Italy 8 Days

I think you will not see very much. How many nights do you have? Will you be jetlagged when you arrive?

When you consider the time it takes to pack, check out, get to the train station, find and board your train, then get to your next hotel, check in and drop your luggage, you have used several hours. 2 nights in a place gives you one full day of sightseeing. While it can take only 5-10 minutes to get from hotel to train in Florence, it can take over and hour in Venice. In the Cinque Terre, it depends on which town you stay in.

It is better to go to the Cinque Terre between Florence and Rome, to avoid backtracking. Allow 4 hours just for the train ride from Rome to La Spezia, then change to a local train to your destination. When you leave, plan on 3 hours plus for the train to Florence. So you will use over 1/2 a day just getting to and from the CT.

With only 8 days, I think it would be hard to see anything more than the highlights of Venice, Florence and Rome, especially if you are arriving after a trans-Atlantic flight.

Always better to count nights than days, one night is always one night, but a long travel day can put a dent in your sightseeing itinerary.

I would pick no more than 3 places to see and make sure they're close together so you don't waste too much time in travel. My rough rule of thumb is minimum of 3 days in a major city. Even a fine-tuned tour group would be hard pressed to cover what you're proposing in 8 days and they're super efficient (Rick Steves doesn't even try to cover Rome, Florence, and Venice in less than 10 days in his tours, which is really 9 because the first/last day is not a full day).

We are heading back end of august and here is our schedule: Fly into Rome for 2 nights. We will be doing 2 tours one at night to see the Colosseums and the other the Sistine chapel. We are driving to Assisi for a 3 night stay. There we are doing self guided tours. After that we are staying for 5 nights near Siena and we are booking tours in Florence and also doing a side trip to Cirque Terre. After reading your message again I realized it said days which is even shorter then nights. I was in Italy last month and can tell you from experience not to plan too much. Lots of walking many crowds and long lines are usually the case. In any case I highly recommend booking a tour in Rome This way you can take advantage of the little time you have. Happy traveling !

Do you have to start in Rome? It is usually easier to fly into Venice and out of Rome. Venice is easier to get rid of jet lag, to begin with. Also, most flights out of Venice leave very early in the morning, and it takes some time to get to the airport.

And, like others suggested, no more than 3 places. You will spend more time traveling than sightseeing. You can always come back!

When you include travel to the itinerary your 2 days becomes just over one full day. Not really much time to see much of anything other than train stations and hotel rooms. I would cut out half so that you have time to at least see a little of two places. The way the itinerary is right now you won't see much of anything, let alone everything.

Donna

A big thing to remember is that it's a six-hour train ride between Venice and Cinque Terre.

Thanks everyone. I planned on 8 nights but I see what everyone is saying about the time crunch. I keep forgetting everything looks very close on the map but not so much in real life. Planning this honeymoon is more difficult than planning my wedding!

Another factor is time of year. When are you going? The weather can be a bit of a factor in the CT during shoulder season and winter. Do you want to hike or are you more of a museum person? We did our honeymoon in Italy. We started in Venice and ended in Rome. We spent 3 nights in Venice and 3 nights in Florence and then 5 nights in Rome. We had plenty of time to see/do everything that we wanted to do and we also had some time to just relax and watch the world go by. For our trip, we probably could have squeezed in the CT, but it was November and we don't hike. It was easy to skip the CT on that trip (we did go back last May, though!).

Rome, CT, Venice...fly home from Venice.

This is your honeymoon? That's important to know. I would try to add one or two days if at all possible. Pick three locations at most. I absolutely love Rome, but not sure I would put it on a honeymoon itinerary. It's pretty chaotic. Venice definitely - very romantic, esp. if you remember to wander away from the crowds.

Recommendations will vary depending on what time of year you plan to go. Tell us! (^_^)

From all the research I've been doing- for our upcoming first trip to Italy (Venice, Florence, CT, Rome), if this is your honeymoon, I would say spend your time in Venice and just outside Florence so you can spend a couple days exploring "tuscany" We will be staying at a beautiful villa (in a private cottage it's own private pool) 10 minutes outside of FL (they have buses every 30 minutes that go into Florence -last one returns at 8:30p)- we'll rent a car so we can explore the hill towns a little bit. I'm reading you can walk from one end of florence to the other in 30 minutes. We are planning 2 day trips to Florence (many suggest that is sufficient time) and then we'll have a couple days to explore the hill towns before heading to CT.. We're renting a car but I think you could get transportation from the train station /airport to this resort. It's a 5 minute walk from the resort to the village of Imprunetta so with the buses into FL, you may not need a car.. We rec'd. our best rate by booking directly. http://www.relaisvillalolmo.com You almost need to write off your travel days b/c you have to be prepared for the unexpected.. What time of year and how far out from now will help you decide if it's worth trying to find a place to stay in CT. (We booked in March for Sept. and it was filling up...) Have fun planning!!

Too many stops, Narrow down to 3 and try to make them geographically closer. Give up either Rome or Venice.
Enjoy your trip
Lorieann

Keep it simple with 2 or 3 destinations only ...

Rome: 3 nights >> Florence or Cinque Terre: 2 nights >> Venice: 3 nights
or
Rome: 4 nights >> Sorrento (Amalfi Coast): 4 nights

Well, what you initially posted will certainly be a memorable start to your marriage - if you can survive that, you can survive almost anything!

However, if your goal is to actually enjoy your honeymoon instead of making it a test, cut it to two destinations. You can always take daytrips if you want a change from your home base. Which two of the four your choose is up to you; there will people who would advocate for and against each of your destinations, so choose the two that you feel most drawn to. Start by getting Rick Steves Italy, as well as looking at as many other guidebooks as you can (use your library).

If you prefer watching to reading, Rick has lots of videos on all these destinations here (scroll down and click Italy to see the list): https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/video/tv-show

Do keep in mind that Rome to Florence is about 90 minutes; Florence to CT is almost 3 hours; CT to Venice is, as said above, about 6 hours. Florence to Venice is about 2 hours. All of these are by train, which is much faster than any other method for these routes. A good rule of thumb is that you lose at least a half day when you change destinations, even if they're close together (pack, check out, get to station, take trip, get from station to new hotel, check in, unpack). And you've already been told, correctly, to think nights rather than days. Three nights in a place is two full days; two nights is one full day; one night is less than one full day. Of course, depending on timing, you can certainly do things with less than a full day, but you do have to plan carefully, and also account for being tired from traveling.

As Harold said (and I hope you read all his good advice carefully), I will advocate for Venice. As Charlotte said, it's usually easier (because of the flight schedules and topography) to fly into Venice and out of . . . well, anywhere else. Also, Venice is low key, a great place to soak up the atmosphere while getting over jetlag. Ride up and down the Grand Canal, stroll the back ways, relax over a glass of wine or a gelato. And, IMO, Venice is super-romantic . . .

From there choose one of your other 3. If you don't want to stay in Florence, you can still spend several hours there if you leave Venice early. Check your bags at the train station, then take a late train to Rome, or the CT.

If you drop Rome, then consider Milan for your departure. It is a major international airport, so you're likely to have more flight options. In fact, look at the possibility of flying into Milan. While it will take you 2-3 hours longer to get to Venice by train after landing, it may be worth it if you save big-time. There are frequent trains from the CT or from Florence to Milan. You might want to spend your last night there, especially if you have a morning flight out. Milan is quite pretty at night, and lots of restaurants serving Italian food and wine ☺.