15-day Trip to Italy

Fast trip ????? -- IMO it is well beyond that. Between transportation and checking in and out of hotels, you have a min of a few hours in each location. With those flight patterns I assume your are from India or somewhere well east of Italy. Anything is doable if you make enough trade-offs. If that appeals to you then I will not make any suggestions for reductions. If it was my trip it would reduced by about half.

Seems really really rushed with way too many transfers. I count somewhere around 10 destinations for 15 days??? To be honest, this is crazy.

Florence, Venice and Rome deserve way more time. A week or more could be spent in each. You're barely in Rome a day.

For our 2 week trip we did: Venice (3), Florence (3), Siena (2), Vernazza (2), Rome (4).

The Tuscan countryside is likely a trip unto itself.

I would pick 3-5 destinations (we did 5 and we found it to be just at the precipice of a perfect experience and pushing it too far - you could easily go down to 3-4 for more relaxation and an equally great time, if not better).

Always operate under the assumption that you will be back.

I know it is a pretty fast trip

NCC 1701 would have trouble keeping up with you.

With less than 60 days to your and from what I gather, you have no reservations yet, I think you need a) lots of help from the really experienced folks on this forum b) a map to see how much running around you are planning and c) prayers from all the rest of us

Way too many places for the number of days you have. Two weeks works OK for the Big Three (Venice, Florence, Rome) with maybe a side-trip thrown in. Or it can work for northern Italy if you want to include some additional places (Lake Como, Dolomites, Cinque Terre) in addition to Venice and/or Florence. It's just not enough time to see so many scattered places in northern Italy plus Rome and Naples. What you're going to see is mostly the inside of a train or a car.

Every time you switch hotels it costs you a minimum of half a day; it will often be longer. And it takes time to adjust to the reality of a new place. You are proposing to change hotels 6 times on a 14-day vacation, so you've cut your actual sightseeing time down to less than 11 days.

You need to decide whether your priority on this trip is to see Venice-Florence-Rome or you'd rather cover less geography but see some of the smaller places. I prefer the second approach myself (Rome/Naples/Capri will still be there the next time you have chance to go to Italy), but it's a matter of preference and many here would disagree.

I just got back from the Amalfi Coast. Capri is by all accounts beautiful, pretty touristy, and the traffic and crowds will be heavy. Even off season, the traffic from Naples down the coast was considerable. Be prepared, you will probably spend a lot of time traveling there and back to Rome. It sounds exhausting, and I'd save Capri for another time. I agree with others that you are trying to cover too much. Also, it will be hot. Factor the heat and traffic into your plans, and focus on maybe 3 places that are a reasonable commute from one another.

It really is a brutal pace for traveling. One thing you didn't mention is crowds, so I will. Crowds will be horrifically bad in CT, on Capri, in Florence, and in Venice. Rome is big enough to absorb the crowds, and your schedule puts you there for only a day and a half.

One of the temptations facing all of us on our trips is to try to do everything we can think of, and your trip certainly does that. You are spending barely 1 night in some major destinations, a formula that is bound to be exhausting and frankly, unsatisfying since you won't really have many quiet places, or for that matter, even quiet time. You have only 15 nights, therefore 14 days to use for travel and sight seeing. With the pace you are taking, and with minimum times in most places, you will be almost constantly in motion. Italy is a big country, and you will spend so much of your time in transit, rather than enjoying the experience.

Respectfully, I suggest that you buy the RS Italy 2018 guidebook, available on this website. Sit down, crack open a decent bottle of Chianti, and spend a few hours deciding what you would like to do and see on a leisurely trip to 4 or at the most, 5 places. Then start mapping out your transportation and the times spent moving from place to place. This is where you will lose the most of your travel days.

RS loves the CT, and you will see that he gives it a lot of ink in his book. I have never been and it's not a big priority for me, but some dream of the experience. I prefer the smaller, current "back doors" that are relatively unknown. If you like a more laid back place, take a look at Lucca, at Orvieto, and at some of the smaller towns accessible by train. Suggest that you need at least 4 nights for Rome, with an equal time in both Florence and Venice. The bottle of wine mentioned above is apropos. Italy is best savored, rather than downed on one rapid slug. Have a great vacation!

It's a vacation, slow down and enJOY. Traveling between cities and checking into hotels TAKES A LOT OF TIME.

I wouldn't rent a car. I'd take the train and do Venice, Florence, Rome. You can take great day trips with WALKABOUT FLORENCE out of Florence to see Pisa, Siena, San G, Tuscany. If you already have plane tickets into Milan - then take the train to Venice spend at least 3 nights. Train to Florence and spent at least 4 nights - that gives you time for a couple day trips with Walkabout Florence into Tuscany, Siena, San G, Pisa (there's not much to see other than the tower) - then train to Rome for a minimum of 4 nights - you can't go to Italy and not see the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Pantheon, Vatican. Get the Rick Steves Italy book. Also, if you've never been to Europe, his EUROPE THROUGH THE BACK DOOR is a must read (buy on Amazon). For Walkabout Florence Tours - we LOVED the BEST OF TUSCANY and the CHIANTI WINE AND FOOD SAFARI - check out their website.

Take a train to Naples if you have extra days or train from Rome back to Milan. I wouldn't cut back on any of the days I mentioned above.

Save Northern Italy, the Lakes, Sorrento and all the amazing places for anther trip. You go to Italy to SEE ITALY - with your itinerary, you won't see or experience much at all.

For the amount of time you have available I'd suggest not more than four locations. One reason is the amount of time lost every time you change locations. Not just the travel time itself, but the time spent packing up, checking out, getting to the train station or airport, finding the new hotel, checking in, unpacking and etc. I don't mean to ruin your plans, but I'm afraid you'll have lots of blurred memories of train stations and air ports and little else. Another reason is that you'll be dog tired at the end of the trip. Heck, I'm tired just thinking about such an itinerary. In addition, there is a lot of back tracking on your itinerary so you might want to look at a good map and do as much in a straight line as possible.

Me and my husband both enjoy more of quiet places and not rushed
cities

Hi there -
If "quiet places" are what you're looking for, I'm afraid most of the locations you've chosen may not be exactly your cuppa tea. Milan, Florence, Rome, Venice and Naples are crowded and busy cities during high season (summer) as will be Pisa, the Cinque Terre and Capri.

Your itinerary also has you spending WAY too much time moving around. Personally? I would drop Naples/Capri, Como + and probably the Dolomites. The Naples/Amalfi area really requires 3-4 nights to do justice to, and the minimum for Rome, IMHO, is 4 nights, 3.5 days as there is a lot to see in that one.

I guess it comes down to the locations you REALLY want to see but I'd eliminate the outliers, such as Naples/Capri, and those you only have a partial day to give them, such as Como. 5 locations (4 would be better) would be the maximum I'd try to squeeze into 15 days.

Maybe you'd like to swap out some of the cities for smaller towns in Tuscany that can be reached with a car? Have you done any reading about driving/parking in Italy?

Skip Naples and Capri and spend more time in Rome and Florence.
It is really hot in Italy in Summer. Make sure all accommodations have air conditioning
From place to place is via the trains. Whenever possible, take a fast train.
Better get moving on reservations at agriturismos. The Booking.com.
I like the countryside outside of Poggibonsi, Certaldo and San Gimignano. We loved visiting San G. Late afternoon after the tour buses left. And we loved Volterra.

Thanks all of you for the response. I really appreciate your feedback and will definitely try to incorporate it.