Help with itinerary

your time in Florence is going to be very limited with cooking class, cinque terre day tip and tuscany day trip.
You could spend may days in Florence and not see everything. I love CT but I would not do it as a day trip from Florence, it is much better to spend a couple of nights. Do the cooking class if that is your interest and a day trip elsewhere in "Tuscany" and leave the rest of the time for Florence itself.

My recommendations is that you start by buying the Rick Steves books on those cities. I would also buy the videos. That wouldl be the best starting point. There is much to do in such a short time you need to do the follow: 1- Identify the places you want to see 2-Prioritize the places you want to see because there is not enough time to do everything. 3-Make sure you know what days sites are open when you do you planning. 4- Understand what passes you may want to buy
5- determine what reservations you need to make in advance. some reservations are required in advance such as for the borghese galleria in Rome or the Scavi tour. the best starting point is the RS material. It takes a lot of time to plan so start now. The only place I think the RS material falls short is on the Scavi tour information. It really is a must see tour but reservations months in advance are essential. Once you read the RS material I would than ask questions. Also, make sure you leave enough time for travle in your itinerary between cities. Also, don't plan on doing much the first day you get there.

Do you have R.S. guides yet? I recommend you pick up Italy for sure, and probably Rome as well. Rick has some great self-guided walks (Christian Rome for example) that should feed your husband's interests. Rick also lays out some possible itineraries for Rome that should help you plan your time. Ditto Venice, where you only have a day. Don't try to see everything in any city. Just plan some highlights and leave yourselves time to enjoy just being there. In Venice, get away from Piazza San Marco and the crowds (but do see St. Mark's Basilica). Food is everywhere. See the market in Campo dei Fiori, the Rialto market in Venice. Maybe visit Eataly (just opened, going tomorrow!) in Rome. There is also a tour I have not taken but many seem to love: http://www.eatingitalyfoodtours.com/. One of my very good friends took it and was quite thrilled. Katie Parla also does tours http://www.katieparla.com/tours/ and I have to believe she is fantastic given ther interactions I have had with her and the quality of her blog, www.parlafood.com.

I do own the Rick Steves Italy 2012 book and have been reading through it for months now. There is just so much information that I was kind of overwhelmed. It has definitely helped and I have used a lot of his recommendations just wanted to get some opinions in regards to our interests.

I would suggest seeking out other information on Christian Rome to supplement the RS guides, which are pretty sketchy/selective. Not knowing your husband's specific interests, I can't suggest specific books, but he may want to search Amazon to see what comes up under searches for things like "Christian Rome (or Italy)" "pilgrim's guide to Rome (or Italy)", etc.

Sarah, You probably already know this, but the churches are open in the morning until usually about 12noon, then they reopen from about 4/4:30 until about 6/6:30. That is, with the exception of the major Papal basilicas like St. Peter's, St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, St. Paul-outside-the-Walls, which are open all day. Apart from seeing churches, in terms of Christian history you may also want to look at the Catacombs. I highly recommend the Catacombs of St. Priscilla. They have some of the best-preserved early Christian art, and there are nuns who have custody of the place and often give the tours. They are also a little bit closer to the historic center of the city than some of the others. See their web site for more info, hours, etc.: http://www.catacombepriscilla.com/inglese/ I would think that a stop at the Vatican Museums would also be a strong possibility; see Ron in Rome's site for more advice on how to approach that. http://www.roninrome.com/sites-and-attractions/20-tips-on-visiting-the-vatican-museums He advocates going at a certain time on certain days; if your schedule does not admit of that flexibility and you need to go at a very specific time, when there may be a long line, then buy your tickets online in advance at http://mv.vatican.va. The only way to see the Sistine Chapel is via the Vatican Museums. Something else relevant to Christian history is the Coliseum. You can buy tickets in advance on this site, and so skip the lines: http://www.ticketclic.it/gb/html/musei/colosseo.cfm (It bears saying: Yes, in October there still could be reasonably large lines at these places...) Continued...

...continued What follows are my recommendations and notes for certain churches that are in the historic center. Some of these you can just pop in to while you are seeing other things in the area. Pantheon: famous for its incredible dome, tomb of Raphael is there Santa Maria sopra Minerva: diagonally behind the Pantheon, tomb of Fra Angelico (famous painter) is there, it is Rome's only "true gothic" church (i.e. surviving from the Gothic period) St. Peter's Basilica: goes without saying Sant'Agnese in Agone: on Piazza Navona, different architectural finishing on the inside than many Roman churches, quite beautiful, and the skull of St. Agnes is preserved in a reliquary in a chapel on the left side The Gesù: great trompe l'oeil ceiling, and at roughly 5 or 5:30 every day (can't remember for sure), there is a program that takes place where the story of St. Ignatius' life is told and different parts of his massive tomb/altar are lit up; then the baroque machinery lowers the painting over the altar to reveal a gorgeous jeweled gold and silver statue of the saint Sant'Ignazio: another spectacular trompe l'oeil ceiling San Clemente: famous apse mosaic, excavations underneath revealing two layers: an ancient pagan temple, and an ancient Roman street Ss. Cosmas and Damien: beautiful, well-preserved apse mosaic Santa Sabina: 5th century detailed carved wood doors, nearby "keyhole" through which you can get a spectacular view of St. Peter's Dome Capuchin bone crypt: literally decorated with bones, chandeliers made out of bones, etc. (off of Piazza Barberini) Santa Maria della Vittoria: famous Bernini statue of St. Teresa in ecstasy Santa Susanna: American church in Rome Continued...

