We are 2 couples planning the trip of our lives - 3 weeks in Italy! We are looking at spending 1 week in each "section" as follows:
Milan/Lake Como/Padua/Venice and Florence
Cinque Terre/Siena/Orvieto/Rome
Matera/Positano/Sorrento/Naples
A tad ambitious - yes, but if we never get to Italy again we will have seen as much of it as possible.
We will be renting a car and taking the train into the cities.
Where would the best home base be for these 3 areas?
Cheers!
Thanks for the tips. The trip is still a year away but I figure it's never too early to start planning.
Cheers everyone!
It sounds like a great trip and we'd like to help you do it in the most enjoyable way possible. Re northern 1/3 of your itinerary. Varenna on Lake Como and Venice are far from each other, perhaps a central home base in Verona would allow you to go both east to Venice and west to Milan and Varenna. You can see Milan in a day. Varenna is an easy day trip from Milan but so enjoyable to sleep at. Most travelers choose not to do Venice as a day trip from somewhere else, but if you have to, you have to. Re the Central 1/3 of your itinerary, this is the only 1/3 in which one home base probably won't be enjoyable for you, I'd suggest at least 2 home bases and maybe 3: sleeping in the Cinque Terre because it's so far from your other Central destinations; and then Siena for Florence and Tuscany; and Orvieto if you insist on doing Rome as a day trip although I'd recommend sleeping in Rome (see comments below). Most travelers find the CT is not an enjoyable day trip from Florence, although some do it as a very long day with not much time for enjoying the CT. You will not want to drive to the CT or to Rome or in central Florence; but a car will be handy for seeing Tuscany hilltowns. (continued)
(continued from above post) Re the Southern 1/3 of your trip, Sorrento would be an excellent home base and you could consider turning in the car in Orvieto before you go to Rome, that's what many experienced travelers would do. While it's possible to drive your car from Rome to Sorrento (where would it be parked overnight while in Rome?) and park it in Sorrento, and then take public transportation to your other Southern destinations, most travelers who have experience traveling in this area would return the car in Orvieto, which avoids having to overnight park the car in Rome, sleep in Rome instead of trying to day trip to Rome, then train to Naples, switch trains to Sorrento, establish Sorrento as the home base, and then do day trips by public transportation from Sorrento to the southern destinations you list. Most people who have tried driving in or near Naples end up realizing they would not make that choice again.
What a wonderful adventure you are planning! I would agree with the previous poster, for most of where you will be a car would be more of a nusiance than a help. But you may want one for some drives in the countryside. In that case,you may want to just rent one for a couple of days, such as when you would go from the north to central areas. Drive from Milan to Tuscany, spend a night in the hill towns, drive to Florence and turn in the car. Every place else is really so convenient by train and has good local transportation. A tip for your southern route: train from Rome to Naples in the morning, see what you want there, then take a train or hydrofoil to Sorrento and use that as your base for the region. It's a delightful town with lots to do and well located. British families have been holidaying there for decades so English is well spoken. We hired a car & driver from Rick's recommended Monetti family for an entire day to drive us all through the Amalfi coast-a highlight of our trip!
well...I'd say stay central for each region and plan on a lot of daytrips :-) I like to alternate and only do "long" ones every other day! (a "long" daytrip to me is anywhere over an hour and a half away - otherwise, you feel like you spend the whole trip in the car or train!) As much as I LOVE stayingIN Venice, I'd say maybe rent somewhere in Padova - easy train access for Venice and Milan...I'd pick Florence for the Central part - same reasons...easy connections to get everywhere...for the South...my neck of the woods :-) Matera is TOO far from Sorrento for a day-trip (to me) it would be about a 3 1/2 hour drive...I'd pick somewhere more central if Matera is high on your "must see" list.
We've been to Italy once and are going again this summer. I've researched tons on this topic and here's what we're doing...
For the Amalfi Coast we're going to base in Sorrento. We found an old monastery just outside of town with a private bath for about $100 euros per night. Rick Steves said Sorrento is a good base for this area too. I've heard too many bad things about crime in Naples and so am avoiding it. I think you would be better to cut off a day or two in the Amalfi area and add it to the Rome time.
Also, it would be cheaper to just take the car back to the rental agency and rent another when you're ready to leave a town, Rentals in Europe are expensive and for Rome and some of the other large areas you'll be in, paying for a car you won't be driving may not make the most sense. In the Sorrento/Amalfi Coast area the driving is notoriously awful and in the travle books I've been using tourists are warned not to drive in this area. I have more tips on sites if you need
