90 Days In Italy

What a fun adventure you have planned! Italy is one of my favorites, so I’ve stayed in a lot of smaller locations besides the main tourist destinations.

I’ve been keeping my trip reports, so I will attach the links of the last three times in Italy to give you some ideas for your day trips or places to stay. We have always just traveled by train in Italy. By the way, I will be in Italy the month of May, including a couple of weeks in Puglia in case it worked to meet up for dinner. You can send me a private message, if you would like.

All of these trips included at least one cooking class. Another we did on a previous trip was in Rome with Chef Andrea Consoli, and I would recommend that one, also. https://cookingclassesinrome.com

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/solo-trip-to-italy-2018

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/trip-report-please-do-not-comment-until-i-change-the-title-filling-in-the-report-thanks

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/mother-adult-daughter-italy-trip-aug-sept-2022

Hi mdv123 and welcome to the forum!

To start, it's really hard to provide advice when all we know about you is that (A) you are not city people (why?) and, (B) are foodies. You can be foodies pretty much anywhere in italy, and you haven't given us a clue as to how you intend to spend your time when not eating. LOL, you can't eat ALL day! :O)

You mentioned maybe not being near a coast in March because it "won't be quite warm enough yet?". Warm enough for what? Beach time? Help us out here? It won't be warm enough for swimming but good for other sorts of sightseeing. A place to "integrate"? As a tourist that probably won't happen either, especially if you don't speak the language. You need to go to a place which offers activities you enjoy without relying on the locals for interaction. They have places to go and chores of their own to do.

....week-long stays in various cities or towns, what are the places
you wished you could have stayed longer in? Places that deserve some
extra time to linger?

Yep, I think most of us can supply that info BUT what appealed to us individually may not appeal to you, if that makes sense? Florence? I lost my mind over the Renaissance art but you might not enjoy that sort of thing. Rome? Over 3 trips I've yet to be bored with that one but also have an interest in ancient Roman history and architecture. Bergamo? A Medieval treasure if that trips your trigger. So what can you give us to work with?

Amalfi Coast: pretty, yes, but May will be high season so much of it won't be "laid back" by any means.

So not to throw a wet blanket on your plan but before recommending accommodations, nailing down the best locations for your personal sightseeing/down-time preferences is top of list. What about Italy itself is of interest to you?

I loved Lucca and area and would think it supplies a lot of what you are looking for in that it provides an easy introduction to Italy. It seemed to be a pretty laid back town with easy access to other areas for day/weekend trips, an active cultural life, and certainly some good food. Puglia and the south imo offers some interesting areas, particularly Alberobello and Matera, and the coast but not sure it is where I would want a long stay. So maybe save that for April? A car is essential in this area. A long day's drive takes you from Matera to the southern Amalfi Coast, Salerno, for instance. From there take a day to visit Paestum, a ruined Greek city with temples, and then work your way up the coast, lots to see and do. Head out to some of the Islands, Capri or Ischia, explore the Phlegrean Fields a volcanic area west of Naples. Dump the car and take the train to Rome from Naples. While Rome is a big city it has many neighbourhoods that are like small towns. I found Testaccio very interesting, not touristy and definitely foodie friendly, if nothing else take the food tour of the area offered by eating Europe or similar. There is a huge arts centre in the old stockyards and some years ago the original street market was replaced by a modern covered market, a place to spend a good part of the day!

If you want mountains, look at Turin and Lombardy rather than Milan. Definitely a place I wish I could’ve gone to during my travelling days……

Hi, I’ve been thinking about what locations might be nice for your longest 1-month stay, and one that doesn’t show up on my latest trip reports is Bologna. Unless you speak Italian, I think you will want a city in the north that has a university and also has lots of opportunities for day trips that don’t take a long time to reach. Bologna fits all of that criteria. I like Siena a lot, and it has a university, but transportation connections aren’t convenient unless you are renting a car. Arezzo is also a university town which I like, but less options. My personal input to reduce expenses would be to have a very central location for that 1-month, so you don’t need a car. Then rent a car where it makes sense for your 1-week stays.

Here’s several day trips from Bologna that are mostly in the 60-90 minute range by train - very convenient! And it has museums, etc. for rainy days, etc.

