Italy trip

I would cut out either the CT or the AC. For me it would be the CT because it's so far away and will take all day to get to from Venice, it's a 6.5 hours train ride.

You really don't have time for other locations. I would actually cut out another location and split the time between 3 places. 4 nights in a location only gives you 3 full days there. That's very little time for the locations you have listed.

Donna

Where are you flying in and out of? That makes a difference.

Given the rest of your trip, I would drop Amalfi coast and do Lake Como/Milan.
This would give you the option to fly into Milan or Venice and depart from Rome.

I would drop the Cinque Terre, as it is crowded, takes a long time from Venice, and you can substitute coastal hiking on the Amalfi coast, which has more room for tourists to spread out provided they do research.
It also works great if you can fly into Venice and out of Naples.

Is this your first trip to Italy?

thank you community members for your feedback

charlotte, we are flying into milan and flying out of rome
aquamarinesteph, yes this is our first trip to italy.

I'll be the odd-person-out here. I believe, if this is your first trip to Italy, that you're moving around too much. Assuming you are drawn to Italy to experience the art, history, culture and food, you are spending 4 days traveling and not sightseeing. That means you are spending a lot of time packing/unpacking, finding your transportation, checking in and out of lodging, etc. instead of enjoying what Italy has to offer. I've said it before, tour companies can sustain this pace because they have done it (many times) before but tourists new to a country/area have a steeper learning curve.

I would pick a maximum of three bases for sightseeing. I also think the Veneto (region around Venice) has a lot more to offer than can be seen in just two nights. There's Padua, Vicenza and as someone else offered, Verona - all within 1 - 1.5 hours on the train. There are also the Dolomite mountains and the Asiago Plateau one can explore.

Florence also deserves four days to see adequately and then there's the Tuscan countryside to explore. A day trip to Pisa and Lucca and a day trip to Tuscan/Chianti wineries are both perfect activities in September.

Rome is also a city which deserves as much time as you can devote. And if you need to get out of the city for a bit of a breather, day trips to the countryside and Pompeii are easily doable.

I'll join the "too much" choir for all the reasons given. As a first-timer it'll take you a bit of time to get your bearings in each new location, and a lot of packing/unpacking and moving around eats time you could be spending having fun.

It looks like your 17 nights translates to 16 full days once you subtract a partial arrival day. I wouldn't do more than a maximum of 4 bases with that amount of time, and I'd probably drop the Amalfi and the CT in favor of Como + maybe your arrival night in Milan. The Amalfi is your outlier and will involve backtracking if you are ending your trip in Rome so save it for a future trip. I'll agree with some of the previous posters that Rome and Florence both deserve at least 4 nights. Florence is also an excellent base for day trips to Siena and Lucca.

So just as option #1, you could look at Milan (1 night/arrival)> Varenna (3 nights)> Venice (4 nights, 1 day trip)> Florence (5 nights, 2 day trips)> Rome (4 nights).

Option #2: exchange Varenna/Como for the CT (Milan> Venice> Florence> CT>Rome).

I am assuming that you have 17 nights on the ground in Italy, and your overnight flight isn't part of the math? If you only have 16 nights on the ground, then shave a night from Varenna/CT, Florence or Venice.

Editing to add: I know that 1 night in Milan = 5 locations but I'm calling it a jet-lag recovery night before having to head off to the bulk of your trip. Get in, drop the bags, freshen up, go look at the Duomo, have dinner and crash.

I prefer both AC and CT over Lake Como so wouldn't drop both those locations nor include Lake Como in your plans.

Like most others, I would agree that you would be better off with less movement.
Given you have a good amount of time, I would pick the more impressive place which is the AC over CT.
Drop CT from your plan.
That only nets you 2 nights but feel you need more time for AC anyway, change AC to 6 nights and you are good.
Or 5 with your first night in Milan if you want.

If you are arriving in the morning to Milan I wouldn't stop there for the night.
If you are arriving in the afternoon I would ; or if you really want to see the Duomo I would.

