2 weeks in Italy

Hello Carolyn. In order for us to give you good advice you will need to be a bit more specific.

1. Where are you flying into and out of?
2. Do you want to stay in Venice, then Florence, then Rome, then Naples or do you want to establish a couple of bases from which you will travel? (Remember, Venice and Florence are not close to one another.)
3. What are you interested in seeing or doing?
In other words, you need to do a bit of research then establish a preliminary itinerary and post it. We can then give you lots of advice.
Planning the trip can be part of the fun of travel.
I look forward to seeing your next post.
Charyl

Hi Carolyn. We need a lot more information to be able to give you suggestions.
Have you read guidebooks?
What interests? Must sees?
Have you thought about a tour? https://www.ricksteves.com/tours/italy
What’s your travel experience? I see you posted in 2010 for information about a trip to Italy; did you go?
We? How many? Ages? Any mobility issues?

Here’s a starting point for your planning.
https://store.ricksteves.com/shop/p/italy-guidebook
Also use the search feature on this website. Trip reports are helpful, as are the scrapbooks that tour members have posted.

The more information you provide the better suggestions we can give you.
Buon Viaggio.

More details from you would definitely help in providing you with suggestions. My initial question is, do you plan to rent a car for the entire trip instead of utilizing Italy's train system? Have you considered the ZTL zones in those cities and the cost of parking?

Sounds like you need to fly in and out of Venice and Rome. If you fly home from Venice, make sure it’s a late morning flight so you don’t have to pay for an expensive water taxi during the middle of the night to get from the lagoon to the airport.
Are you planning on sleeping in two locations only? It would be best to sleep in Venice, Florence, Naples and Rome.

Seconding MaryPat that four accommodations are much better than two: Each of the trips Venice-Florence-Rome-Naples is about 4-5 hours of pure driving, not accounting for a quick break, traffic jam or other turbulences - even if you stayed right in the middle, it is going to be a hassle.
A car gives you flexibility w.r.t. the exact place of an accommodation, which can be handy, and lets you explore the hinterland. That being said, if it were just these cities, a high speed train might be faster - just throwing that in there.

These days, a good place to start would be to enter the text you posted here in one of the LLMs - Chat GPT, Claude, Copilot, or Gemini, and see what they come up with. You can keep adding or removing details until you are happy. Afterwards, verify each suggestion by entering the information into Google search and especially asking here. That way, you have a baseline to start with.

No car is needed for this trip. Taking the train will eliminate ZTL zone issues that are costly, parking problems and the hassle that comes along with driving: https://www.trenitalia.com/en.html. Trenitalia will get you to all the places you are going to except Pompeii.
The Circumvesuviana train will take you from the Naples central train station (basement is where you catch the Circumvesuviana) to Pompeii: https://www.sorrentoinsider.com/en/naples-to-sorrento-train-schedule.

So, basically, you’re looking for us to build your itinerary for you without giving us much information such as time of year, amount of people, likes/dislikes, need for hotel or Airbnb, etc etc. not much to go on. Having a car doesn’t always make trips or trip planning easier because with a car, essentially if one is visiting those particular cities, you’ve got to factor in where the ZTL is, parking in general, getting to and from those cities, etc. as opposed to using public transport, and with those cities in play, I’m assuming you’ll stay IN those cities rather than outside of them, making travel with a vehicle that much easier, but also makes things more difficult. Personally, for those cities you’ve chosen, as a seasoned Italy traveler, and one who has lived in Italy in the past, I’d use the train exclusively for this trip. Venice, car cannot be taken. Florence, even my 78 year old Italian father-in-law thought I was nuts to want to take the car to Florence back in 2012, and of course he was right, even if we didn’t even enter the city proper but we’re visiting friends in the hills outside of Florence. Trains and buses are your friends. Rome? Forget taking a car and the same goes for Naples & Pompeii. Good luck in your planning, and I hope you’re doing some planning for this trip, but come back when you’re able to give us more details.

We have been to all the places you listed more than once.

Don't rent a car, having a car in large cities is punishment, finding parking, paying for parking and more. You don't want to drive in these cities (can't drive in Venice).

I suggest flying into either Venice or Rome and departing out of the other.
2-3 days in Venice
3 days in Florence
5 days in Rome
2-3 days in Pompeii-Sorrento-Capri-Amalfi Coast area.

Echoing others here, Carolyn. As we know nothing about you, it's not possible to tailor an itinerary to your interests. We don't even know who 'we' are (number of people and approx. ages.) When you intend to take this trip is also important.

The more you can tell us about yourselves, your interests and travel style, the better we can help. :O)

In the meantime, here's one more vote for scrapping the car and using the trains. A car will be nothing but a hassle in all of the cities you list, and driving in Italy involves some homework to understand foreign signage and where you are and are not allowed to take the thing.

We will rent a car.

Why?

All the places you list, having a car to deal with is a pain, not a help.