Italy itinerary

If you find an agreeable fare, fly first into Venice and out of Rome.

Fly in to Venice and out of Bari or Rome

It is much easier to fly IN to Venice than out of

Venice>Florence>Bari>Rome

This will be summer of 2025...no firm dates yet. We're thinking 12 days in Italy (3 days per city). Add'l two for travel.

There is a family connection to Bari for one of our travel companions.

Hello csnowm, and welcome to the forum!

You've gotten solid advice on the flow of you itinerary but I did want to add that I think 12 days for 4 cities may be a little rushed and encourage you to spend more time than that if you can.

Some general rules are:
- The first day can be somewhat given over to jet lag, culture shock and some errands stuff depending on how you travel and how far you're flying. So adding an extra day in your landing city is never a bad idea.
- Also most people here count nights rather than days since that lends itself to booking lodging so you know where you'll be every night. Keep in mind that 3 nights somewhere is only two full uninterrupted days of exploring and two part days of packing, travelling and checking in/out. So you want 3 full days in each location you will need 4 nights in each which is more like 16 nights total.
- And also track your travel time on the transition days. For example going from Venice to Florence is 2:15 on the fast train but your day from Florence to Bari will be a long one - unless you fly but even then plane travel is it's own kind of long with airport transfers and early arrival. Counting the travel day as whole day somewhere will short your actual time there.

Rome and Florence will both absorb about as many days as you want to spend there so be sure you allow time to see all your "must sees" without rushing everything too much.

Your trip sounds great and the family connection should make it extra special.
Have a great trip,
=Tod