Easter 2016/Itinerary Suggestions

I'm no expert on this but I am also planning to arrive in Florence on Easter weekend. The Uffizi will be open Easter Sunday and I am planning to go then since other places are closed. Also, Monday 3/28/16 is Easter Monday so it is a national holiday and places may be closed. We found a half day tour to PISA that is operating on 3/28 so will touring PISA on that day. Check some of the tour sights online to see what is available and open and you can better plan your stay.

I am not clear on how much time you intend to spend in each location. The above looks like maybe you only plan 2 days in Roma. To help make it clearer in planning an itinerary it is better to view it in terms of nights rather than days. By noting how many nights in a location, you will by default know how many FULL days you will have in a location. For example, 3 nights in Firenze = 2 full days, with travel on the day prior and day after.

If you want to see everything on the list above (minus Venezia) you will be moving fast, Easter or not. Assuming your nights on-the-ground are 14, I might propose something like this. No sense backtracking to Roma so either fly into Firenze or go there immediately by train for your first night.

Saturday (Easter weekend) arrive Roma; Assuming you arrive in the morning, take a high-speed train directly to Firenze. Spend 4 nights in Firenze. Some museums (Uffizi, Accademia) are open Easter Sunday. It will be busy so buy tickets online in advance. Some things are also open Easter Monday (Palazzo Vecchio, Boboli Gardens, churches) which is a holiday, too. Take a day trip to Siena Tuesday. Frankly I do not know how you can work in Cività unless you have a car. It is closer to Orvieto but still hard to get to without a car. While Rick Steves adores it, and it is cute, I do not think it is worth sacrificing a day on a first trip.

Wednesday, travel to the Cinque Terre, spend 3 nights. Hiking, cruising, enjoying nature and great Ligurian food. You could cut this to 2 nights, but if the weather is poor you kind of miss the point, and it is IMO a long way to go for only 2 nights. Yes, tour groups do only two nights, but if you like outdoor activities and the seaside, stay 3 nights.

Saturday, travel to Sorrento. Spend 3 nights and see Pompeii one day, Amalfi Coast one day. Stop in Naples on the way if you get a super early start. If you want to go to Paestum it requires another FULL day and a long one at that.

Tuesday, back to Roma for your last 4 nights, giving you 3 full days to see the highlights; a day at the Vatican, a day for Ancient Roma, a day for monuments, the Galleria Borghese, or whatever else strikes your fancy.

I might recommend dropping the Amalfi Coast on this trip as you already have a seaside location in the Cinque Terre. You could reallocate those 3 nights by adding a night to Roma and day trip to Pompeii (long day) and perhaps stop two nights in Orvieto if you gotta see Cività. Get a car for this. though. You could rent in La Spezia after you see the CT, and leave it in Orvieto before you go to Roma.

Actually, for the end of March/beginning of April, I would skip the Cinque Terre (too much chance of cold, iffy weather) and go to the Sorrento/Amalfi coast instead.

I agree with the above that you should arrive as directly as you can into Florence. If you don't already have your air tickets nailed, look into open-jaw tickets from home: into FLR & out from FCO. Even if it costs a little bit more, it will more than be worth it to avoid booking separate train tickets for Easter Saturday. The Florence airport is very close to the city center and a very easy one to arrive to.

If you arrive in Rome, even bought in advance (the fast trains will sell out for that day), plan on spending extra for the most flexible fare conditions (since you cannot chance the cheapest, no change-no-refund fares, when arriving from overseas to connect to a train journey). Even if you can make changes or get a refund on the spot, expect trains to be pretty full that day, including the slower Regionale that don't require advance booking. Give yourself a large cushion of time between when you should arrive at FCO, and when your train would leave from Termini... several hours in which you can leave your luggage at Termini, walk a bit and grab a meal or fret minimally if you are delayed in reaching the train station (over a late plane, fewer guys working on the Easter week-end shifts at the airports, etc..)

