Honeymoon in Rome and Florence

First off, congrats on the upcoming nuptials! Now for the barrage of questions for you!

How many nights will you be in each city? What types of things do you like to do? Go to museums? Outdoor activities? Antiquities? There are so many things to do in each city that it will help us help you if you provide some more info.

Rome: I have stayed at the Hotel Smeraldo and thought it was a good value. The room was comfortable and they have a nice breakfast. The location is almost ideal as it it just a short walk to many of the top sites to visit.

Florence: Hotel Accademia is in a great location. My only complaint was that the bed was a bit too hard for my liking.

Travel between Rome and Florence: High speed trains make the trip in an hour and a half. You can get super economy fares on Trenitalia if you buy 120 days in advance. Italo Treno is also an option for trains as they have the same runs but at different times.

Also, if you haven't purchased plane tickets yet, consider flying into one city and out of the other. My suggestion would be to fly into Florence and out of Rome.

Congratulations! I suggest you start with Rick Steves' guides to Florence and Tuscany and his guide to Rome. You will want detailed info on both places. I know you are pressed for time, but there is no subsitution for reading these books well in advance of travel. How many days will you have? You'll need at least a weke for these two cities. If you ahve less than a week, pick one. If you have more than a week, you can easily take day trips without changing city or hotel. Once you have perused the books, you can come back here with specific questions like "Orvieto vs Ostia," and so on.

As to hotels, to make life easier at this point, i would suggest you look at Booking.com. You can enter criteria such as price you are willing to pay, rating (I suggest 8 or 9 on their scale), and your dates to get a set of results to consider. A lot of their properties can be reserved with a possibility of canceling should you change your mind. so when you see a property you like, reserve it with free cancellation and continue searching and refining. Takes a lot of the grief out of planning. Act soon, too. July is very busy in Italy!

You can also download free Audio Tour versions of some city and museum tour routes described in Rick's guidebooks. I'm confident those books will get you on the right track.