Italy itinerary suggestions

Hi, a couple of activities you might like in Florence:

A city bike tour with “I Bike Florence – Original City Bike Tour” and a cooking class, “Pasta Class Florence, The Art of Pasta – Authentic Recipes”. I have been to Florence a couple of times. The bike tour took us to some of the places I hadn’t seen previously, and it was an overall fun experience for both of us. We saw so much during the three hours! Our guide, Martina, was excellent with lots of info, too. The pasta class was excellent! Our chef taught us how to make three different filled pastas and three widths of straight pasta. His sauces were all delicious!

In Rome, there’s so many beautiful churches! I step into some as I am walking by. Another one is the beautiful San Giovanni di Laterano Basilica, if you happen to be walking near it.

You will surely want to visit Venice’s most famous church, the Basilica San Marco. This is the official website:

http://www.basilicasanmarco.it/

It is best to make reservations for a timed entrance. Use the “Prenota” button on that webpage to get to the ticket page, or use this link (It is the official site, in spite of that “skiperformance” part:

https://basilicasanmarco.skiperformance.com/en/store#/en/buy?skugroup_id=2524

You will see a variety of options. I suggest you get the Basilica + Museum ticket (not the Museum + Loggia ticket, which does not include the Basilica). With this ticket, after a circuit of the floor of the Basilica, you can go upstairs to see the famous horses—-both the originals inside the museum, and the huge replicas outside on the balcony overlooking the piazza. You may want to include the Pala d’Oro as well.

The two best times to visit San Marco are, in my opinion, the first entrance in the morning, when the church is not at all crowded, or around 11-noon, when they turn on the lights to illuminate the mosaics up high in the church. This is lovely, but the church is more crowded at this time.

Sorry, but you are already planning too many cites for 7 days.

Plan your trip to include transportation to and from train stations, the figure the travel time between cities. You will find that you will not have 7 full days.

Also, check your tours for the places you wish to visit and you many find that you won't be able to accomplish everything. The Duomo in Florence is not open every day, so check that on your schedule. Also, admission into Academia will still require a bit of waiting in line based on our last visit to Florence a few years ago. Taking a day trip to Pisa will eat up most of your one day.

In Venice, don't you plan to visit St. Mark's amazing cathedral or climb the tower nearby!? With the little time you will have, you will miss so much.

Firstly, are those FULL days you have listed?
How are you getting around...train? rental car? hired van? car service?
You need to factor in the amount of time necessary to get to/from each destination, then when you can get into your accommodations. If you're staying at a hotel/BnB/home share...you're probably not going to be able to get checked-in until after noon, so have you planned on what you're doing with your luggage before that time?

Rome in 3-days what you listed is largely doable. If you're going to visit one museum in Italy, the Vatican Museum is pretty hard to beat, hiring a tour guide will make life easier and help provide some perspective. You will definitely need to secure tickets in-advance for the Colosseum and the ancient sites.

2-days in Florence, is pretty short. Accademia is a a small museum and the main feature is David, does not require any deep art-history understanding, use the RS Self-Guided Audio Tour to provide a free tour and perspective. I'd pass on visiting Pisa and remain in Florence, better-off using your time to visit Medici Chapel, Santa Croce, stroll through the streets and piazzas while enjoying a cocktail/cafe/snacks.

2-days in Venice, also a pretty short time. A tour of the Doge's Palace would be a worthwhile activity rather than fighting/struggling to get that perfect picture amongst the throngs of tourists/day-trippers. You can spend a lot of your time wandering around, visiting shops and exploring.

I recommend the City Wonders “First entrance” tour for the Sistine Chapel and Vatican Museum. They are one of the few (I think 3) tour companies that truly get to go in first. We did this several years ago and were practically alone in the Sistine Chapel—-there were fewer than 40 people when we came in.

https://citywonders.com/vatican-tours/sistine-chapel-early-access

There are no longer tours of the Vatican Museums that get you inside before the Museums open to the public. Yes, the tours are accurately described as "first entrance", but they used to be "early entrance", meaning you really were in less-crowded conditions if you paid the money (around 100 euros, I believe) and showed up super-early. Now anyone who buys a first-time-slot entry ticket gets inside along with the "first entrance tour" members. What those tour members experience in 2024 will not be the same as in the past.