Parma, Modena, Reggio Emilia, Venice, Ferrara, Ravenna, Padova, Verona, Florence, Mantova, Milan

Maximizing the chance of good weather (which for me means not cold and wet) would drive me to a south-to-north itinerary. I'd identify a bunch of places I wanted to go (understanding the initial list would probably be too long) and put them in a reasonable geographic order (minor backtracking permitted on a trip of this length). I would not feel impelled to put the long stay at the beginning of the trip unless the long stay was in the south.

I also think that with all of Italy before you, a month in one location may be somewhat limiting unless you have a real need to park yourself somewhere for that long. Even in Bologna you'd likely run out of easy day trips long before the month is up, meaning more and more time in transit. For example, someone's going to recommend visiting Ravenna from Bologna. Ravenna is a treasure, and it's not too long a trip from Bologna. But Ravenna has more than a day's worth of sights, so would you really want to day trip in rather than spending two or three nights there (or a bit longer if you choose it as a place just to be)?

It may be useful to know that when you want to visit smaller towns by public transportation, it works best to stay within one region. It will not go well if you try to visit small Umbrian towns from a base in Tuscany, or vice versa.

Edited to add:

Long trips are different beasts. There are lots of things to think about that never come up when you're traveling for two weeks or so. It's a topic that comes up here from time to time, probably most often in the General Europe forum, but pertinent threads could show up elsewhere as well. Here are a couple of earlier threads that may help you yet started on your To Do list:

Dec 2021 thread

Aug 2023 thread

If you are planning the "March–May (within 90 days)" as a way to maximize Schengen allowance, I'd like to advise to be a little less than 90 incase you get ill, have other issues or perhaps flight changes which happen a lot. You won't want to have an unplanned overstay.

We have done eight weeks in Venice on two occasions, present visit is for four weeks. Loving it.

How wonderful! We would love to spend 3 months in Italy, so many options!

• So in addition to some great advice above, suggest you both sit down at the local library and look through lots of guidebooks, in addition to ideas on RS, I like to see pictures and look at neighborhood walks, etc. DK guides are my favorites. I'd take a Frommer's along as well for this type of trip.
• We're not big city types either, yet we both love Tokyo & Rome. I would consider spending 2 weeks in Rome, or at least 2x one week to get a break & come back to it later in the trip?
• Agreed, south to north makes the most sense given the time of year, and get to those biggies Naples, AC, Rome, Florence & Venice before May 1st if possible. March 29th, 2024 is Good Friday & March 31st is Easter Sunday. The following week is a big travel week & school holidays all across Italy. That would be a good time to be somewhere less famous. And I too would plan on the month stay in the middle or later in the trip, Bologna would work well and suit your foodie aspirations.
• Beaches in May - Definitely not AC, maybe Ischia though if you're in the south. Capri will be very busy by then. Will leave that for others, I prefer ancient history & fantastic museums to hanging out at the beach.
• Since you're big foodies, have you considered going to a week-long or longer cooking school? ( Not my thing, but there will likely be others who've loved doing this.) And a week or longer Italian classes? It might make all the difference to your trip if you did this soon after you arrived.

Wonderful trip report on Ischia, maybe of interest? https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/ischia-639e88b0-9145-4320-b40e-4b149192233b

We love Italy and have been there several times.
Plan to spend a week in Rome, four days in Florence, three days in Venice, four days in the Naples/Sorrento/Pompeii/Capri/Amalfi Coast area as well as visits to Milan, Verona, Ravenna, Bologna, Lucca, Pisa and Umbria (Spoleto, Spello, Assisi and Perugia).
Also, Siena is great.
You could start with a stay in Tuscany to start.

Italy has a great rail system and I would encourage you use it as much as possible for travel. Renting a car is fraught with negatives. First, parking in these ancient cities is always difficult. Second, many drivers that rent cars come home and get tickets in the mail as much as a year later for enormous sums due to minor speeding violations or driving in zones that they shouldn't drive.

In Rome, I recommend staying in the area where the Pantheon is located. You can walk pretty much everywhere in Rome. There is a subway that you can use, just beware of pickpockets.

Being near the coast is not necessary.