My fiancé (28M) and I (27F) will be going to Italy for 16 days for our honeymoon next April/May timeframe. We already have our flights booked and will be flying into Florence and out of Naples.
We’re primarily interested in drinking wine, eating good food, and overall having a laidback/romantic honeymoon. With that being said, we don’t want to feel completely secluded or bored. We like to go to restaurants/ bars also.
We plan to spend the first part of our trip in Tuscany and the remainder of our trip on the coast. Not interested in visiting Rome, Venice, or any of the other major cities on this trip. It should be mentioned that I have been to Italy a couple of times (a while back) and he has never been. But we are both aligned on the experience we want to have on this trip.
I am starting to look at accommodations, and I am struggling a bit because I want to have all the experiences without jumping around to too many hotels. For the Amalfi coast, I was thinking about Positano for the home base because it seems like it has a lot going on there. However, it’s expensive for a nice place and I’ve seen so many complaints about the buses that go from Positano to the surrounding cities.
I’ve considered making Amalfi or Praiano our home base for the coast, but I’ve read that’s it’s a little more slow paced with not as much to do in terms of restaurants and nightlife.
When in Tuscany, we plan to hit a couple of the small towns and do a wine/food tour or two. While on the coast, we plan to hit the path of gods and definitely Ravello. Not sure if it’s worth the trip to the other nearby cities (Amalfi)as I’ve heard they’re all relatively similar and there’s not as much to do. (?)
With that being said, I have a few ideas about how I want to organize the itinerary. As mentioned above in Florence/Positano we’d be branching out. The itinerary below accounts for where we’d be staying every night.
- Florence (6 nights), Capri (2 nights), Positano (7 nights), and Naples (1 night).
Pros: minimize the number of hotels we jump around to
Cons: I almost feel like we’re missing out by not staying at a villa in the tuscan countryside. Also, Positano is expensive as mentioned above
- Tuscan countryside (3 nights), Florence (3 nights), Capri (2 nights), Ravello (3 nights), Positano (4 nights), and Naples (1 night).
Pros: But would get to stay in a Tuscan villa, which seems awesome. Can avoid riding as many buses/trains from city to city since we’d be closer to some of those cities we’d hub out to. Also, from what I’ve found so far I believe we’d save money by not staying in Florence/Positano for as many days.
Cons: More hotel jumping, not sure if that will become annoying. Also, we’d be traveling 9ish hours by plane to arrive in Florence at 10:30am. Feel like we might not be in the mood to rent a car to get out to the countryside that quick.
I could also do a combination of the above. I would love any feedback, recommendations for specific hotels, or to hear any of your personal experiences. Thank you!