Itinerary feedback - family of 4 with 2 teen girls

Sorry, this is our first trip to Italy.

I have some random comments.

You have listed 9 towns but say you want to limit your stays to 3-4 bases. So presumably daytrips out of a central location? We prefer to go and stay at the places we want to see, rather than use the “base” concept with daytrips elsewhere. To us, the “base” concept makes the most sense when one has a longer period to stay in one place, with an apartment rental. Otherwise we prefer to move from place to place, with the idea that anyplace worth visiting is worth 2 nights.

It is helpful to think in terms of nights spent at each place, rather than days.

We took our daughters to Italy a few years back when one was a teen and the other a college grad, to celebrate both graduations. It was a memorable and enjoyable trip for all. We had a more compact trip and did not go as far south as Rome (intentionally). Our stops were Verona (with tickets for the opera in the arena there), Florence, Lucca, Siena, Cinque Terre, and Varenna. Our focus was on walking/hiking/cultural experiences, as well as good food. We enjoy walking and photography. The only museum we hit was the Accademia in Florence, to see the David.

We rented a car for a short time, to get to this place near Siena (5 km out of town):

http://www.mulinodiquercegrossa.it

The swimming pools were amazing and it provided a nice relaxing break midway in our trip. Siena was a lovely town and we enjoyed walking and dinner there, in the run-up to the Palio. We rented the car in Lucca and returned it at Pisa to catch the train to Manarola.

I think you are wise to omit Cinque Terre from your itinerary as it is really, really crowded.

We all enjoyed Varenna, with a day of walking and crossing the lake on the ferry to swim at Menaggio. And a day doing the cooking class at the restaurant above town (whose name escapes me at the moment). This was one of the highlights of our trip.

In late July it will be hot and there will be crowds of tourists -- not just Americans, but folks from all over Europe as well as other parts of the world. You might as well plan on that reality.

You've got several one-day visits to different towns which are all attractive and interesting, but they're going to be a blur if you see them at that pace. Another way I'd say this is, your list of destinations would make sense if you had 28 days instead of 14. Given your allotted time, I would highly recommend eliminating half of your destinations. If you do that, you'll stand a much better chance of actually enjoying the trip instead of getting cranky and frustrated after the first few days.

First the positive-- you have done a good job of making it a 'one way' trip.

The not so positive--- 10 places in 14 days. It appears you plan to catch your flight from Milan after spending the night in Varenna. Almost everyone here would consider that a risk not worth taking.

If you are unable to allocate more time for this trip, you really need to consider reducing your destinations and accept the fact you will have to hit the others on another trip

Do you plan on spending the night in each one of these towns? Do you realize how much time it takes to check out of a hotel, find your train, arrive at next stop, check in to hotel. Can take 1/2 a day, especially with 4 people trying to get organized.

I think it would be better if you did something like this-

Arrive Rome, 4 nights. Can do a day trip to Orvieto.
Florence 3-4 nights. Can do day trips to Siena and/or Lucca. Or spend 2 nights in one of those towns.
Pick either Santa Margherita/Porto Venere or Varenna for 2-3 nights. (personally, I would pick Varenna).
Spend your last night in Milan so you can get to the airport without worries. Trying to come from another town is iffy, what if there is a train strike?

You can't do everything the first time, and you will be back!

Hello and thank you all for your replies and suggestions. The plan outlined was crafted after scouring the forum here and the books, so I tried to meld all of that advice into it.

Our original plan was to rent a car for travel outside of Rome and Florence, but read that these towns I have listed would be approachable via day trips from central bases. Our hesitation in renting a car and driving from town to town was having to leave the luggage for the four of us in the car when not at lodging. It seems the trains go "most" places, so that's the only reason we switched gears to train mostly, and less rental car. And staying in a central base when possible as opposed to moving around so much.

I tried to cut out towns or areas that seemed "somewhat" duplicative, but I'm sure there is more to be done on that front. If you have suggestions for destinations from list above to cut out and leave for our next trips to Italy, I welcome your suggestions.

My dream would be to hole up in a rental home with a pool and view for 3-4 days, but was trying to stave off that selfish desire.

We travel and navigate pretty well and the kids are good travelers too!

Thanks in advance, appreciate your time.

Sorry, and yes, we did plan to spend the last night in Milan, preferably as close to the airport as possible. The flight departs most likely between 8 and 10am.

We stayed a here for our last night before early flight from MXP. Would not hesitate to use them again.

http://www.cavalieridellacorona.com/en/home-page.aspx

That is a LOT to get in. I don't have much advice but we just returned after 13 days with two kids. We did:

Day 1 - arrive, recover!
Day 2-5 - Rome
Day 6 - train to Florence
Day 7 - day trip from Florence to Pisa
Day 8-10 - Florence
Day 11 - train to Venice
Day 12-13 - Venice and flight home!

And we didn't see everything we wanted. We kept to hotels/apartments located near 90% of what we wanted to see to save as much time and walking as possible. And we knew from previous vacations that kids slow us down just a bit.

