Honeymoon in Italy end of April 2017--first time to the country--where do we even start?

Get a good guidebook for Italy (the Rick Steves book is good for first-timers). You may want to concentrate on one or two areas with nine days (how many nights is that on the ground)? Hard to think of a honeymoon without visiting Venezia, after that it is up to your deciding what you like. Churches? Everywhere. Art? Everywhere, although some cities are more saturated with museums than others (Roma and Firenze, for example). Cities for nightlife or small towns?

I would suggest you fly into Venezia, spend 2 or 3 nights there, then go to Firenze for a few nights (or base there for daytrips into the surrounding area). For me, it would be 3 nights Venezia, 3 nights Roma, 3 nights elsewhere between the two, if you actually have nine nights. Nine days could be as few as 7 nights, if you count the overnight flight to Italy. Your flight home will take up your last day, since you need to be at the airport at least 3 hours prior to your departure time.

Hi, Nicole, and congrats on your upcoming nuptials!

Your question is much, much too broad for any of us to begin to answer as we don't know anything about you. Where are you flying from? How many nights will you have in Italy (arrival and departure dates). What sorts of things are you interested in? And have you ever traveled abroad before?

I'll highly suggest a scamper off to your local library and bookshop for some travel guides about Italy. At the same time, take a browse through this....

https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/italy

....and this forum for things travelers are chatting about which might interest you. As well, as much about you and your Significant Other as you can tell us will help us to help you!

I agree with Zoe. Not enough time to get into the countryside, as Venice, Florence and Rome are just too important to pass up.
You can save rural Tuscany for your next visit.

Everything Zoe and Kathy said. Pay special attention to Zoe's suggestion of concentrating on one or two areas. Most folks try to see too much, and end up exhausted and disappointed. Our first trip to Italy was a week in the Amalfi Coast area, our second was about 10 days in Florence, our third was about 2 weeks in Rome! You can always plan day trips from wherever you base yourselves.

Second point: Count days, not nights, as Kathy emphasized. And think about how much of any one day will be taken up by travel: checking out of a hotel, getting to the train station, travel between - for example - Venice and Florence, finding your Florence hotel, checking in, unpacking.... Much of a day can be eaten up this way, and your time just disappears.

Third point: Rick always says "Assume you will return." Don't think you have to see everything this first trip.

Have fun planning, but don't stress out over it. And Congratulations!

Just a quickie here:

where should we fly into

To make the most of your time - unless you're spending all 9 days in one spot - you should think about flying into one city and out of another to avoid backtracking. You'll want to be close to your port of departure on the night before your flight home. For instance, into Venice and out of Rome is a good plan if both of those cities end up on your itinerary.

And very good advice from the gang about not underestimating the amount of time that it takes to make a move from one place to the next!

If only someone had written a series of guidebooks specifically for people traveling to Europe for the first time. (^_^) Seriously, the best place to start is with a good guidebook. Rick's are really really great for first time travelers feeling a bit overwhelmed and looking for guidance. Buy the one for Italy and start there.

Happy travels!

Thank you all for your very quick reply! In terms of time, 9 days in total or perhaps 7 days on the ground with travel to/from the US. We are traveling from DC.

As far as interests, I am very interested in seeing Venice, as it looks like a very romantic city. How long would you suggest to stay there?

I would also definitely like to see Rome. We both enjoy history. We don't necessarily want to spend our entire trip at the very touristy places. But, I do want to see some "must see" places.

I'm just not sure where else to go and how long to stay in each place.

Great suggestion to travel to Venice and leave from Rome. Have you found it to be more expensive to travel to one airport and leave from another?

Thank you again!

Try to watch all of the Rick Steves shows on Italy if you can, as well as his shows on how to generally travel in Europe. That should help with planning as well.

My advice: Avoid the big 3 (Rome, Florence, Venice). Go somewhere where there aren't tons of tourists. Think the Tuscan coast, Umbria, even a coastal town in Puglia. Fly into Rome, rent a car, pick a nice hill town like Spoleto. Book a hotel there for the whole time. Get used to the rhythm of Italian life, with the siesta (perfect for a honeymoon--you have a nice big lunch and then relax). Go out in the evening, about 7, have an Aperol spritz. Find a place for dinner.

