Help planning trip with elderly mother.

Santa Margherita Ligure might be a good choice. it is near the CT, larger and flatter but lovely. You can take a ferry to Portofino, train to an CT town. We find Riomaggiore and Monterosso easier to get around and easier to avoid stairs, although you can surely see much of Vernazza without doing more than the stairs to and from the station. Manarola too has some lovely stairfree areas where you walk more on sloping walks.

You will need a car for most Tuscan hilltowns....

Try to rent an apartment in Rome through VRBO.com or Cross-Pollinate.com. Much less expensive than most hotels. In Rome, we take taxis when we are far from home late at night or it is raining (or both!). Stay centrally (Piazza Navona, Pantheon, Campo Dei Fiori, Prati) and you will never be far from "home," making taxis very attractive when you do need one.

Have a wonderful trip!

I think it is wonderful you are planning this trip with your mom and I am sure you will have a great time. I have a few questions-how many day for your trip, exactly? How long can your mom walk on level ground without having to stop and sit down? How is your mom with hills versus steps? And has your mom been to the Cinque Terre before? You mentioned that she loves it- does that mean she has been there or she likes what she has read? If she has been there, can't she assess if it is too much climbing?

I did a trip with my Grandmother when she was in her early 80s and she was very fit. She kept up with us well during the day and was able to pull her own luggage. But she definitely tired more quickly and the travel days took a lot more out of her. Without knowing more about your allotted time, I would say to plan to travel at a much slower pace than you are used to. So maybe take that extra 2-3 days and just add them to the places you already have planned. And if you find that you have more free time than you thought, have some back up day trips planned.

The other thing that jumped out at me is the Venice/stair situation. It is a beautiful city but because of all the canals there are a ton of small bridges. And it is difficult to avoid them while sightseeing. And getting from the train station or airport to a hotel can be tricky and end with you hauling luggage up and down a lot of stairs without good planning. I am certainly not saying to avoid Venice but you may end up seeing the city a little slower because of the stairs. And investing in the transportation option that gets you closes to your hotel might be a good idea. There are a lot of people on here that know Venice much better than I do and can make more specific recommendations about what to do.

I do not think you will need to rent a car for your trip. I think trains and public transportation will get you where you need to go. Rick makes recommendations of hotels at different budget levels in his books. I also like using the Trip Advisor website to research hotels. You can organize by price and I trust the general consensus of the recommendations.

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Congratulations on doing this for your mother. You've gotten good advice so far.

I agree that with your parameters, I'd just keep the "big three" destinations of Venice, Florence, and Rome, and add days to them. EVERYTHING with a group of travelers will take longer than if you were traveling alone, and that's even more true if there is mobility impairment. You'll appreciate the down time of staying in one place and not changing locations as often. If you want to rest one day and not do any formal "sightseeing," you'll have the slack in the schedule to do that. You won't run out of things to do in any of these places, and if you want a change of venue, you can always take daytrips. Daytrips are much less tiring, as you're not toting luggage. Most of these are on buses or regional trains that don't require advance reservations, so you can go back to your "home base" city whenever you're ready.

While I share your distaste for taxis, with three people and two of them having some level of physical limitation, a taxi can often be a wise investment. That's particularly true if you're headed somewhere like a museum that's tiring. Take a taxi there, so you have all your energy for the sight itself. Plus, for three it often doesn't cost more. One example is getting between central Rome and the airport. The train is €14 per person (and that only gets you to the station; you still have to pay more to get elsewhere by bus or taxi). A taxi from the airport to anywhere in Central Rome is €48 flat fare, for all of you (slight extra charge for luggage in the trunk).

Remember that the "first floor" in Italy is our second floor. If you want the ground floor in a hotel, you have to specify it as such. And even if there is an elevator in a hotel, it may not go to all the floors, or there may be stairs to reach it. So be VERY specific with your needs when reserving, and check room descriptions and reviews carefully.

Be sure to look for hotels or lodging that has an elevator, or rooms on the GROUND floor, not the 1st floor. They number the floors differently in Europe. After a long day of sight seeing the last thing you want is to climb 4 flights of stairs like I did in Florence to get to the "3rd" floor. I'm young enough that I could call that character building and can laugh about it now...

Thank you for all the great suggestions and comments! I try to answer a few of the questions....

