Day trip from Rome to Pisa to Florence back to Rome and others.

You do realize that you will see most of this journey from a train window. You're looking at 6.5 hours just on the train. In Pisa, I assume that you want to see the leaning tower. 30 minute walk in, 30 minute walk out. 30 minutes to view and enjoy. If you want to see David, you'll be in the Accadameia for an hour. I guarantee that your world will stop for a bit as you view and be amazed.

Please don't buy a railpass. P2P is almost always less expensive. Besides, in Italy, you will pay a supplemental fee of 15-20Euro for each Eurostar train you ride. You will most likely ride two on the journey described above.

A day trip from Rome to Florence is feasable (about 1.5 hours each way by fast train) and there are more than enough sights to fill a day. Adding Pisa would make for a hectic trip. With only 4 days in Rome and a day trip to Florence already in the works, a visit to Ostia Antica instead of Pompeii would be a better choice. Venice is 4.5 hours each way from Rome, so that doesn't work as a day trip. Calabria is probably 8-10 hours by train and not really feasable even as an overnight trip from Rome. I'd suggest limiting your trips to Florence and Ostia Antica and devoting the rest of your time to Rome.

Seriously Under-Estimating Travel Times Within Italy

Brett, do yourself a big favor and take Frank's advice. To do everything you want to do will require three weeks or more to do justice to any of it. See Kent's post on underestimating travel times.

BTW, Larry, I've usually found a railpass to be less expensive than P2P, even in eastern Europe.

Deja vu! We just covered this. Take a peek:

http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/helpline/index.cfm/rurl/topic/28842/florence--pisa-this-might-sound-insane-but-here-we-go.html

Brett....

In 2002, we took a very early morning Eurostar train from Rome to Florence, dropped our bags at our BnB, hopped the train to Pisa,spent a couple of hours there and then back to Florence. That was more than enough to do in one day.

Judy, he is suggesting returning to Rome afterwards- all in the same day.

Brett, skip Pisa and you can at least claim to have seen Florence, however fleeting.

Yes, Bob/Brett, my point being that we went to Florence just long enough to drop our bags, go to Pisa and spend a couple of hours and then back to Florence doing nothing else that day. The inference was that trying to site see in Florence and Pisa and then going all the way back to Rome was too much to do in a single day. Sorry if it didn't come through clearly.

Thanks for all your input.

I am curious as to why Frank would say to go to Ostia Antica over Pompeii. Was it excavated like Pompeii? Do they have the mosaics and other "relics" like Pompeii? I am just curious because this is the first I have even heard of going there.

Brett,

If you want first hand experience, I'm not the guy you want to listen to. However, I had to make the same decision for my trip coming up, and I chose Ostia Antica.

First, let me explain why. If I was going to be in Naples for more than one day, I would DEFINITELY do Pompeii. No question. On my itinerary though, I have a one day limit. So, since I will have an opportunity to see Ostia Antica (last night in Rome before the flight home, I booked a hotel right near the ruins), I decided it will fill in nicely for Pompeii. While in Naples, we are going to do Capri, Positano, and Amalfi Coast instead.

Plus, even if Pompeii is more famous, Ostia Antica seems to have its defenders. It reminds me of the Mayan ruins in Mexico. I went to Chichen Itza, which is the "biggie", but there were a ton of people saying, these ruins are better or these or these, etc. There are people who prefer Herculaneum or Ostia Antica. Keep in mind that if I had it my way, I would visit all of them. :-)

Lastly, I spoke to a woman recently who told me that she was disappointed with Pompeii since so much was gone. So many of the artifacts and what not are at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples. I figure I'm not going to want to do the museum and Pompeii in one day... So again, I thought, if I'm going to be disappointed at one of these ruins, I guess I would rather be disappointed at Ostia Antica, ha ha.

If you have the opportunity to see Pompeii though, I say GO.