I know with your itinerary my kids would be sick of traveling by Day 5, especially if you are doing day trips to many of those places. Traveling takes up a lot of time - you want to get to the train station early because you'll be unfamiliar, and budget extra time to walk to the station as you're going to be stopping to take pictures along the way, etc. I fear you'll be spending more time in trains than actually seeing things.

I would simplify. Even with our itinerary, there was much I would have done different (fewer museums). So your itinerary is certainly doable, but I'm not sure it's enjoyable.

Good luck!
Scott

are very casual and experienced travelers, both domestically and in Europe.

I was going to discuss your schedule, then I read this. Is this itinerary indicative of the way you travel in other areas of Europe, with multiple short stays? If you are and are happy with it, then go for it.

Personally, I'd do a lot of consolidation. I'd stay in Rome, the Tuscany region, Varenna and end up in Milan to leave. As mentioned, Orvieto could be a day trip from Rome. Then Siena, Volterra, Florence and Lucca could all be day trips from one home base. Assisi, in Umbria, could be doable but would be a big time suck from other locations.

Where you stay as your home base would depend on the transportation you chose. If you are using public transportation, then I'd use either Siena or Florence as a hub. Siena might be slightly better to use as a base. If you rented a car, you could travel from Rome to Orvieto, visit Orvieto and rent a car from there the next day to your Tuscany home base, which could be a nice agriturismo either near Siena or Greve.

We prefer fewer changes of locations. I'm trying to think about how much time it would take to get two teenage girls up in the morning packed and ready to go to the next stop.

Hi travel_grrrl!
First off, how many nights do you have on the ground in Italy? 14 or 15? It's a little tough to tell. As you've heard from the others, this is a really ambitious itinerary that could have ya'll pooped halfway through it...especially if you're trying to roust 2 teenagers out of the rack nearly every morning to get on a train :O)

How about making it a little easier on yourself, Mom?

I think you can - and should - drop some locations and still have a terrific trip. As the poster before me said, you might be used to a very active schedule and so could pull your itinerary off without a hitch but it's the very tight agendas that don't handle hitches well when they happen. Making some assumptions, such as your first "day" in Rome being arrival day, and having 15 nights on the ground, what about something like this?

Night 1: Rome. This is assuming it's a jet--lagged, partial arrival day
Night 2: Rome
Night 3: Rome
Night 4: Rome. IMHO, 4 nights/3.5 days is the minimum for the Eternal City
Night 5: Rome/Orvieto - partial day
Night 6: Orvieto
Night 7: Orvieto/Florence - partial day
Night 8: Florence
Night 9: Florence -daytrip to Sienna
Night 10: Florence
Night 11: Florence/Lucca: partial day
Night 12: Lucca
Night 13: Lucca/Santa Santa Margherita OR Varenna - partial day
Night 14: Santa Santa Margherita OR Varenna
Night 15 - Milan/Malpensa - partial day
Next morning, fly from Malpensa.

This itinerary is 5 moves, no 1-night stays except an overnight in Milan or Malpensa, a stay in a "waterside" location, and all of these towns/cities are on a train line, although Siena is more efficiently reached by bus from Florence. You could mix it up just a little by adding a day to Florence and daytripping Lucca from there but RS posters have really enjoyed that one, and the family might like walking or biking the old walls around the town.

You could also just daytrip Orvieto from Rome and add that 2nd day to something else, probably Santa Santa Margherita or Varenna. What I wouldn't do is add another location that involves a hotel move as 5 is already more than I'd personally like to make over 2 weeks but we're all different!

If your flight out of Malpensa is at 10:00 or so, I'd stay in Milan, somewhere close to Centrale Station. You could dump the bags and get a nice afternoon's look at the duomo and have a little walkabout before dinner.

(Edited some typos)

Okay, here's the latest and we added some time to the trip:

U.S. to Rome (flight day/night/overnight)

Rome (arrival day)

Rome

Rome

Rome

Orvieto

Heart of Tuscany

Siena

Siena

Florence

Florence

Florence

Florence

Lucca

Varenna

Varenna

Varenna (to Milan that day)

Milan to U.S.

Only thing I think we're not seeing is an ocean area.

If this works, I'm guessing this is 4 bases, not counting Milan.

We are heading to Italy for the first time too late June / early July and traveling with 3 teenage girls, our twin daughters and one of their friends. We have an 10 night trip planned. Originally, our itinerary was 2 nights in Venice, 2 night in Florence, 3 nights in Cinque Terra, and 3 nights Rome. Two weeks ago, after hearing feedback from my family, I decided that we were trying to cram too much in, so I took out Florence and added a night in Venice and in Cinque Terra, so now its 3 night Venice, 4 night CT and 3 nights Rome. I think this will allow us to slow down and really be able to leisurely enjoy our trip. I felt like our change was meant to be too, because we are doing an air b&b in Cinque Terra and it was actually still available for us to be able to add another night.

It sounds like you have a pretty packed trip...I know I had a very hard time choosing what we were going to do so I can relate to wanting to get everything in. I just finally convinced myself that we'll go back. Florence and Pompeii were high on my list and it did sting a little to give those up. I wish you well on your trip!