Since you will be there over Easter week-end (with the holiday Monday), plan on at least your first 4 nights - as the holiday will slow you down for sure. I like the idea of doing a tour on the holiday Monday, as the one suggested for Pisa. I share the opinion of skipping Civita altogether this trip. (Save it for a May-Sept trip to the CT, Tuscany & Umbria)

Seriously consider visiting Siena as a daytrip from Florence - if so, add one more night to Florence. IMO, there really is no need to lug all your stuff to sleep there...

Basing yourself in Sorrento, you could use 4 nights (3 full days) for visiting Naples, Pompeii, the Amalfi Coast and Capri (forget Paestum). Naples you could visit on the train day arriving from Florence (on a morning train): you would leave your luggage at the 'left luggage' facility of the Naples train station. You really don't have to fear taking the Circumvesuviana commuter train from Naples to Sorrento at the end of the day (just watch your belongings very closely). I have done it more than once and others here have too.

Save 4 nights for Rome at the end, which would give you 3 full days to visit the city's highlights before you fly home.

So, a nice Easter trip could look like this: 5 nights Florence + 4 nights Sorrento + 4 nights Rome => 3 places to stay => 3 bases for exploring outward => 2 minimally "lost" train travel days (that you can book online in advance, shortly after Christmas).

Remember, you don't necessarily have to be a RS guidebook lemming... it's a great planning tool, not a 'Blue Bible'... ;-)

Can you fly into Venice and out from Rome? If that's an option, Venice is a great place to start a visit to Italy. It's the ultimate place to just be - don't dash round to see the sights, just soak up the atmosphere, enjoy the gelato and wander the romantic back canals.

My understanding is that Rome is super-crowded around Easter, so I would leave that for the end of the trip.

Other than that, I agree with Diane's suggestions.

I gathered from your original post, that you are planning to skip Venice on this trip?

If you did include Venice, then I would just change the above plan just a little bit:

Fly into Venice, out of Rome. 2-3 nights Venice + 3-4 nights Florence + 3-4 nights Sorrento + 3-4 nights Rome.

If you don't include Venice, then do try to fly into Florence right off the bat. As I said, it's an easy airport to fly into. Try to avoid flying into Rome on Easter Saturday, if you can avoid it, and go to your first stop.

Whatever you do, get your itinerary fixed, book tentative accommodations, and ONLY THEN book your flights. Look to see if flights work at first, but don't buy until you have nailed the places to stay. Why in that order? Because I've had to make adjustments to original decisions simply because I couldn't find a place to stay in my price range for where/when I wanted it. For example, I moved my arrival in Florence from Jan. 13th to 14th, because my 80 euros a night hotel was charging over 200 euros for the night of the 13th (the end of Fashion Week).

Booking.com will allow you to make easy-to-cancel reservations. They are a good tool for the initial planning stage. Find a place that you would be happy to stay in for every city that you want to book. Look at the map provided on each hotel's page (link at the top), to double-check that each property is conveniently located (either near attractions or close to a transportation hub, like near the train station & the Duomo for Florence). Hold onto a solid reservation in each city, as your first step.

Once you're sure that you have a place to stay, then purchase your air tickets. The beginning of your trip on Easter week-end will be the trickier part to nail. The good thing is that you're just early enough to be able to pull it off. Later, at leisure, you can maybe fine tune where you have chosen to stay. If you find something that you like better later, you can always cancel what you initially booked.

The other thing that you can do is start by flying into Naples on Easter Saturday. There is an easy shuttle bus direct from Naples Airport to Sorrento. Then your itinerary could look like this: 5 nights Sorrento + 4-5 nights Florence + 4 nights Rome. You could plan on spending Easter Sunday simply relaxing next to a garden pool and exploring Sorrento or taking a picnic to Capri (holiday ferry schedule from Sorrento). Visiting Naples could be done on your way through to take an early evening fast train from Naples to Florence (left luggage at Naples train station).

This scenario could also work very well for you: timing-wise, price-wise, and certainly less hassle on arrival and minimal holiday disruption.