Italy Itinerary Feedback

Happy Anniversary!
That’s a great itinerary Ryan, it’s obvious you’ve done your homework

Venice, Florence and Rome are really not very bike friendly but Lucca is
If you can add 2 nights you could stay in Lucca between Florence and CT
Bike around the walls and perhaps wife does her cooking class then ( if she is not a cyclist)

Lucca would give you a small Tuscany town experience, stay inside the walls. There’s no “major” sites. Just a nice town to wander and relax

I’d skip Pisa but it’s never been a priority for us
We will actually be in Lucca early May and are not planning to go to Pisa then either

Rome could use another night as well if you can swing it

In Lucca, the top of the wall surrounding it is a public park (~2.5 mile circuit), and people walk and ride bikes round and round. They have bike rentals.

My family is in Lucca, and when we visit it's a priority to rent bikes and cycle the top of the wall. It's completely flat and you can stop and picnic or have a coffee along the way.

Pisa is often considered overrated, but if you're passing by anyway, you could store your luggage at the station, walk over to the tower and cathedral, have lunch, and hop back on the train. I think that would be a pleasant few hours. Because Pisa is so close to Lucca, we usually end up going there for an afternoon. One year my husband and daughters went up the tower, and that was great too. You can book tickets in advance.

I looked into cooking classes for my (cancelled) 2020 trip, and they were everywhere at the time. Not sure if they've started up again, but I imagine you can find something.

Your itinerary looks reasonable. Have fun!

Sounds like a good itinerary and fun trip. Florence offers some good cooking class options. I would add the extra nights to Florence and or Rome for day trips.

I second ChristineH’s suggestion of spending a couple of nights in Lucca. Lovely city, easily walkable and the walk along the city walls, or bike ride, is unique. Make sure you stay at a hotel within the city walls.

If you add an overnight or two in Lucca, a cooking class I highly recommend is with Chef Giuseppe. I participated in 2018. I usually try to take 1-2 cooking classes when I’m in Europe for three weeks.

The Lucca wall is a great gathering place for walkers and bikes! If your itinerary changes, Ferrara is also a popular bike location.

https://www.extravirginlucca.com

I think your itinerary is great, and as said before, you've done your homework and planned well.

You might also check out and enjoy biking along the Appian Way while in Rome.

Looks like a sensible plan. If you can add any more days, by all means do so, and give them to Venice, Florence, and/or Rome. You're giving each of those cities 2-3 full days, but each is worth more if you can swing it. Remember how miserable and expensive those transatlantic flights are, and try to get the most value as possible from them by spending as much time as you can on the ground in Italy.

I haven't done it, but I've read that bicycling along the Appian Way just outside of Rome is a fun experience. But those Lucca walls sound awfully good too.

Ryan,

Congratulations on your upcoming 20th. You have a well thought out itinerary. My only recommendation is to consider an extra night in Florence & CT. Our trip several years ago was similar to yours and our group wished we had stayed one more day in each. In the CT, I would highly recommend the sunset cruise. Diego from Fish & Chill was excellent.

Sandy

Are you hiking in the CT? If not you can remove a day and spend an extra night in Florence and take a day trip to Siena by direct bus (1h 15m).

Wow, thanks everyone for all the feedback!

I read about cycling the Lucca wall in the RS Italy guide, that was one of my motivations for wanting to stop there on the way to CT - have lunch and enjoy a nice easy ride together. I didn't know if Lucca merited an overnight stay or not, but based on the comments I think we might consider it as our "small town" time and possibly do the cooking class there. I was thinking about checking out rural Tuscany, but I don't know if I really want to spend more time in transit and/or driving. I'm trying to find a good balance between experiencing different locations while giving each location a reasonable amount of time. In the past I've been guilty of spending too much time driving and not enough time experiencing.

My motivation for stopping in Pisa was simply to break up the train trip to Rome. As Nickelini suggested, we'd probably just check luggage, have lunch, see the tower, and be on our way. Likely it'll be a "game day decision" regarding stopping vs. heading straight to Rome.

We are definitely planning on hiking in CT! In fact, that is the inspiration for this trip. Each night in lockdown we would watch an episode or two of the RS Europe shows. I had never even heard of CT before but once I saw it I just knew I had to go there! We love visiting national parks in the US, so hiking along the sea, drinking wine, and eating pesto is our idea of vacation! I wasn't sure if 3 days there would be too long (can you ever have too much time on vacation???). I envisioned this part of the trip as our "down time" from what I imagine will be a lot of sightseeing in Venice, Florence, and Rome.

Likely it'll be a "game day decision" regarding stopping vs. heading straight to Rome.

It won't be if you want to save money.

If you wait to buy the train ticket to Rome you will have to pay, probably, full price. You need a seat reservation anyway and that's included in your ticket, but for all but the slowest trains, and it would be a combination of trains probably Pisa to Rome if you go cheap regionale on the day, you need that unchangeable ticket in advance.

There are direct IC (InterCities) trains from La Spezia (and maybe one of the CT villages) to Rome, no changes needed.

Thanks for the advance notice, Nigel. That was not something I had considered. I've only traveled by train in Europe once before (in the Netherlands and Germany) but that was several years ago and I believe we had a Eurail pass.

Would some sort of pass make sense if we are taking several trains or is it typically better to purchase individual tickets? Is there a certain date range where prices are less expensive? If there's a good website or resource that explains the logistics (schedules/prices/etc) please pass along the info! I'm still at the very beginning of the planning process so anything is helpful.

No need for a pass

https://www.seat61.com/train-travel-in-italy.htm

Official train sites
Trenitalia.com
Italotreno.it

Both have apps

Since you’re interested in biking and a water location you might want to try Largo del Garda.
Around an hour 15 from Venice it would fulfill some of your needs.

https://en.eurovelo.com/news/2021-05-14_cycle-on-water-along-the-hanging-cycle-path-of-lake-garda-next-to-eurovelo-7-sun-route