Four weeks in Italy

Joe,
I'll limit myself to addressing part B of your question, try to give you the benefit of our experience from several trips. About 17 or 18 years ago, we rented a cottage near Lake Trasimeno, for two weeks, so I know you can happily spend that amount of time in just one area. We were able to do a multitude of day trips from there to towns in Umbria and Tuscany. If you decide to go with the single base plan, be sure to locate yourself close to the A1 autostrada, as we did (by dumb luck). The thing that's not so easily comprehended by Americans is how long a relatively short distance can take, when driving in rural Italy, up to two hours for fifty miles. Another time, when we were guests of a friend (so no choice on our part), we were located near a town which was near the A1; but it took forty minutes to reach the town from the house our friend had rented. Twenty minutes from the town to the driveway turnoff, but another twenty was required to reach the house after turning off the road. It really added to the driving fatigue. A good resource for helping you get a sense of this is viamichelin.com, which works like mapquest. Just be sure to add up to 25% to their very optimistic estimates, and try to get a sense of the location details for any lodging you consider. Long, unpaved driveway? Hilltop via a very long, curvy road? Choose carefully.
That being said, you might want to do two hubs, in order to cut down on driving. I suggest you get a good guidebook and scope out destinations. Then you can decide on one base or two. In either case, renting an apartment or cottage would be very sensible.

part A)

Rome to Salerno is SOOOOO SIMPLE. It's how I like to arrive in Campania versus flying into Naples and catching buses/trains to get to the Amalfi Coast area. What are your plans for the area? Many people love Sorrento (which would be most accessible from Naples & the commuter train, the Circumvesuviana) but I am WAAAAY more partian to Amalfi and that side of the Peninsula. I lived in Salerno for 2 years, and my favorite place is Amalfi. It is the transportation hub of that side of the peninsula, from there you can take ferries and buses to Capri, Ravello, Positano, Sorrento, and all of the other cities on the Costiera Amalfitana. Arriving in Salerno and taking a ferry to Amalfi, Positano, or Capri is a great way to start. Though I do love Salerno, its more of a small city feel compared to the villages on the coast. I love talking about the area, I'm excited for your trip!

Salerno to Orvieto, I have no clue on.....but the train system is very straight forward, you should be fine.....the roads from Salerno to the northern regions aren't that exciting, just an fyi....

We stayed in Tuscany for five days and used an agriturismo outside of Pienza as our hub. We enjoyed it because we were fairly central to the area and the towns that we wanted to go to and had easy access to the main roads (vs. if you stay in one of the hill towns and have to navigate in and out of that every day). 10-12 days is a lot of time, but you'd be able to spend full days in most of the towns, whereas we had to do two towns for each day. Plus if you want to go to vineyards, those tours can eat up a bit of time. Another option could be to break your time between two areas (or if you want to explore the Tuscan area between Florence/Pisa, which was too far for us from Pienza).

When we connected between Venice and CT, you could either go north through Milan or through Florence/Pisa. The latter was shorter for us and then came back to Florence for a few days (and stopped in Pisa along the way to see the Tower).

Others may think I'm crazy, but there's no place I'd rather be on Easter than Rome! It was beautiful, you need to do a little pre-planning, but I loved Easter Mass and the craziness at St. Peters. We had no problem getting on a train on Easter Monday (yes that IS a holiday), but again, needed to make dinner reservations for that night as well. Your hotel can take care of this.

Thank you everyone for the feedback.

Donna, I don't think you're crazy-- just more daring than I want to be on this first trip to Europe. :-)

Joe:

Orvieto's a great place to pickup or turn in a rental car.

I like to stay in one place (preferably agriturismo or B&B) 4-5 nights, and then move to another place/region.

Many prefer to fly into Venice and out of Rome. Venice's 6:00 a.m. flights are to other gateway European cities where you'll sit until mid day to catch a flight to the U.S. It's tough enough flying home--but worse since getting little sleep the night before leaving.

You can fly directly home mid morning from Rome FCO.

We spent Easter weekend in Rome year before last, and it was great. Easter Sunday was spent hiking down 1500' on a mountain and touring Palestrina, 20 miles south of Rome. We were the only tourists out there.