We just returned from our first trip to Italy, on a RS Heart of Italy tour that included CT, Florence, and Rome, along with Volterra. I'm on the trim-the-tinerary team. We found it wasn't until the third day in a location that we felt acclimatized enough to feel like we could just BE in the place we were and not have to figure it out. Two nights in the Cinque Terre is enough for only one day on the trails/in the towns and there are hordes of day trippers from the cruise ships. While I don't know the options - at all - if you are looking for beach experience, Amalfi might be a better choice. But I would do one or the other.

You mention you want to 'cover' the places you mentioned. We had a list, too, for Rome. We were going hard all day for the three nights we spent there. Got home and crossed about 25% of the items off the list. You can't 'cover' these huge, densely rich historic and artistic wonders and enjoy the culture as well. The time is so short it's more of a taste. We decided early on that the best strategy was to truly enjoy whatever came our way, understanding a) it's impossible to make a bad choice and b) we'll be back. It's all good, have a glass of wine and enjoy every moment!

You mention you want to 'cover' the places you mentioned. We had a
list, too, for Rome. We were going hard all day for the three nights
we spent there. Got home and crossed about 25% of the items off the
list. You can't 'cover' these huge, densely rich historic and artistic
wonders and enjoy the culture as well. The time is so short it's more
of a taste.

Polly--

That was our first trip to Rome, in 2010. 3 days, 2 nights, a fly-by. Did the Hop-On-Hop-Off, thought we did OK. Wasn't until we returned last year March and rented an apartment over the Campo de' Fiori market for a week and just let ourselves be, that we realized how much we had missed the first go 'round.

Yeah, we saw attractions over the week, actually a lot of them, but it was while in the process of just wandering around. Certainly, we had a guidebook, but we said OK, if we take the bus over there, we could see this, this & this. And half the time we'd get off the bus and find something completely different, stuff that wasn't even in the guidebook! And we were always suckers for an outdoor cafe to people-watch and rest the weary dogs.

If you can, plan on returning to Roma to simply experience. That and NYC are my favorite big cities in the world.

One hour in any museum (there are only a few exceptions to this rule).

Whoa! Andrew! You didn't list those "exceptions" but we've spent more happy hours in Italian (Parisian, Belgium, London, German etc.) museums and historic churches than that. Sure, if art, history or architecture isn't one's thing then maybe one hour is enough but if it is, then 60 minutes isn't nearly enough. There's also the advantage of being able to LEARN about, say, Renaissance art in front of works that have been in place for many centuries. We don't have that opportunity in the U.S.

Rick Steves recommends seeing the best right away.

But "best" is subjective so it's usually better to choose based on personal criteria versus what someone else's "best" might be? How do you know what pieces, which places, which experiences, speak to you unless you've allowed time to discover them yourself? I think Rick himself wouldn't argue with that.

I used to think like you, Andrew...

But after three trips and more than 5 weeks on the ground in Italy, I've totally changed my thinking. Yes, for my trips I do as much advance research as anybody on this board, I assure you, pretty much to the point of anal-retentiveness. Excel sheets, data sticks, military-style packing, fail-safe methods in case tickets get lost, auxiliary plans B & C to complement Plan A--the whole nine yards. It's borderline nuts.

What that gives me, Andrew, is the absolute freedom to lounge & people-watch if I want, or micro-plan attraction-viewing to peak efficiency if I so choose. But anybody who hasn't stopped to smell the proverbial roses in Italy, if only for an hour at a time, is missing the whole essence of the country--la dolce far niente, which loosely translated is the 'sweetness of doing nothing'.

The relative cost of my airfare has absolutely no bearing on how I conduct myself in Italy. I'm just happy to be there experiencing a way of life & existence that is sorely lacking here in the US, and at my departing airport I start thinking of ways to get back as soon as possible.

Well said, Jay! While off topic for the OP this is a valuable discussion vis a vis different travel styles . “Making the most of your time” means different things to different people. To us, our Euro trips are increasingly about being there and less about sights or sites. Next trip is almost 100% hiking. If we go into a museum or church it will be in a very small town and not on the radar for most travelers. We will see mountain beauty, lakeside splendor, and the gentle Mediterranean, plus countless cafes. We will stroll through villages and ride lifts and cog railways. Quite different from checking off the list!

Omigosh, Andrew, where on the Mediterranean? That's truly a dream of mine. Such history & beauty.