Best Route to Travel to Italy

If you've never been - Venice, Florence, Rome. But, that time of year, expect heat and crowds.

Appreciate your response

Your top three cities might be different from those offering opinions on this forum.

You can start your research here on the RS website:

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

You will also find sample itineraries to help you plan your trip.

Also, while we’re here to help, a little additional info would help us help you:
If Italy is your last stop, will you fly home or train back to Paris?
How many nights are you planning to spend in Italy?
Why take the train? Many flights for example from Paris to Milan would be much faster and, most likely, substantially cheaper than the train.
What are your interests?
What do you want to see?

I will be flying back to Toronto. Any suggestion for places to visit . I am still exploring the places that i'll like to visit. Any suggestion will be appreciated

Hello ednajeremiah, and welcome to the boards!

As others have said Venice, Florence and Rome are considered the classic Italian first visit. If you take the train from Paris you're final destination is probably Milan. From there Venice (4.5 hours), then Florence (2.5 hours) and then onto Rome (1.5 hours) would be the the order from north to south with times for the fast trains.

How much time will you have for you Italian visit? How did you decide on three places to visit? Time usually dictates how many cities to add to your itinerary so you might have enough time to see more places.

I have done that train ride from Paris and it is pleasant but it is also possible to fly between Paris and Venice and save you many hours of travel between those cities unless the train ride itself is part of the adventure. Since Paris to Milan is 9 hours you will probably want to stay in Milan overnight before heading to Venice (or wherever you choose) on yet another train at that point so that will probably count as your first night in Italy.

Read the responses and fill us in with more details and any additional questions you have.

=Tod

How much time you have is crucial to suggesting which, or if 3 cities, would be advisable

If you do choose Venice, Florence, Rome, it would be advisable to examine flying to Venice from Paris, vs. a 10+ hr train journey

Thank you everyone for your response. I am thinking of taking a 4 or 5 days Euro rail pass to travel between Paris and various cities of Italy like (Rome 3 days, Florence 1 day and Venice 2 days). In terms of cost you think its cheaper to take pass

A rail pass is rarely the best way to travel by train in Italy
Nor is it cost effective

Just buy point to point tickets on the official Trenitalia website or use their app

https://www.trenitalia.com/content/tcom/en.html

Station names
Venezia S Lucia
Firenze SM Novella
Roma Termini

One day is really not enough time for Florence

I have to agree with ChristineH on all these points.

With 6 days I would concentrate on 2 cities - probably Venice and then choose either Rome or Florence for the remaining days. Keep in mind that "1 night" in a town gives you only two partial days and 2 nights gives you only 1 full day without the concerns of luggage and checking into and out of places to stay.

From experience I really try to avoid staying someplace only one night unless it is purely for transportation reasons. If you really must see Florence I think you would get as much out stopping there between Venice and Rome, stashing your luggage and spending the day there and then continuing onto Rome on the train.

I would also consider flying into Venice or Rome to maximize your time versus spending essentially an entire day on the train that you could at least partially have actually in Venice or Rome.

My $.02, have a great trip,
=Tod

Thanks Christine and Tod appreciate your valuable feedback

If you want to use a Eurail pass for travel from Paris to Italy and within Italy you should know that you have chosen the two countries where the pass is least useful, most expensive and most complicated to use.

In France you have to pay a (variable) fee on top of using your pass to ride the high speed TGV and other slower trains. That's if you can get on the train you want. Passholder tickets are rationed and international tickets are rationed even tighter. If you can't get a passholder ticket (known as a reservation fee) for the train you want you may be able to pay for a full fare ticket (which includes the reservation) which are often available when passholder ones are not.

In Italy you need a passholder reservation fee of around 10€ on every leg of high speed train travel on Trenitalia - the national company - trains, and on your itinerary they will all be high speed trains which will increase your costs a lot. The Eurail pass is not accepted on the other high speed train company, Italo, at all, nor on several other non-Trenitalia train companies.

The sad thing is that by planning ahead you can get regular discounted tickets on both Italo and Trenitalia high speed services for not much more than just the passholder fee, let alone all the money for the pass. Italo is often a little cheaper and in my opinion better than Trenitalia.

As long as you know the drawbacks of the pass you can make your decision wisely.