Italy itinerary help!

You only have NINE days, because you arrive the day after you leave home, and you are flying on days 1 and 9. Given that, I would skip Florence (which I love) this trip. Think about this:

On day 4 take a morning train from Rome to Vernazza (as few as five hours by rail; some routings have only one train change) and have a late lunch there.

On day 7 take a late morning train from Vernazza to Venice Santa Lucia (about 7 hours and 2 train changes) arriving in the early evening. It's a magical, romantic hour there, and just passing from the train station onto the bank of the Grand Canal was one of the great moments in my life. There are lovely restaurants over every bridge, and wonderful little baroque music ensembles play in small venues (old churches often) most every night. And the gelato! Venice HAS to be worth one full day and night, without worrying about packing up or connections!

You can take the bus to the airport (inexpensive and about 20 minutes), but get there early. Security is as time-consuming as anywhere.

Good luck!

I agree with Chris, try to see a little less and you will enjoy more! Florence is a beautiful city, but it is a city and if you don't like museums, you could skip it. Scooters buzzing about and expensive hotels. I can't imagine not going to see the Statue of David in Florence but Sienna is a great town too, much smaller and quieter, if you have the time a nice choice with not much in the museum department. Sienna has an amazing catherderal (architecture).
On the other hand. You might do as Chris suggests and get right to the Cinque Terra and save your architecture for Venice.

We hated Siena, dirty, clausterphobic, very unfriendly people. I would recommend Rome, Orvieto (for a charming small town) and Venice. We loved Venice. And our favorite place of all in Italy is Sorrento but that's too far for your trip. Have Fun whatever you decide!

I think you are trying to squeeze in too much in too little time. Personally I'd leave out Florence this trip and spend one extra day in Rome. Then head off to CT and then to Venice. Venice is lovely and the vaporetto down the Grand canal early evening is just magic. I love Florence and Siena too but I would leave those to another trip. Just travelling and getting to and from your hotels will take up a reasonable amount of time. Do allow down time to just sit and have a coffee and enjoy people watching.

As was suggested, leave out Firenze (Florence), altho it is very nice. Save it for another trip. Spend half your time in Roma and the other half in Venezia, You will be rested and less stressed- a good day trip from Venice is Verona and another is Vicenza. Also, both are near to Venice and both are cheaper!

Gotta go with leaving Florence out too. Unless of coarse congestion and fake Gucci bags are why you travel. Down the road you could do a trip with Sienna as a base and day trip to Florence, as well as other great towns. Sienna is the better place as far as I'm concerned. An extra day in Rome as suggested would be good. I for one can't imagine less than two nights in the CT. And finally, Venice(Over-rated Disney theme park) could be side tripped from Verona which is a truly great city.

Suggestion, We just got back. We did Rome, Cinquetera, and Venice. I suggest you carry a small map of Italy that shows train connections. There is one in front of Steve's Italy book. We left Monterossa at 7:35am train to Bologna where we were suppose to take the Eurostar to Venice. We had reserved 2nd class on that. Our engine broke down in a town a few stops from Cinque Terra. Thanks to that map and a nice Italian man who was going in out direction a group of us hopped on and off about 5 different trains until we made it it to Venice about 2 hours late. We looked at the map and it the train was going in that direction, we all took it. Our train from Rome to Cinque Terra ran late to. We did have reserved seats. Once we got into the La Spezia there were alot of trains going to Monterossa.

Mary, one thing to keep in mind, Susan is the only person I have ever heard from, talked to, or seen post anything on this forum that hasn't liked Siena. Siena is gorgeous and the people aren't any ruder than anywhere else in Italy.

I don't think you're packing in too much if you're able and comfortable with seeing the highlights and moving on. A lot of it depends on how you're moving around. Are you renting a car or going by train? If you're renting a car then this is very doable. If you're going by train then I'd cut something out.

If you're not a museum buff then do Florence as a day trip from Siena. The wife and I saw the highlights of Florence in a day and we don't feel like we missed out.

Spend at least 3 days in Rome and 2 days in Siena. Stop at Pisa to see the tower on your way to one full day (sunup to sundown) in the Cinque Terre. Then your last 3 days are in Venice. You won't get to see much of Tuscany, so cut out the CT if you want to drive around to a hill town or 2.