After you're used to the time zone and being in Italy, scope out the surrounding towns. There are lots of trails in Umbria, lots of beautiful little places like Trevi and Spello, slightly bigger towns like Gubbio. Go out to Lago Trasimeno and take the ferry to Isola Maggiore. There's a romantic outdoor restaurant there called Da Sauro, where you can while away the afternoon over lunch and a nice cold bottle of Grechetto. Trust me, you'll have a better time, with better food, less cynical waiters/owners, time to hang out and relax, beautiful scenery. Don't worry about "sights," that's not what Italy really is about. It's really about the people and the experience.

Only seven days for Italy? And on honeymoon? You don't want to make it hectic. So I see it as only two destinations. For first timers: Venice and Rome, no doubt. I would add Florence which is on the way only if you like to be in a hurry. I would suggest fly to Venice and back from Rome.

If you want to do the rural/small town bit, I really think you need to base in just one location. And that would mean renting a car; be sure you're up for that, because there are some potentially costly gotchas if you don't adhere very, very carefully to speed limits and traffic regulations. You don't want to receive belated wedding gifts in the form of multiple very costly traffic tickets arriving months after you return home.

If you're doing cities, you can split your trip between two and might--by taking advantage of the left-luggage service in the train station--be able to spend part of an in-transit day in a third city.

Italy is a fabulous country with uncountable top-flight sights and experieneces. If there's any way you can scramble some extra days, I urge you to do so.

Weather is extremely unpredictable, but there's a potential for cool, wet weather, especially in the north. If the picture you have in your mind involves strolling historic neighborhoods in the sun and lounging in piazzas, you might want to spend your time on this trip in Rome, which would normally be just a bit warmer.

As far as flights go, the way it works for multi-city trips is that flying into City A and out of City B on the same airline is usually about half the cost of a round-trip to City A plus half the cost of a round-trip to City B. It's important to check the round-trip options too, though, just to be sure. And if the best prices to City A and City B are on different airlines/alliances, the combination may not be such a good deal.

On a trip as short as yours, you really don't want to have to spend most of your last full day just returning to your point of origin if it's avoidable, but sometimes there's a huge price difference, and there are some very fast trains running between Venice and Rome.

I'm from DC myself and can tell you that in recent months, fares for travel next spring have been all over the place. It depends on the precise travel dates, and the fares are adjusted constantly, sometimes dropping or increasing by hundreds of dollars overnight. Sometimes Milan and/or Rome is $400 less expensive than any other Italian city (but that's not the case today for your travel period). I have nearly always found flights from Dulles to be cheapest, but you can use "WAS" as your origin so that any decent connections from BWI or DCA will also show up.

I don't have your exact travel dates, so I just took a look on flights.google.com for April 28 - May 7. The round-trip fares look really good! All of these round-trips are available at under $800 as of this moment: Rome (non-stop available), Venice (actually the cheapest right now), Milan, Verona, Turin, and Naples.

Unfortunately, into Venice and out of Rome is far more costly at the moment (different airlines, alas).

If you're tempted by that cheap round-trip to Venice, take a long look at the timing for the return flight. The Venice airport is much, much harder (and more costly) to reach for an early flight than other possible departure points, and the latest departure time for a reasonable connection is 7:20 AM. You might spend an extra $150 or so getting to that flight. You'd need to be at the airport by 5:20 AM, and I'm not sure how much time you'd need to allow for the boat ride; probably over an hour. So you'd be getting up at maybe 3:30 AM. Ugh. And of course you'd have spent the previous late afternoon and evening getting back to Venice from Rome or wherever you were.

The more I thing about this, the more attractive it looks to spend the entire time in and around Rome. There are many great day-trip possibilities, or you could spend two or three of your nights on or near the Amalfi Coast. Northern Italy could wait for your next visit.

Check the "multi city" box when looking for airfares, compare that to roundtrip (but remember to include backtracking costs - train fares, hotel night) in the roundtrip cost.

Use rome2rio.com as well to look for flights. I don't see any non-stop flights to Venice, but United flies non-stop from Rome to Dulles. It's certainly easiest to fly non-stop back to the U.S. and outbound, it looks like the transfer is in Frankfurt which is pretty easy. I would definitely try to have no more than one stop in each direction. If you fly a U.S. airline from Europe, you will have to go through immigration, collect your luggage, and go through customs when you first land in the U.S. If that's DC, then you just walk out of the airport. But if it's not, you'll then recheck your luggage and, depending on the airline and the city, you may have to go from the int'l to a domestic terminal for your flight to DC. That means allowing plenty of transfer time.

