Advice on Itinerary- Venice to Rome

Good sequence, but I would advise against the one night stays. Too much wasted time. I think with 4 nights in Firenze, you can take a daytrip to Siena rather than spend the night. Add the one night in Siena to your hilltown time. You can rent your car in Firenze. Something like this:

• Venice - 2 nights
• Firenze - 4 nights
• Montalcino - 3 nights
• Assisi, Spello or Spoleto - 3 nights
• Orvieto - 1 night if you must but I would add it to Rome
• Rome - 4 (or 5) nights

Montalcino is a great base for Montepulciano, Pienza, San Quirico -- all done in a day's drive. Don't miss the abbeys of Sant'Antimo and Monte Oliveto Maggiore ( see it on the drive to Montalcino from Firenze).

We loved staying in Spello -- very tiny, fewer tourists, good restaurants. Close to Assisi, easy to get to Spoleto, Montefalco. You could see Orvieto on the way to Rome and add a night to Rome. Orvieto is a great place to drop off your car.

I always try to spend a night or more in Orvieto - it's very different without the day trippers.

Spello is a great choice, it's only a few (7, I think) kilometers from Assisi and there's a footpath between Spello and the Rocca Maggiore in Assisi. You could hike in one direction and take the train back.

Thank you both for the great suggestions.
Lots to think about now!

As itinerary is now we would be ending in Orvieto or Spello/Sploleto on a Sun night- so car drop off Mon am works.
Was also trying to avoid Assisi on Sat/Sun but that might not be possible.

We would prefer to avoid driving in/near any larger cities like Florence- thus the car pick up in Siena and wanted to spend an evening in Siena- but I can see how a day trip from Florence could work.

Next questions-
Siena or Pisa? Had considered day trip to Pisa from Florence. This day will probably be a Monday- but would not want 2 day trips out of Florence.

Montalcino or Montepulciano?- of these 2- which is better for overnight stays- which is more accessible/less touristy?

I'll give you the standard caution I give prospective travelers who have tons of daytrips planned - Don't forget to allow plenty of time to explore the place you're actually staying in. Daytrips too often become a means to satisfying a checklist and take away from much of the joy of Italy which comes in discovering and exploring the place you're staying in.

Happy travels.

Christine, my wife and daughter traveled this route about 2 months ago. They rented a car in Siena to tour Tuscany and Umbria. Turned the car in at Orvieto and then went on to Rome. It was a 2 week trip. I have the entire itinerary, including hotels and agriturismo in Siena in a very complete Excel spreadsheet. It includes the costs. If this can be useful to you, send me a PM that includes your email address and I'll send it to you.

Michael- I know you are right- 1 day trip out of Florence- if any at all!

I am leaning towards something similar to Laurel's advice at this point.

Larry- I would love that spreadsheet- I pm'd you

Larry I also PM'd you, as your spreadsheet would be much appreciated for a spring 2014 trip I am planning.

Thank you!

Rich Gordon

We went to Tuscany/Chianti last year. We started by spending a long weekend in Florence.

Then we picked up a rental car and moved to a agriturismo between Certaldo and San Gimignano for 5 days. With virtually every farm in the area having apartments, there are hundreds and hundreds of places to stay.

We spent our days rambling through the countryside to Siena, San Gimignano, Volterra and other small cities.

We found Siena to be very congested, and parking was difficult. We really should have visited Siena as a day trip by bus from Florence.

You've obviously done a lot of research to come up with 10 cities you'd like to visit. I do a lot of travel planning on cities and restaurants to visit. But my trips are a work in progress, and destinations change daily. San Gimignano and Volterra are not to be missed if you're in the area.

Orvieto is really nice, and great B&B's are very popular with travelers. And Civita di Bagnoregio is close by and really something to see. It only took 70 minutes via regional train to get to Roma Termini.

If you can squeeze another day in Rome, do it.

Thanks to all you have shared ideas above.
Now I have more questions.

We are considering flipping the order of everything and starting in Rome. The flights/fares are the same for us- both ways non-stop with decent arrival (9:30 am) and departure times (11:30 am)

I have been checking hotel rates on booking.com and if we move our trip up by 2 weeks (8/27-9/13 rather than 9/10-9/27) we can save quite a bit on lodging costs.
The hotel I am looking at in Rome is Hotel Cesari- 4 nites at start of our trip is only $518- if we put that at end of trip it is a whopping $931.

So what are the pros and cons of starting in Venice vs. starting in Rome? Either way we still hit Florence on Sun/Mon so we will deal with that and I think we might really enjoy Venice so might want 3 nites there (as opposed to just 2 with one being first day travel night- always a tough one for us)

If you started in Rome how would you allot 16 nights (Rome, Tuscany, Florence, Venice) ending in Venice?

This will be our first trip to Italy but not our first trip to Europe- have toured France, Spain, UK, Ireland.

Personally I would begin in Venice. It's a better place to get over jet lag than Rome. Many people also mention how hard it is to get to the airport in Venice for an early flight back to the States.

If you pick up your rental car at the airport in Florence it will be easy to get onto the highway. A GPS in Italy (along with paper maps) is recommended.

It's a better place to get over jet lag than Rome. Many people also
mention how hard it is to get to the airport in Venice for an early
flight back to the States.

Those were my thoughts as well. So the $400 plus savings would not sway you?

The weather is going to be better overall with your later dates, Christine. And starting in the north means Rome won't be quite to beastly when you arrive here. I'd say the $400 is worth the north-to-south later Sept itinerary. By all means spend at least 3 nights in Venice. We spent 4 on our first trip to Italy and totally enjoyed walking around, riding the vaporettos, getting used to being in Italy. We've been back three more times since then as we find Venice and the outer islands so fascinating.

We did the Venice to Rome route in May and I'm glad we did it that way. I have to admit that Venice was the perfect place to start the trip without all of the craziness of the traffic and congestion --it was a great first impression. Others had told me it was an easier city to work off the jet lag, but we didn't have any (took sleeping pills on our red eye).

As for Tuscany, we debated on staying in the cities vs. outside and we eventually went with an agriturismo outside Pienza as it sounded like the parking in any hill town is a pain (esp. With bags). I'm so glad we did b/c wewereable to get in and out of our place easily and it was near the main roads to get to the other towns. Some of the hill town traffic on weekends was brutal to get in/out of. The down side is that there won't be the convenience of walking to/from restaurants, but we had full kitchen so we made our own dinners.

This is still a work in progress!

I have come to the conclusion that picking up our car in Florence is the better option. It took a fair amount of persuasion to get my husband to even agree to a car rental for our hill town portion of trip and my thought was Siena-Orvieto would be easier…but neither of us has driven a stick in about 25 years and I don’t think Italy is the place to relearn that skill!

AutoEurope lists about 7 locations in Florence- as well as the airport- can anyone tell me which location is the most convenient/least stressful to use?
We will be staying near the Duomo and heading right out of the city toward Chianti/Siena once we get the car.

I’m not seeing much price difference between the city location and the airport (for an automatic).
I can see that the Via Del Sansovino address is the Hertz location and that looks to be easy enough to get to and get out of town from. I suppose we would just take a cab from our hotel.

https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Via+del+Sansovino+53,Florence,IT,50142&hl=en&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=54.005807,80.507812&mra=ls&t=m&z=16

Any advice?