1st trip to Italy, girls trip !

In my humble opinion, 10 days isn't enough time for any more than two destinations unless you literally want to "breeze through" without getting to know the place. I have spent a total of eight days each in Florence and Venice and feel I need to go back to both. My three days in Rome was just enough to scratch the surface and get to know the lay of the land.

My suggestion is to pick two (Rome and Florence or Florence and Venice) and do day trips from those two bases to break up the city sightseeing.

From Venice you can easily reach Verona, Vicenza, Padua by train while the Dolomite mountains are well served by tours.

From Florence, many hill towns of Tuscany and Umbria are easily reached by train in two hours or less. Or, you can pick from hundreds of escorted day tours. One of my favorites is a day wine-tasting tour of Chianti.

If you do decide to cut down your itinerary, it would also give you the opportunity to stay in apartments instead of hotels. Apartments can be a lot more cost effective for a group AND provide you more space to get comfortable and relax when not sightseeing.

My advice is to limit 10 days to 3 places. I would either do Venice, Florence and Rome...or Venice, Rome and Sorrento.

We arrived Venice and stayed 2 nights, traveled by fast train to Rome for 4 nights, then AC for 4 nights.

It's easy to underestimate the time you lose traveling between cities.

It's not real warm yet, so I might suggest saving the AC for another visit.

Less is more. Going south of Rome will eat up too much travel time. Fly into Venice, stay 3 nights, then 2-3 nights in Florence and the rest in Rome. There is so much to see and do in these 3 places. Save the rest for your next trip.

End of April 2016 is pretty soon, so I imagine you're ready (or should be ready) to book right now.

Available reasonably-priced flights will probably dictate your itinerary. I would do this, if the flights are there:

Overnight flight into Milan, Malpensa Express to Milano Centrale train station. 90 minute train to Florence SMN station. You have 10 days, 9 nights.

Nights 1-3: Florence (maybe daytrip to Venice if you absolutely have to see it--2 hrs each way, frequent trains)
Train Florence SMN to Roma Termini station.

Nights 4-6: Rome (stay near Campo de' Fiori or Trastevere neighborhoods)
Train Roma Termini to Sorrento

Nights 7-9: Sorrento (although good places in Sorrento may already be booked, even though you're right on the cusp of high season. 2nd choice would be Ravello, which has spectacular views but not as accessible to the rest of the Amalfi Coast as Sorrento. 3rd choice--and we did this--would be to take a 90 minute train Roma Termini to Salerno Centrale, and base from there. Very easy to take daytrips via train or bus to Pompei, Paestum, Naples, Amalfi/Positano, and return at night to charming Salerno, where they have great shops and wonderful food.)

Private transport to Naples Capodochino airport for flight back to the States--there will be a connection somewhere in Europe--ours was in Munich. FYI, I skewed this itinerary more south than north because the weather will be warmer, mostly in the 60's-70's from Rome south. And it should be a practically perfect time to visit the Amalfi Coast.

Enjoy your planning!

10 days = 9 nights. Hopefully you are flying into one place (Venice) and out of another (Rome). You could see 3 places, but consider your traveling time, also. Don't spend your vacation on a train. I know, it is your first time, so you want to see as much as possible! Remember, you can always return :)

My suggestion is to only do two cities -- three at the absolute most! You want memories of places and people as opposed to memories of train stations and airports. It almost always takes more time to go from one place to the next place than you plan and you are not going there just to "ride around". Perhaps fly into Venice and then go to Rome and get a return flight from there. Do not go south of Rome -- not enough time.

Same opinion here. Limit yourself to 2 or 3 places, preferably Venice, Florence and Rome, esp. given that it will be April. Have some day trips in your back pocket in case you just don't hit it off with one of those cities. Get the Rick Steves Italy book for TONS of helpful info.

No more than 3 cities at an absolute stretch. I know everyone else loves Florence, but it wasn't my favourite, so my advice would be different. If it was my trip it would be Venice 3 nights, Siena/Tuscany 3 nights, Rome 3 nights. Like I said, im not really a Florence fan, but the 3 nights in Tuscany -(Im a huge San Gimignano fan - but Siena is probably a better base for day trips - a day in Florence, a day in a hill town and a day at wineries) - or vice versa dependant on flight availability. The route venice - Florence-Rome are all high speed trains and easy to do. Have fun.