With 7 nights, do 3 in Venice and 4 in Rome, since those are your top picks. I really think Venice is romantic when you get away from the day-tripping tourists, which is easy to do. It's a great place to start any Italian trip; it's quiet and slow-paced as soon as you're away from the crowds . . . a 5 minute walk down a 'back canal.'

If you go to Venice, take enough time to visit the city (3 days) but also the Laguna (3 days) and the Po delta ( wonderful fish men villages (2 days).
In this way you will have enough time to savour Venice, understand its culture, rest and make love.
You would need as much time to visit Florence and some of Tuscany's treasures.

Congratulations! I spent my honeymoon in Italy back in 1988. Finally getting back next year with our 20 year old twins. I was checking prices last night on Alitalia and non-stop prices from Boston are low. Choose where to fly into and out of (multiple destinations), ie: into Venice out of Rome for example. Then book your hotel or apartment stays. I've had good luck with airbnb and booking,com. Definitely see Rome and don't miss Venice! Very romantic and like no other place I've ever been. I know a lot of people like to fly into Venice first but I like to save the best for last. Have a great time and best wishes on your marriage.

Rome is romantic as all get out so for a first time visit/ honeymoon I would recommend it. But after 2-3 days, go south to Naples and the Amalfi Coast for stunning romantic beauty. Get a guide for Pompeii and ride Busvia di Vesuvio to explore Vesuvius.

With only 7 or 8 days you might have to lower your ambitions. I will give you a suggested minimum number of nights for each location, then you decide which locations you want to visit, obviously you can't do all in 8 days. From north to south:
Venice: 2 or 3 nights
Florence: 2 or 3 nights. If you want to explore Tuscany's hill towns from Florence, then add a night for each day trip you want to take from Florence.
Cinque Terre: 2 nights (can be visited as a day trip from Florence, but it takes 2.5 hours by train each way).
Rome: 3 or 4 nights
Sorrento and Amalfi coast (Naples area): 3 or 4 nights (incl. visit to Capri and Pompeii).
There are airports in Venice, Florence (and nearby Pisa), Rome, Naples. However I think only Rome FCO has non stop flights to IAD. Florence, Pisa, Naples have only European flights to the major European hubs. Venice has flights to JFK also (Delta). Venice has flights also to PHL, ATL, EWR, and others in North America, but they are seasonal summer only, so not sure they operate in early May.

Congratulations on your Wedding!

Please pay attention to acraven about departing Venice. Getting up in middle of the night means you don't get good sleep that night and then a long day flying home. Plus if you sleep late, you are buying a ticket! That is why I would fly into Venice and out of Rome.

You have a choice to make. After a hectic and rushed build up to your wedding, do you want to slow down and relax and breath or do you want to keep on a rushed hectic pace?

I would imagine you would want to slow down and breath. If so, fly into Venice 3 days and out of Rome 4 days. You will not face the large tourist crush of summer.

If you want hectic, fly into Venice 3 days, Florence 2 days, and Rome 2 days. This means your arrival day is one of the days of visiting Venice. This means long days Florence and Rome. Up early and out late to see the sights, which makes one tired. It does allow you to see more places but you have limited time and I understand that.

If you visit Venice, consider learning to row a gondola-type boat through Row Venice. It's great fun and you will be rowing part of the time on the Grand Canal, which is an unforgettable experience.

Twenty two years ago we honeymooned for seven days in Florence and three in Rome. It was relaxing, romantic and just right for us. I highly recommend choosing two of Rome, Venice, and Florence. But which two is highly individual. Get an Rick Steven Guide to Italy and check an Eyewitness or Insight Guide for each city out of the library. RS will provide the most info and Insight many pretty pictures. Go to the two cities most appealing to you.

Congrats. Italy is always a good idea, but never more so than for a honeymoon.
It's only about 2 hours from Venice to Florence by high speed Freccia train, and about 1.5 hours from Florence to Rome. You can get a great feel for Florence from a short stay of 27-28 hours, so I'm going to break from the pack and suggest an overnight stay between Venice and Rome.
1. Arrive Venice - 3 nights
2.3. Venice sights
4. AM train to Florence - 1 night
5. PM train to Rome - 3 nights
6.7. Rome sights
8. Depart Rome

Choose your Florence hotel near the Santa Maria Novella Station to maximise your time there.
It's pretty much a given that you'll be back in Italy down the track, and Rome (being a main gateway) will always be an option for more time.

I like the above, except I'd two 2 nights Venice, 2 nights Florence and 3 nights Rome.