Italy in February

How about flying into Venice then work your way south to Rome? Then fly back to the US from Rome. The opposite would work as well. I would skip Cinque Terre in the dead of winter. You can visit Venice, Florence, siena, Assisi and finish in Rome. You need to let us know the length of your stay, though.

Terri, As Roberto mentioned, visiting the Cinque Terre at that time of year would not be a good idea. Many of the Hotels, Restaurants and other tourist facilities are closed, and don't usually re-open for the season until April 1st. In addition, all of the Sentiero Azurro trails are currently closed, and no word at this point on when they'll re-open. A serious slide occurred on the famous Via dell'Amore in September, injuring four Australian tourists (I believe they closed the other trails at that time as a "precaution"). As a result, it's closed until further notice. I'd suggest either travelling later in the year, or skipping the Cinque Terre on this occasion. The weather could be a bit "chilly" in Venice at that time of year, so be sure to pack accordingly. One other possibility would be to limit your trip to Rome and Sicily this time. ETBD is running two Sicily tours in February, so I suspect the weather will be reasonably good (although no guarantees of course). Happy travels!

Thanks for the replies. We found a great deal with our air miles in & out of Milan, which is why we would go there. After reading your replies and looking into it a bit more, I agree that Cinque Terra isn't very feasible, so we'll forget about that one for this trip. I really want to see Venice, so we're thinking of heading over there from Milan, then across to Florence/Siena/Assisi area (probably won't visit all 3 - still researching that), and then to Rome and the Vatican. We have 14 days total, and will be traveling by train.
I figured that if for some reason we cut out Venice, we can just do the other two areas and then head further south for a couple of days. Depending on the timing, I am also considering a day trip from Rome to Pompeii, and perhaps Naples (I know the train stops there, so maybe even just to get some pizza) as Rick Steves says you can do a long day trip in his guidebook. If you have any suggestions about that idea, I'd love to hear them. Thanks!

I am going with family in Feb also. What I researched, the temp will be 50's, the further North, the lower, south warmer, Rome should be in the mid 50's, unless they have unusually cold or warm weather. If you don't want to spend alot of extra time driving all the way to Naples to see Pompii, go to Ostia outside of Rome. Same type of sites. I am more concerned about what is open and what isn't. Has anyone been there in the winter and what is actually open in the smaller communities, like Assisi.

Assisi is pretty busy all year around, although less so in winter. But I doubt you'll find anything closed. When I lived in Italy I used to go there often, also overnight, and I don't remember anything closing down for winter.

I'm with Roberto on his itinerary. The CT is over on the other coast and northwest of Pisa. And, have you considered going the end of March after the winter weather in the north has broken and before the airfares increase? We went to Venice once in February, and about froze our tails off. The Rome Airport is preferable on getting direct flights back to the States.