Book ending Bologna - Need tips on how to manage an itinerary.

Hello padrechaney, and welcome to the forum,

There's a lot here to unpack. First and foremost the most common way to track "days" is to track the number of nights you are going to be somewhere. This makes tracking lodging easy because you know where you will be sleeping every night. Two nights means one full days somewhere and three nights is two full days etc.

By that metric you are staying in Verona if you are staying in Verona only one day it is not a bad choice. It is mostly pedestrian in the core and pretty cafe culture city with a Roman arena and theater to check out. It would be an easy, pleasant place to shake off a day of jetlag. But I generally try not to stay anywhere only one night unless it is for logistical travel reasons. So I would probably advocate pushing onto Venice and spending the extra day there instead. You can search the forum and see I have posted extensively about Verona but I consider it more of a second or third trip to Italy destination.

The Biennale is huge but worth seeing and Venice is amazing.

I would add Ferrara to your list of possible day trips from Bologna and Ravenna if mosaics are of interest.

Florence deserves more time than you are giving it if you are interested in the Renaissance since Florence was the epicenter of that movement. I would remove it as a day trip from Bologna and add some days there. Siena is also a great destination and deserves at least a day trip but better at least one night if you can spare it. Pisa and Lucca are also destinations in the area that can be done from Florence. If you haven't done Siena it is top of my list with Pisa and Lucca falling below that.

A day trip to Pompeii from Rome is possible but it will be a long day. Pompeii is a huge site and can easily eat up a whole day of exploring and between the uneven pavement and potential heat it can be exhausting. Worth it, but exhausting. Watch the latest documentary on the new excavations at Pompeii as a family before you go to add context.

Have a great trip!
=Tod

I would generally not start with Rome simply because it is troppo - too much. I think you'll be much better off getting your Italian footing in quieter places and tackling Rome afterwards rather than jumping into the deep end.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/pompeii-day-trip-from-rome-2c38f926-9036-480d-95fd-403dd7694e4a

It could easily be very hot everywhere you go. Read reviews (preferably on booking.com, where they tend to be reliable) for lodgings you are considering; avoid places with complaints about poor air conditioning.

Since you mentioned art and will probably have Venice on your itinerary, consider seeing the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. It requires prebooking but doesn't sell usually sell out far in advance. Padua is a nice university city not overrun with tourists, and it does have some other worthwhile sights beyond the Chapel.

Tickets for the Art Biennale in Venice are good for two days--reasonable since it really takes that long to see the two major venues. There are some additional small display areas (mostly free, I think) scattered around the city. Since you may well be heading over to the Biennale area (in the Castello district) twice, you might want to consider ease of getting there from the various lodgings you are considering.

You'll probably need to make multiple trips by vaporetto, and those tickets are very expensive at 9.50 euros each. (Your kids may all qualify for student/youth fares, but I don't know the details on those.) A multi-day vaporetto pass often proves cheaper than individual tickets. Pricing (for adults) is as follows:

24 hours: 25 euros
48 hours: 35 euros
72 hours: 45 euros
168 hours (7 days): 65 euros

Some great advice here. Thank you.
Right now it looks like we may skip Verona and head straight to Venice for 4 nights.
Day trips from Bologna look great.
I think we'll do 2 nights in Florence then 5 nights in Rome.
I agree ending in Rome is ideal.
It's been since 1993 that I visited Italy. I'm sure so much has changed.
I'm deeply appreciative for the advice.
Looking into day trips to Padua and Ravenna

For the Emilia-Romagna part I add some tips.
- there are several beautiful Medieval well preserved fortresses here. Traveling on a budget from Bologna I suggest Vignola and Carpi. Vignola could be interesting because June is even the period of cherry harvest and that town is in the middle of a cherry district. So you can add a visit to a Traditional Balsamic Vinegar producer.
- As suggested above, Ferrara is very nice. Even that fortress deserver to be visited, together some important buildings like Schifanoia. There is even the MEIS, the museum dedicated to the Italian Jewish history.
- As art museums the most important are in Modena (Gallerie Estensi) and Parma (Palazzo della Pilotta). For painting and sculptures are not so big like Uffici in Florence, but inside there are much richer collections of other things collected by the Dukes who ruled the two cities before Italian unification, In Modena for example there is a huge collection of rare books, like in Parma some very interesting things of Napoleon period.
- Could be nice for you visit the Masone Labyrinth, near Parma. Unfortunately a little tricky without a car, but not too expensive by taxi. Is one of the biggest in Europe and in the middle there is a museum who exposes the collection of Franco Maria Ricci, mostly XVIII-XX centuries things.
- Another museum I like is the one about pottery and ceramic in Faenza (faience pottery take the name from that town). The town is very nice itself.
- If you want to skip to a different form of modern art you can visit in Modena the Enzo Ferrari museum, about car. Instead for modern painting there is the MAMBO in Bologna.
- For a step back of 6 centuries from Renaissance you can include even Ravenna and the Bizantines mosaics present in the several churches of the city.