially leave us 3 days to explore other small cities that are accessible as day excursions while still using Venice as our home-base. I am trying to decide which of these day excursions are worth the trip. Should we spend a day in Lucca, San Marino, Bologna, Prado...I am trying to determine the best bang for our buck if we are interested in great architecture, lots of atmosphere (which I am sure is relevant anywhere in Italy) and food/culture. As far as saving the religious sites for Christmas - I mean that we will be saving one day for the Vatican, St. Peters, etc (since we will need to stay near for the midnight vigil) and on the 25th, I have already read that the Pantheon will be open since it has a church within. We have also read to visit Piazza Navona, other nativity scenes (presepi) which are visable at Rome's churches. For instance, there is a large exhibition of presepi in the Sala del Bramante by Piazza del Popolo (admission charge). Other than this, we are looking forward to strolling through the courtyards, taking in Rome's streets and fountains which are free and open to the public all of the time - even on Christmas Day! I am looking for some good specifics on small day trips that are well-worth the visit in our spare days that are a do-able train ride from Venice.

You might want to consider a "Day Trip Within Venice". Go to the cemetry island (San Michele), on to Murano, then to Burano, and then back. It will consume most of the day, but they are all must see sights in my opinion. They can be accessed by vaporetto and are covered by a multi day pass. If you start at Fond. Nuevo you can save a lot of travel time on the vap. If you are pushed for time skip San Michele.
TC

Verona is a great city to spend a day in, and close by. I think it is a Big Bang for your time.

Kate: some of the options for day trips from Venice (your base) are not feasible because they are too far and therefore inconvenient from Venice. Padova (Padua), Verona, Ferrara, Vicenza (Palladian Villas), Abano Terme+Montegrotto Terme (Spa resorts), Bologna (in order of distance from Venice) are all within 30 to 90 min. via train from Venice Santa Lucia station, on the Grand Canal. They are your best bets. The Republic of San Marino is an 8 hour journey round trip by train+bus. You need to take a train to Rimini (3 hours away, with change in Bologna), then from Rimini you need to take a bus up the mountain to San Marino (probably one hour, since by car would generally take me at least 40-45 min from Rimini). Even by car, you would need at least 3 hours from Venice (without considering the hassle of finding parking on top of the rock if it's a weekend). Lucca is also not feasible. It would be a better choice as a day trip from Florence, only 40 miles away, but from Venice via train you are looking at another 8 hour round trip journey. That's too long to do in a day. I don't know why you would want to go to Prado. Is it some other town you meant? Prado is a small industrial suburb next to Pavia. Do you have some business to take care of there? It's mostly business parks, factories and warehouses.

Kate, a good daytrip from Venice would be Ravenna, once a capital of the Roman Empire and filled with early Christian/Romanesque architecture. Exquisite mosaics in several churches (Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, San Vitale, Sant'Apollinare in Classe), the tomb of Galla Placidia and the two Baptistries (one still in use). Classe is about 10 minutes from Ravenna by bus, you can get to Ravenna from Venice with one change of trains. Also in Venice, if you can get to Torcello, I recommend it for its church and its history (it was the first of the lagoon islands to be built up by the settlers). It's on the vaporetto line that goes to Burano, also worth a stop.

These are ALL great replies and information - thank you! It sounds like if we decide to see Lucca or Siena, maybe we should do this on our way down south from Venice on the first leg of the trip - when we head down to Rome just before Christmas - maybe spend a day and night at each or half a day at one and night in the other - then go onto Rome, Florence and end in Venice for the week. I will look into all of the recommendations for the day trips - most likely (San Michele), Murano, Burano for a day, Verona, decide between Vicenza or Ravenna and Bologna. Thank you all for your advice - very helpful!

Kate, If you are driving I would look at San Gimignano and Siena. They are both in Tuscanny and about and hour apart from each other. They have some neat littlee hops too. You can also take a tour from Florence and see those towns and Pisa. We scheduled a tour with Viator and it was a nice tour. There isn't alot of time in Pisa but we had enough time to climb to the top of the tower. It costs extra but was worth it. If you decide to do something like Viator, check on the web for coupons as it will save you some money. We didn't get to Lucca but we were told that you can walk on top of the walls surrounding the city. We walked around Rome for days and almost everything is very walkable. We actually lost weight. The tourist map that we got at our hotel was very good and when you get lost, most people are very helpful. While you are in Rome, plan on walking to the castel sant'angelo. It is a couple of blocks from the Vatican. It is lit up beautifully at night and I think you would enjoy the walk along the river.

Sorry I meant to type "shops" not hops.