Feedback on itinerary please!!

London Id add a night.
Amsterdam (4 nights) To long for me.
Venice & Bologna you will love it.
I love the beach, so Id spend time south of Rome (Sorento/Amalfi)

Have Fun!

Why not drive after London?

Nice editing job, thank you!

Starting with Italy, as you requested in your OP:

Each traveler would do this trip differently, it's largely a matter of personal preferences.

It looks like you've carefully researched this.

Here are the things about the Italy part that got my attention:

1) Venice to Verona to Bologna to Florence will be a long day, when you consider travel time, if you mean to start in Venice in the morning and sleep in Florence. You will want to make sure you're in a Florence hotel/B&B that has reception still open at your expected arrival time (smaller places in Italy don't always have 24 hr reception, they will tell you if they need you to be there by a certain time)

2) Florence to Siena to Rome: An alternative to consider is doing Siena by bus from Florence on one of the 5 days you're in Florence. The way you're doing it now, you'll have to stash your baggage somewhere in Siena and then get into Rome late.

Hello,

I have been researching our trip to Italy for 4 months now. So please understand this comment is not from experience (we leave June 27 and spend 2 weeks) but rather from research. The only comment I would offer is that I have been advised to make reservations and buy tickets to major attractions ahead of time to avoid lines. If you have reservation times to make, you may end up having to cut yourself short in some enchanting village where you would rather linger than hurry off to your next reservation. I am feeling rushed as well as I want to see SO much, but all who have been tell me to be sure to plan some lesurely time as well....

Hope you have a gREAT time. We are SO excited.

Jodie

A suggestion was made by someone else for you to drive after London.

For the Italy portion of your trip, IMO there is no reason to even considering driving and every reason to take the trains in Italy, given your destinations.

On your plans to stop at numerous cities for short periods of time. A lot depends on what type of train you are on. If you plan on being on a high-speed ICPlus or Eurostar-class train, you will need a separate ticket for each leg as seat reservations are required on these trains. For example, Venice/Verona and then Verona/Bologna and then Bologna/Florence.

Now for the Regionales. You can hop off an hop back on the Regionale trains going from point A to point B as long as you do it within 6 hours of when you validated the ticket. Thus, you would not be able to buy one ticket from Venice to Florence and hop off/hop on at Verona and Bologna. You would even push it a bit with the 5-1/2hr stop over in Verona as I'm not sure where the 6.0hr limit ends. Can it expire while on your train to the next location or must you complete the entire ticketed journey within the 6.0hrs? I don't know. It certainly won't work for your planned stop over in Siena. You will most likely need multiple tickets for your different leg segments. But, they are not expensive on the Regionale.

I would agree with the poster who suggested making Siena a day trip via Sita bus from Florence. The train station is fairly far from the historic center so you add the extra time of catching a local bus to and from the train station and dealing with your baggage--- also you can take an ES rapido from Florence to Rome. The fast bus from Firenze to Siena takes about 75 minutes and is a pleasant comfortable ride. It will take you directly to Piazza Gramasci in the old part of the city.