Itinerary for 18 days in Italy

I love itinerary questions. You will notice that itinerary advice will fall into two camps those who say sleep in fewer places and use those places as a home base to make day trips / explore the area. I myself am not in that camp. I'm in the camp that says move around and sleep in as many interesting and wonderful places as possible. That being said I would cut out a day or two from Rome, venice and Florence and see other parts of the country. You can really see a lot of Italy in 18 days. Here is my suggestion in the following order. But by count I don't think you have enough days to stay in some of those places as long as you want. Rome - Days 1, 2, 3, and 4 CT - Days 5, 6, and 7 Milan - Day 8 (or leave your bag at the train station see the sights and head on to...) Lake Como - Days 9 & 10 Venice - Days 11, 12, and 13 Florence - Days 14, 15, & 16 Siena - Days 17 & 18. Rome Day 19 and depart day 20. It is too bad you are not flying open jaw it would free you a lot more. if you were to fly open jaw I would fly into Milan and leave from Rome and incorporate Sorrento into the itinerary. You could still incorporate Sorrento if you wanted to but you would need to trim a couple of days from some other stops.

I'm sorry that is all clumped together, it was separated when I typed it, I swear. Come on Rick gives us the ability to make paragraphs.

Scott, I agree with the open jaw idea, however, I'm flying on free miles and to get me on the free flights I had to fly in and out of Rome. Believe me I tried everything to get an open jaw flight. I appreciate your time frames that you gave. Do you have any suggestions for rooms and which city of CT to stay on? Have you had any bad experiences in your accomodations while in Italy?

I like the previous suggestion, mostly. Lake Como just didn't click with me and my husband; I thought it was pretty/beautiful but boring. I found the Cinque Terre much more interesting. And though I very much liked Milan when I visited, unless you REALLY want to go there, I'd skip it for this trip and add some time to Rome or Venice. There is so much to see in Rome! We travel during cooler months, so I have no experience locating places with A/C. But I would guess that the smaller accommodations would be less likely to have air conditioning. We've always stayed in small, non-chain hotels or inns (often family owned), or in B&Bs. My husband has a hangup about staying in a place with 24-hour staff available, so I indulge him in that. But even staying in those kinds of hotels, we've experienced a great deal of variety. Also, I like to see pictures of the rooms and the bathrooms, which is more likely with hotels or B&Bs than private rooms (I don't have experience with convents or hostels). In the Cinque Terre, I prefer Monterosso, because there's a bigger variety of restaurants. Lots of Rick Steves folks, however, prefer Vernazza.

Sent you a private message.

Thanks for all your suggestions. We hadn't thought about adding Lake Como to our agenda but now are reconsidering. Thanks.