First trip to Italy (October of 2025)

Hello annettedestefano123, and welcome to the forum!

I would definitely recommend starting your trip in Rome for 4-5 days before venturing out. Pompeii - the ancient ruin - is a long but doable day trip from Rome via train. Or you might choose to stay some place closer like the resorty Sorrento for a break from big city Rome and easy access to Pompeii.

From Rome to get to Assisi you'll want to head for Perugia (about 3:00 by train) which is closest bigger town to Assisi and is the local hub. You can stay in Perugia and visit Assisi or look to stay in Assisi proper which is a few minutes away by bus from Perugia.

Let us know if you're interested in staying in Assisi or not - it's much too long for a day trip so you'll have to stay somewhere or maybe Perugia which is interesting enough on it's own to visit.

Even if you did something like 5 nights Rome (day trip Pompeii) 4 nights Perugia/Assisi 3 nights Rome you would have plenty to see in that time and I might suggest even adding someplace. Rome can soak up as many days as you want to spend there but it is a huge, busy city and some time in the country could be a nice break.
Maybe something like 4 nights Rome, 3 nights Sorrento (Pompeii day trip), 4 nights Perugia/Assisi and 1 night Rome before flying out.

For train tickets and information most people to use the official site of Trenitalia which is the state train company of Italy: https://www.trenitalia.com/en.html
They also have an app for use in country that also let's you track trains in realtime and validate tickets etc. Use the Italian city names for best results when searching on train sites: Roma for Rome etc and get used to 24 hour times for train use.

Local train tickets - called regionale - do not come with seat reservations, never sell out and always the same price so buy them when you need them. Tickets in the app need to be purchased a minimum of 5 minutes before the departure time and validated in the app a maximum of 1 minute before the departure time. Paper tickets are available from train machines and these should be validated in the stamping machines as you approach the tracks.

As always great train information from the Man in Seat 61: https://www.seat61.com/Italy.htm

Hope that helps, fill us in on your interests and what else you might be interested in seeing and I'm sure people will have a ton if suggestions.

=Tod

Great catch on the major October events in tiny Assisi @miuccia. Since they didn't mention it I'm guessing it was a coincidence.

=Tod