...continued That is just a very small sampling of the literally hundreds of churches that are the city, so many of them in the historic center. All of the above are near other interesting sites, so as I said you could just pop in and look around while you are also visiting other things in the area. And I think the ones I have noted above are among the more "interesting" in the center, in terms of those that are regularly open. Another thing is the excavations beneath St. Peter's Basilica, which are extremely popular to visit and book up months in advance, because of the limited number of people they can admit every day. This site outlines how you can reserve your spot for that: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/institutions_connected/uffscavi/documents/rc_ic_uffscavi_doc_gen-information_20090216_en.html If the Pope is in town, you can attend his Wednesday general audience in St. Peter's Square (highly recommend requesting tickets so that you can be assured a seat and not be standing for a few hours), or if you are there on a Sunday you can stand in St. Peter's Square while he recites the Angelus Prayer and gives a brief talk from his apartment window. More information here: http://www.pnac.org/pilgrim-information/tickets-for-papal-audiences-and-events/ Let's see... that's sort of the high points of what comes to mind in terms of things you might do to learn more about the Christian history of the city. Hope it gives you some good ideas as you plan your itinerary.

Our family is spending 11 days in Italy this summer. I have spent countless hours reading the RS books, using the website, and watching videos. We are also very active and plan to cover a lot of ground. We came up with 2 overnights in Venice, 3 overnights in Riomaggiore, CT, 1 overnight in Florence (getting there early and leaving a little later), and 4 overnights in Rome. After watching the RS video on the CT, I felt that we needed two full days to really see the area. I did also book times at those long line places, such as the Academia in Florence (the David) and the Vatican. I'm not sure if this will work and welcome any advice. Have fun!

Here's a website you might find helpful: Sacred Destinations Another is this one: Roman Churches

With regard to music (I am guessing Classical?), you will see posters around town for concerts in smaller venues, especially at San Paolo entro le Mura (the Anglican Church on Via Nazionale). They regularly have concerts there, of varying quality. If you look at the calendar on their site I think you can find out what they will be having in advance, but as I said they also put up posters around town http://www.stpaulsrome.it/english/nav.html Then there is also the Roman Opera; the Opera house here is quite nice. Browsing their calendar on their site you can see what's playing: http://www.operaroma.it/stagione/stagione_2011_2012 Roman symphony orchestra: http://www.orchestrasinfonicadiroma.it/index.html Perhaps others will be able to give you some other leads on music, particularly if you are looking for a different style.

One final thing, it is now possible to get a bus tour of the Vatican Gardens, in an open top "eco bus". I would think there would still be plenty of interesting things to see in October in the Vatican gardens. http://www.omniavaticanrome.org/en/the-experience/main-visits/vatican-gardens.html

Let me cast another vote for the Eating Italy Food tour. We were on this tour last month and it was a great time! Will you be in Rome on a Wednesday? If so you might want to consider getting tickets to the Papal audience. As previously mentioned, the Scavi tour is extremely worthwhile. We did a market tour/cooking class with InTavola and had a fabulous time. Keep in mind that you really only have 10 "touring" days since day 11 will be getting to the airport and flying home. Have you sketched out your days with travel time blocked out? You can use the trenitalia website to find the frequency of trains and duration of the journey. Figure in the time to get to and from the station and check in/out of lodgings. This leaves you with a realistic picture of how much time you have to tour and see sights, Determine your "must sees: and build the rest of your itinerary around those. You can prebook some museums to skip the line (Vatican Museums/Sistine, Ufizzi, Accademia with the David) to maximize your time. Artviva does some great walking tours of Florence and Venice that are reasonably priced and may be a good way to see the major sites in a time efficient fashion. You can watch the Rick Steves videos on Hulu and I believe YouTube as well for some inspiration.

Consider a personal guide. You can tell them exactly what your interests are and they can guide you. We did this in Rome and in two days we felt we saw everything we wanted to see easily, and more so. I would do it again in a minute. You can get guides (docents) in all major cities.

On your planned Cinque Terre hiking day trip, how much time will you actually have in the Cinque Terre? And which trails will you be hiking? Consider whether it's worth it to you to spend that many hours of your vacation going to and from between the Cinque Terre and Florence. Also, in October, the weather could be iffy. For the culinary part of your trip, in terms of choosing restaurants and the like, also check out Chowhound, a foodie website. To learn more about regional Italian foods, check out Fred Plotkin's "Italy for the Gourmet Traveler." His recommendations are good, but his descriptions of the foods in each region are even better. Venice is so wonderful, it would be great if you could spend more time there. But, I think, that's always the dilemma of travelling - too many places, too little time.