Italy October

Suggest you use something like google maps and plot out all the places you want to go... It will help you narrow down what/where you can go in the time allotted.

You can go to all the places you mention, but if you want to see something while there, then you have some issues

Lisa a lot more information is necessary to determine if you can do all this. Right off the bat, I'll say that any "etc" isn't possible let alone Lucca, Pisa, Florence AND Assisi + Rome. Something will have to go.

How many nights will you have on the ground in Italy? If you are including arrival and departure days, you have less time to work with than you think.

What are the main interests for your group?

Do any of them have mobility issues?

It doesn't make sense to suggest restaurants and "sights" until we know how much time you realistically have (you will lose at least 1/2 day with every location move) and what else you want to see beside the Vatican (there are multiple areas there) and Pompeii. We can't choose those for you so a guidebook would be helpful if you don't have some sort of idea what all 3-4 of you might like.

9 days will fly by - you may have to cut something. Traveling to each place takes away precious time. How about just use Rome and Florence as your bases? Rome- don't miss the Pantheon, the Colosseum, the Forum, Vatican. We also did 2 EATING ITALY FOOD TOURS in Rome that were great. You could take a day trip to Pompeii - although, we love Herculaneum much better (best pizza we had in our 3 weeks in Italy was in Herculaneum). Smaller, more manageable, very similar - the RS guidebook walks you through it - the same volcano that plummeted Pompeii, did the same to Herculaneum - check it out. We spend at least 3 weeks in Italy when we go and we never get a car.

You could train to Florence for 4-5 nights and use WALKABOUT FLORENCE for day trips into Tuscany. We did 2 - THE BEST OF TUSCANY and CHIANTI WINE & FOOD SAFARI - both amazing with a good intro to Tuscany (you'll see 3 towns if you do the BEST OF TUSCANY one) - check out their webpage and reviews on TripAdvisor, but if you book, do so directly thru the WALKABOUT FLORENCE website. We also had great food & wine on both of these tours. Florence had some of the best food in our 3 weeks in Italy.

If three of four have been there before --- what do they want to do. They also might have some advice for you. Put some pins in a map so you understand distances and read guide books and view travel DVDs.

Also note that the days are shorter in October than in the summer and the weather may be chilly. Both of those factors will limit how much outdoor sightseeing you can do, or can enjoy doing.

If you have 9 nights and your top priorities are the Vatican and Pompeii, then plan around those. It is possible to see Pompeii as a day trip from Rome, but your time in Pompeii scavi will be so short that you'll only scratch the surface. If you are real Pompeii fans, travel from Rome in late afternoon, stay 2 nights, spend the intervening day really exploring the Pompeii scavi, then take a fast train to Florence next morning. Once you are in Florence you can branch out to Lucca, Pisa, etc. on day trips -- but Florence itself is worth 2 or 3 days, so you see you'll be running short on time.

Night 1 & 2 & 3: Rome, including Vatican

Night 4 & 5: Pompeii

Night 6 & 7 & 8: Florence, including nearby towns/cities

Night 9: Rome, fly out next day

You probably already know that the train trip from Rome to Pompeii involves changing in Naples.

9 days is likely to be only 7 in reality. Your arrival day is mostly lost - getting through the airport and to your hotel, sleep-deprived after a night flight and generally in a haze of jetlag. Your last day is just going back to the airport - maybe after a leisurely breakfast and a long walk if you're lucky.

I'd suggest going to Florence on arrival for 3-4 nights. You can see Pisa and Lucca in one (long) day by train from Florence. That gives you one day to see the major sights of Florence. Then train to Rome for 4-5 nights. Pompeii is a long but doable day trip. I guess you could spend 3N in Florence, 4N in Rome and 1 night in Assisi between them. It's a rather long train ride from Florence and another long one to Rome but if it's a high priority, I say "go for it."

I am also traveling to Rome and Venice in mid-October. Someone said seeing Herulaneum is better than Pompeii...just curious as to why? I'm a big history fan, and am looking forward to seeing the ruins. I thought that the weather in October was supposed to be pretty mild..at least from what I have read.

I like Chani's response(although I would cut out Assisi)...

In 2013 we flew into Venice(1 night)-Florence(3 nights)and flew out of Rome(5 nights) in 2013. Venice was a haze, Florence was just the hi-lites + a daytrip to Pisa/Siena/Sam Gimignano and even 5 nights in Rome flew by(and we didn't do any daytrips out of there). The trip was amazing but way too much for the time frame. In retrospect, we should have cut Venice...which we're doing this time!
We went end of September-early October and it was great weather-warm to the point that all the venues without A/C were a little uncomfortable, ie. museums(Vatican for sure) where they lack modern amenities due to the age of the buildings.

We're going again in June with our grown son and his girlfriend and training up from Fiumicino Airport direct to Florence for 3 nights (2 trains per day go direct) and then back to Rome for eight nights. The trains are brilliant to travel by(prebook through Trenitalia/Italo as far as advance as possible to get better rates and reserved seating). From Rome we're doing a small group tour to Pompeii/Amalfi Coast(WalksofItaly) and then our own daytrip to Naples via train for a couple of free walking tours and we still have enough to do in Rome with the kids to more than fill our time. Prebook museums/sites wherever possible to avoid long ticket lines and get skip-the-line access. (Security lines still apply). And both Rome/Florence are very walkable and interesting if you give yourselves enough time to get where you're going.