Italy 10 day itinerary

Ani, In the same situation and given the short time frame and transportation logistics, I'd probably skip the visit to Assisi as it seems like an "outlier". You could perhaps add the time to Florence and use that to take a day trip to Siena (travel by Bus is the best method). Adding a day in the C.T. would also be good (when you see the place, you may not want to leave). Would something like this work...... > Day 1 - Arrive Rome > Day 2 - Rome > Day 3 - Rome > Day 4 - Train to La Spezia (~4H) and then to Riomaggiore (~9M from La Spezia) > Day 5 - C.T. > Day 6 - C.T. (this provides two full days) > Day 7 - Train to Florence (~2H) > Day 8 - Florence (day trip?) > Day 9 - Florence (morning), train to Venice (afternoon) - travel time 2H:08M via Freccia (fast) trains. > Day 10 - Venice > Day 11 - Leave Venice Whether or not to take a day trip when in Florence will depend on how interested you are in the sights there. Siena is a beautiful Tuscan hill town, and well worth a visit. Is there any way you could get an extra day or two for your holiday? That would certainly help. Good luck with your planning!

I would drop Assisi and add a night to Venice. You should both get your top-of-list locations in and each place is certainly worthy of three nights. Assisi is lovely, but if it's not a "hearts desire" location to you both, just skip it. Taking out that single one-night-stay and transfer will make your trip less hassled. The trip from the CT to Venice is a bit long, but leave early and use it as a day of relaxing. We enjoyed that travel day very much, napping, reading, looking out the windows. You can leave Riomaggiore at 08:56, go thru Pisa to Firenze, and arrive Venezia at 14:33. Buy ASAP becasue there are some great Super Economy fares depending on your travel day.

You should think about dropping either Assisi or CT and adding the days to Venice or Florence. If you drop CT, do add a day to Assisi as it deserves more than a night.

I think you've got a pretty good plan. I know you'd like to have more time in just about every place, but obviously that's not possible. That is a long travel day between the CT and Venice, but it sounds like both of those are "must see" places for you. Even so, leaving CT by 9:00am still can get you to Venice by 2:30pm. And that's still most of a day, considering you don't really need things to be open to enjoy Venice.

Thank you all for the tips...It seems its pretty difficult to go with someone who has never been before, since we both have different ideas of how we want to spend our time. We're both going to try to see if we can extend the trip by two more days. Hopefully we can make it happen and we won't feel so rushed! Thanks all!

Just because you are traveling with someone else does not mean you should have to give up on at least one new location for you. I would definitely not give up CT... it is beautiful and although crowded, it is the Sea and if you are that close and don't go because of someone else you will regret it, and probably resent her. She needs to compromise. As your trip is a lot of cities Assisi and CT are the only smaller places and CT is the only one with the beautiful Mediterranean Sea.

Ani, Hopefully your planning is progressing well. Getting an extra two days will certainly help, but I still feel that Assisi is the "outlier" so would be a good place to drop on this trip. If you are able to arrange some extra time, I'd suggest adding one day in Rome and one in Venice (since that's so important for your cousin). I would NOT drop a day from Rome, as you'll both be wandering around in a daze for a day or two as you recover from jet lag. There's so much to see there, it would be a shame not to have the time to see some of the most important sights. If you've seen the new movie To Rome With Love, that might pique your interest in Rome. I assume you're travelling THIS September, so I'd suggest getting accommodations booked in the Riomaggiore SOON!!! It may already be too late to find something? Cheers!

Ralph, no, I've never traveled with this particular cousin before, so we'll see how that goes...don't they say traveling with someone is how you REALLY get to know them? :) Terry, I completely agree with you there. If I do end up cutting out CT, I will definitely regret it later on seeing as how that is the one place out of all our stops that I have not seen. And Ken, YES, I actually saw that movie not too long ago and loved it. I envy all the expats that are able to move to Rome (or anywhere in Italy for that matter) and create a living there.

I urge you to not give up the ONE thing you want to do in order to let your cousin do everything she wants to do. You will end up resenting her. Is there some reason she can't give up one thing to accommodate you. I would eliminate Assisi and add it to either Florence or preferably Venice.

" we both have different ideas of how we want to spend our time " Have a very serious and straighforward chat with your cousin. Have another one the next day. Perhaps a third day to be on the safe side..... I would hate to see cousins part company so far from home ( yes, it has happened ).

For a 10-day trip I would visit Rome, then take the train to CT for a few days, then take a train to Venice. You will have a few leisurely days in each locataion. From Rome to CT the train takes only about 4 hours. From CT to Venice it takes closer to 6 hours.

Ralph, by "cous" you must mean the cousin, and I hope you don't know that "cous" is also a pretty offensive term. Please take the extra 1/12 of a second to type "in"