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Help with Italy Itinerary--Recommendations?

Posted by (South, United States) on

My husband and I are flying to Italy in a couple of weeks to celebrate our fifth anniversary. We are flying into Pisa and are planning to spend our first few nights in the Cinque Terre region. We are flying back to the U.S. from Venice about 10 days later. Once we leave the Cinque Terre, we are interested in exploring at least one (or a few) of the Tuscan hill towns and Florence or Sienna. We also plan to spend the last 3 or 4 nights in Venice before we return home. Our questions are as follows:

  1. We are thinking about renting a car in Pisa and keeping it until we arrive in Venice (when we would drop it off before going to our hotel the first day)--pros and cons?
  2. We would like a recommendation for our 4th-6th nights or so--should we stay in a hill town (agriturisimo, B&B, etc.) with day trips into Florence and/or Sienna OR should we stay in Florence and maybe visit a hill town or two on the drive from Cinque Terre to Florence?
  3. We are trying to decide whether to spend the last 3 or 4 nights in Venice--the difference would be 2 or 3 full days in Venice (and one less day in Florence/Sienna/Hill Towns). Thoughts?

Any other ideas/tips/recommendations would be greatly appreciated. This is our first time in Italy, or Europe for that matter. While we will visit some museums, etc., we are much more interested in experiencing the culture and taking some time to just relax and take it all in. Thanks in advance for your responses.

Posted by
1003 posts

Hmmmmm... a lot really depends on you guys. Is this your first trip to Italy? Have you been to Florence already? Full disclosure, I am biased, I think Florence is the greatest place on earth and I - gasp - was completely underwhelmed by Cinque Terre. you could easily spend all 10 days in Florence and environs and venice and still not even scratch the surface. Florence is a city, imo, with many levels to explore and a daytrip does not nearly do it justice. even 2-3 days isn't enough to me, and I don't even like art.

That said, only you can really decide what you want to do. My advice would be to have the car for as little as possible and only when you are in the countryside. in Florence, Siena, and any other place well-connected by public transportation, it is a liability. My other piece of advice would be to try not to do too much. you have to resolve to having more opportunities to go back. I skipped things on my first trip to Italy, mostly for the sole reason that I would just HAVE TO GO BACK someday. Already went back once and planning trip 3 already. The fact that you said you are interested in experiencing the culture and taking time to relax makes this even more important. Italy needs to be savored. You can rush around but you will miss a lot of those aspects that are so hard to describe and can't be put on a list of must-see sights.

you could pick up the car in La Spezia or Pisa, drive to a countryside location for a couple of days, and then drop it off in Florence and train it to Venice, or drop it off in venice like was suggested. Or you could just forget the car altogether and just go train from Cinqe Terre to Florence, use the bus to get to Siena and back, and train to Venice. There are many options and probably all of them are doable, but only you can decide if something will work well for you!

Posted by
32353 posts

Laura,

A few initial comments on your travel plans....

You'll be travelling to Europe on the peak of summer holiday season. Have you pre-booked any Hotels or arranged accommodations?

Note that for driving in Italy, you'll require a compulsory International Driver's Permit. Non E.U. drivers can be fined on the spot for failing to produce an I.D.P. This must be used in conjunction with your home D.L. and can be obtained easily and inexpensively at any AAA office.

You may also want to read some of the posts here concerning the dreaded ZTL zones, which are increasingly common in many Italian towns. Driving through one of the automated Cameras will result in a €100+ violation ticket EACH TIME.

As this is your first time in Europe and Italy, I'd highly recommend pre-reading the Guidebook Europe Through The Back Door, as it provides LOTS of useful information for travelling in Europe. You may also want to pack along a copy of the Italy 2010 Guidebook, as it will be a good reference source during the trip.

With only 10-days total for the trip, don't try to fit too many places into your Itinerary. Keep in mind that you'll lose the first day in flight times and time zone changes and the last day will be spent on the flight home.

My suggestion would be to rent the car in La Spezia, use it to explore the hill towns and then drop it at the Florence airport and use train to Venice. Don't use it for the entire trip.

If you'd like to stay out in the beautiful Tuscan countryside for a day or two, you might consider www.hotelorcia.it - it's in a beautiful area and close to Pienza, Montalcino, Montepulciano and other hill towns in the area. The Spa of Bagno Vignoni is just up the hill from the Hotel.

I'll try to have another look at your questions in the morning. It's almost 01:00 so I'm not focusing too well at the moment.

Happy travels!

Posted by
21 posts

Thanks so much for all the tips! I have been reading Rick's books on Florence/Tuscany, Italy, and Europe Through the Back Door. We bought them last year and started reading then so we have the 2009 books. Originally our intention was to plan this trip out months in advance, but we had a chance to be gone come up with work, etc., and we decided to jump on it and take off while we could easily be gone. The Rick Steves books and website have been a huge help to us in making our plans.

We are in the process of booking lodging now--we have been in contact with a lot of B&Bs/hotels in the areas where we plan to stay over the past few days to find out what is available.

We are getting a driver's permit this week. I think we might cut the CT time down to 2 nights instead of 3. I like the idea of getting a car in La Spezia and driving to hill towns and then dropping the car off in Florence. We might do that and stay 2 or 3 nights in the hill towns and then a couple of nights in Florence beforing riding the train to Venice. Would you recommend dropping the car off at the airport and then riding a train/bus/taxi into Florence?

Would we have to deal with the ZTL zones between La Spezia--hill towns--and Florence? What are they exactly?

We are open to any other suggestions any of you might have. Thanks again for all of your help!

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