60th bday trip with my 17y.o. daughter - itinerary suggestions

Hi and welcome to the forum -
First things first? We need to know more about you before offering suggestions.

How long do have to this trip (counted in nights on the ground in Italy)
What sorts of things are you interested in doing/seeing? ("Everything" isn't an answer.)
What sort of budget are you working with?
Where are you flying from?

Anything else you can tell us about yourselves would be helpful. See, I can send you to the stuff that I like but then it's MY trip and not yours. I'm an art/museum/architecture/history geek. For all I know, you two are more interested in spa days, shopping and laying on the beach. Make sense? But the very first tip we could all agree upon? Get yourselves a good guidebook or two and spend some time with them They are great resources for choosing what's going to trip your particular triggers. :O)

Alternately, if not up to planning this whole thing out of your own, you might consider a tour? Just so happens there are a few of those available from the RS dude and staff this year, unless they're already filled:

https://www.ricksteves.com/tours/italy

Oh thank you, of course more info would be helpful!
Traveling from Colorado, US. 2-3 weeks (my only trip to Europe was backpacking as a young adult. I never made it Italy) Budget $6-10,000...I really don't know what is reasonable. We'd likely join some tours here and there but want days to explore on our own. Given my daughters age no wine tours, etc. We want beauty, art, meandering, the sea and FOOD and fun! Rome, Florence, Naples, coastal?...and I'd love to take the train to Paris for a few days at the end. My daughter has been traveling internationally since she was 6. My beloved mother died of covid last fall. With her death and my teenage daughter in high school with pandemic interruptions and stress - we want to celebrate life!

For planning purposes, ditch the train to Paris. It's insufferably long and boring. Flying is about 1 and 1/2 hours and much cheaper.

What time of the year? A June trip will call for different suggestions than a December trip.
I’ll give you my 2 cents for you to start thinking. I’ll assume a June trip in case you need to go when your daughter is off school.
Since you are near Denver and plan to visit Paris, I suggest you try to fly Air France (Delta airlines partner). Air France flies non stop Denver-Paris Charles De Gaulle in summer. So basically you would fly from Denver to Italy via Paris, and on the way back you could extend your layover in Paris to make a visit in the City of lights. You need at least 4 nights in Paris to make it worthwhile.
I will give you a list of destinations for a first timer in Italy with my suggested number of nights for each. Then you select which ones interest you.
Venice: 3 nights
Florence: 3 nights (Florence alone)
Tuscany small towns and countryside: 3-4 nights (this is best done by choosing a small town base and using a rental car to day trip. Without a rental car you could extend your stay in Florence and visit from Florence via train or bus, knowing however than small towns options are limited with public transportation).
Rome: 4 nights
Sorrento/Amalfi Coast (Gulf of Naples area): 4-5 nights.
You could also consider the Dolomites mountains (best done by rental car) for 3-4 nights or Lake Como (3 nights) which is only 1 hour by train from Milan.
All the above locations are best reached by high speed train, with the possible exception of the Tuscan portion and the Dolomites portion mentioned above.
Assuming you fly via Paris you could use any airport in Italy depending which destinations you choose. Italy largest international airports are, in this order, Rome, Milan, and Venice. It is best to visit the city of departure for last. So if you decide to return from Rome, leave your nights in Rome for last.
Paris is best done on your return trip coming back rather than on the way there. That way your jet lag is gone and the return flight, which lasts longer, is a straight shot from Paris to Denver.

Tamchexi,
I just wanted to say that I am so sorry for the loss of your mother. I am glad you are having this time with your daughter. It is such a positive to take this action and celebrate life.

For planning purposes, ditch the train to Paris. It's insufferably
long and boring.

The train from Milan to Paris through the Alps is far from boring.

Good stuff from Roberto.:O)
And thanks for the additional info, tamchexi.

I'll go along with the classic first-timers combo of the "Holy Trinity" as well: Venice, Florence and Rome. Add in the Naples/Sorrento/Amalfi Coast region and you've got yourself a dandy trip. As Roberto said, all of them are easily reached via public transit, and language (or lack thereof of Italian fluency, anyway) will not be an issue. As well, all of them suit your wish list one way or another, and the 3 cities are all very different so it's not like if you've seen one, you've seen 'em all.

Time: if wanting to add Paris, I think you're looking at three versus two weeks.

So just for kicks, here's a suggested plan:
Venice: 3 nights/2.5 days
Florence: 5 nights/4.5 days
Rome: 4 nights/3.5 days
Sorrento: 4 nights/3.5 days
Fly to Paris from Naples;: 4 nights/3.5 days. Choose an afternoon flight, and take the Curreri bus from Sorrento.
https://www.curreriviaggi.it/en/naples-airport-shuttle

As you said you enjoy art, I'm giving Florence the most nights. You will lose your mind (I'm still trying to find my own!!!) over the art in this city, and there's a lot of it. This is also a great base city for a number of easy day trips via public transit: Siena, Lucca, Fiesole, Pisa...If you decide to put Paris on the back burner for a future trip (that city can easily chew up the better part of a week) I'd add more nights to this one. 4 nights/3.5 days is my personal minimum for scratching the surface of Rome, and I'm choosing Sorrento for a coastal location as it's sort of a transport hub for that area; Pompeii is a short, cheap commuter train ride away, you can ferry to Capri in 20 minutes or so for some fun trekking about, and ferry/bus the Amalfi Coast towns (Positano, Amalfi, Ravello). Sorrento has a wide range of accommodations, restaurants and other visitor amenities. Salerno also has some love on this forum, and accommodations may be less pricey there, although it's a really long ferry ride to/from Capri from that one.

Accommodations: When looking for options, don't let the number of stars influence your choices too much? They have less to do with quality and more about the number of amenities they may offer, such as on-site restaurants, air conditioning (you will want that in June), lifts (elevators), business centers, 24-hour desk services, etc. There are little 2-star hotels that are perfectly clean, quiet and lovely but without a bunch of (unnecessary?) extras, and 4-star properties long on extras but short in other areas.

A fantastic dollar stretcher in Italy: the churches!!! Not all of them are free but you'll find many of them, especially in Rome, open for just for the price of the gander, and a fair amount of them museums of art, history and architecture in-and-of themselves. These are nice because if the one you wandered into isn't doing it for you, you can wander out again with nothing lost but a little shoe leather. :O). We can offer up some of the best once you've sorted your itinerary.

Editing to add: don't let "city" throw you either? Venice is a human habitrail but is not all that large, and the historic centers of Florence and Rome - where you'll be spending your time - are not sprawling either. We didn't need public transit at all in Florence, and used it only a couple of times in Rome.

So just a start? My condolences on your difficult year, and early congrats on your 60th!

Eating Europe has interesting food tours n several European countries. In Rome I would recommend either Trastevere or Testaccio. Also, since it’s going to be new to you and since you’ll want to save some $$ I recommmd you use the free Rick Steves audio Europe app to download walking tours. They’re interesting, free and a helpful way to familiarize yourself with city walks and or museum tours both before and during your trip.