Looking for thoughts on possible itineraries. We fly in and out of Rome with 14 nights to plan in October. We had originally planned to go to Sicily, but have decided we do not have enough time to do it justice, and also don't want to commit to extra plane flights at this time.
Little about our past travels, we have been to Italy once, 15. years ago with our kids. We were lucky enough to have almost a month and feel we saw most of the highlights (Venice, CT, Florence, Rome, Sorrento) as well as several smaller areas ( Lucca, Arezzo area, Verona). We would like to enjoy being there, see smaller sites, have some great meals that we couldn't afford to feed the kids etc. I'm trying not to go back to most places we saw, but we were getting tired when we did Rome last time, so would like some time there. We prefer to take the train or bus, as my husband drives a lot, but are not adverse to picking up a rental car for a shorter period of time.
My tentative itinerary is the following. I feel it needs tweaking.
Rome 3 nights
Orvieto 2 nights
Siena 2 nights
Bologna 3 nights
Venice, or the other extreme ,Naples for 2 -3 nights
Back to Rome for 1-2 nights
I think these can all be done with public transport, with one long train day but near the end of the trip so ready to rest. We did ponder going south as it might be warmer, but I haven't really thought of an itinerary for that