I don't have a specific end date for the trip yet, but we many leave as early as the 5th. We're flying using airline miles and so far this date looks like the best although we could stay as late as the 7th.

Mother has been to CT and to many other cities and towns in Italy. She loves them all and isn't really any help narrowing down the choices! Also, she has a hard time realizing that she cannot do now what she did 20 years ago. Nor can I, but we are both stubbornly determined to push our limits! I think sloping ground would be okay if not too steep. Otherwise, it would be the same. As for how long she can walk, it depends. Many days 1/2 mile to a mile would be no problem. Like me, standing around is more difficult that walking.

I like the alternate CT location suggestions and also realize that staying in the three main cities and take a couple of day trips might be best, too. I'll research those options more before posting questions....

Again, thanks to all of you who posted answers and suggestions!! I'm checking out VRBO and Cross-Pollination and will reconsider taxis, too. If anyone has anything to add, please do!

What a wonderful trip to be planning with your mother! Venice is lovely, but I suggest you choose your lodging very carefully there. It would be good to stay very near a vaporetto stop, with no or few bridges to cross with your luggage. The bridges are, mostly, stepped rather than ramped, so they can be somewhat challenging with luggage. Although water taxis are another option for reaching your hotel, they are essentially speedboats, and it can be difficult to climb into and out of if one is not somewhat agile, with reasonable leg strength. Also, unless the hotel has a dock, there will still be the issue of bridges after you get off the water taxi. You could use Google maps to check for bridges on the way to your hotel.

I would also suggest booking your lodgings early, since elevators can be somewhat difficult to come by in Venice.

Finally, anywhere in Italy, if you need to avoid stairs in hotels, be very specific. Sometimes hotels will have an elevator, but you'll need to climb stairs to get to the lobby or to get from the top of the elevator to your room.

My dad travels with a 'golf' cane - he got it in a golf shop - it is a tripod with a flip down perch - they use them on golf courses as a perch. It's great!! We just bought a second one for my aunt. Lightweight, it provides a place to sit while waiting on line etc. Dad has even used it in museums. Like your mom, he is a highly energertic 80 yr old . I have seen them on line as well.
I second the suggestion re apartment - we enjoy the extra space, ability to spread out and relax between excursions. It also helps with the cost - In Paris we brought in some wonderful food from a market and had 2 dinners in and the rest out.

Kudos to you for planning this trip with your mom! Rome is the place where taxis can be a really good idea. They aren't that expensive and you can conserve your mom's energy for seeing more things. You do need to access them from a taxi stand though. Don't think they can be hailed from the street.

What a great idea! Taxi stands are often shown on the tourist maps distributed by TIs or hotels. If your mother hasn't been to Ravenna, that could take your extra nights. It's flat with a compact city center and beautiful churches with mosaics.

I recently traveled to Venice with an elderly friend, the vaporetto pass and a hotel near a vaporetto stop will be very helpful. Our hotel was 50 meters from the Ca' Marcuolo stop, a couple of stops from the train station. The hotel has an elevator. Let me know if you want the name of it.

There is now a very easy way to "call" a taxi in Rome via SMS. If you have a phone you can use to send text messages, you simply send a message that reads "Rome ADDRESS #" and they send you a confirmation message and a taxi shows up in a few minutes. So for example you might text "Rome viale Parioli 29" and send it to 366-673-0000. You can do this from any street or piazza as long as you have the spelling correct and the Civic number. Program the number into your phone so you have it handy. Avoids problems with trying to say an address so the Italian dispatcher understands you. :-)

What great information! Many thanks to you all! I spoke to my mom earlier today and shared all your suggestions. She's even more excited than ever. I am programming the taxi number in my phone now and making notes about all the other suggestions as well as researching destination options given. Your help will definitely make a difference and we do appreciate the time and effort taken taken by everyone who has posted responses.

When booking a hotel of apartment, try to get very clear details about the stair situation. Many places with elevators still have a flight of stairs before you reach the elevator, and you'll probably come and go a couple of times per day. I also recommend taxis in the bigger cities, versus public transport that often involves, stairs, crowds, and standing and waiting. While people were quite willing to offer a seat to my dad on city buses and metro in Italy last year, the whole procedure still took a lot of his energy.