Flights to Rome, or Florence—can this be done more easily

I’m sure you would find a lot more options with fewer legs and shorter travel times if you were to leave from Portland.

And instead of Florence, you can look at flights to Pisa or Milan. Florence has a tiny airport with limited options.

I just tried Pisa and came up with mostly Ryan Air flights and Milan had mostly Wizz flights. I haven’t used them so don’t know how reliable they are.

Major airlines will go Medford to X, X to Frankfort or Munich, FRA or MU to Rome or Florence. Leaving from another place would be easiest, Florence as noted has a very small airport. One can do flights from major east coast cities direct to Rome but not Florence. Good luck.

Use Google Flights
Portland to Rome
Delta and United with one stop in JFK or Newark- both less than $600 RT

Pisa is rather small, only intra Europe flights

RyanAir has been around for a long time. We flew on RyanAir non stop Krakow to Rome CIA. It was fine. We paid extra to choose seats, board early; our other choices included an extra flight and a long layover.
They sent constant emails explaining what to expect when flying with them. No frills but got us to our destination on time. For us in this situation,
RyanAir was the best solution.
We often stay overnight at LHR before traveling on to our destination., always stay at LHR Sofitel.

There are single connection itineraries via SFO for Medford to Rome, at least in June, when I checked.

In Winter I can see 2 stop service from Medford at 0520 on United to Rome via Denver and Newark, or at 0709 on Sky West for United and Lufthansa via San Francisco and Munich, or lunchtime on United and Lufthansa via Denver and Munich, or on United and ITA via San Francisco and Heathrow.
The breakfast time flights being the cheapest.

We take United nonstop from Washington to Rome, Leonardo Express train to Termini station and the Freccia train to Florence. Painless and I bet quicker than flying to a European connecting city and Ryan air to Florence.

Thanks for all the help. I did find flights from
London to Rome, and from Bologna back to London on British Airways, mid day, so I think we will do that. And get separate tickets from the US to London and stay a few days in London on either end of the trip.

First you need to decide if Rome is part of your itinerary and you plan to visit Rome or if you are only interested in Florence. If Rome is in your plans, then you are better off looking for flight options to Rome, Italy’s largest airport. Florence is only 92 minutes from Rome via high speed trains.

If you are interested in Florence only, and couldn’t care less about Rome, then you might want to consider flights to Florence. The best airlines to fly to Florence from the US are Lufthansa (via MUC or FRA), AirFrance (via Paris CDG), KLM (via AMS), Swiss (via ZRH). All of them have at least 3 daily pairs to/from Florence. There is only one daily flight from London Heathrow with BA or from Lisbon with TAP or from Madrid with Iberia, therefore those options may or may not work. Bologna, only 36 min from Florence has similar options, with the added benefit of 3 daily pairs from LHR with BA. Pisa is mainly a low cost airline hub. It has plenty of options with Ryan Air or EasyJet (if you plan to take those from London), but in terms of traditional airlines Pisa does not offer more choices than Florence.

Go to Kayak or Google Flight and search FROM MEDFORD TO ANY OF THE AFOREMENTIONED ITALIAN AIRPORTS then see what pops up.