Itinerary suggestions/comments on 14 night trip - April 2026?

I do not commit to anything that must be prebooked on my arrival day, because I know I will be a zombie. You may know you are different; what about your husband? What you do not want is to be in Rome, scrambling for last-minute tickets to top sights--which is where you'll be if you book for day of arrival and find yourselves in no confition to sightsee.

There is now the option to pre-purchase entry to St. Peter's with an audio guide. That gets you into a separate security line, which should greatly speed up entry into the basilica.

I think for folks not much interested in art and architecture you may have allocated too much time to Florence in comparison to Rome. I think you're short in Rome, which has so many interesting churches. Some are quite small and don't take long to see, but they are scattered around the city, so it takes time to get to them.

As you characterize you interest in art, I think 5 nights is total overload for Florence. I’m in the minority, but art treasures aside I didn’t much care for the city. Cinque Terre seems much more important to you, so why not move some nights there. So, 2 nights Siena, 3 nights CT and 2 in Florence? I think most would agree that trying to daytrip to CT is one of those high effort/ low reward experiences where you are there and moving at the worst times in the day.

I found the security lines at St. Peter’s crazy long at all times. If acraven says there’s a timed entry ticket with separate line now, then I would jump on that. I think it’s doable especially with you staying so close. You can easily schedule yourselves an afternoon break and then head over.

Thank you very much for your thoughts.

Regarding CT, have you ever been somewhere that, when walking through, you think, "Wow! This reminds me of Disneyland/Las Vegas"? I got a bit of that in CT when we stayed there two nights in 2019 on a girls trip. We cut our short our three nights and only stayed two. So many touristy shops trying to separate me from my money. I understand that people need to make a living, but it was overload. We slept in Vernazza and stopped at the 5 cities via train.

That is why I was thinking of a "drive by" from the water, with limited time on land...maybe a meal, a church, a gelato...might be enough. I really regret letting my daughter talk me out of CT in 2003. It may have been different then.

What do you think of Lucca as a place to chill after Rome? Rather than Siena? I would kind of like to set my eyes on the leaning tower of Pisa if the opportunity arises and it seems like Lucca might be a good base for that.

I like Lucca a lot. I also like Siena, but if you have seen it twice, perhaps you could give it a miss. However I agree with the prior poster that 5 nights in Florence is too much when you have little interest in art. I always think the charm of Italy is in some of it's smaller towns. If I were doing your trip, I would take 2 or 3 nights from Florence and add Lucca, and keep Siena.

If you only want to do a boat trip, check out Portovenere for your start instead of Vernazza, very lovely little town, and far less crowds. It will go all the way up to all the towns in CT. You would be closer from Lucca to do this too.

I second Lisa's thought. I had wanted to take the "see Cinque Terre from the water" boat on my trip a couple of years ago, but when I saw the lines for the boats in Monterosso, I gave up the idea.

Venice could always use more days, just to wander and be........

Thank you, all.

It is good to hear about the queues for the boats around CT. I have looked at the cruise ship schedule for La Spezia and would try for a day that has no cruise ship in town. However, the weather has a lot to do with which day to be out on a boat, so flexibility is important. It will be near the end of April, so weather could be great or not.

We are still in the rough itinerary stage and I really appreciate being able to bounce ideas off of you.

@Pat. I have added another day to Venice. Good idea.

And for Venice, I recommend the Hotel Ai Mori D'Oriente in the Cannaregio area. It's canal side, charming, great staff, and in an area that is peaceful and quiet, yet just a ten minute walk to a vaporetto stop on the Grand Canal. The walk from the train station is about 15 minutes. Enjoy!

Pat, Thank you for the suggestion of Hotel Ai Mori D'Oriente. I have booked a room there.

If you can spend a nite or two then one of the towns on either side of the CT might be an idea that lets you skip the crowds and tourist focus of staying in the CT towns themselves.

South is Lerici, only reachable by bus if using public transit. It is on the ferry line that goes along the CT and was said by the NYTimes to be where Italians go in the region. We visited after reading the article and enjoyed our stay. See https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/travel/20next.html

The first town north of CT is Levanto, where the RS tours stay these days. It also is on the ferry route although it only has a few departures in the morning. It is on the train line so that makes getting there (and back/forth from a daytrip to the CT) easier. On the Village Italy tour last year it was one of our favorite stops. Bonassola was a nice walk along the water on a reclaimed rail path. Santa Margherita Ligure is also reachable by rail, a delightful town to explore.

A different idea if 5 nites in Florence is too much and you don't want the time it takes to trek to the CT region is to take two nites and go to nearby Bologna (which is on the way to Venice). You can be there in under an hour on the train. The RS books don't cover Bologna but plenty of others do. It is in what some call the food capital of Italy (Parma ham, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, Balsamico di Modena, etc) and the city has miles of covered porticos to walk.

Thank you, @John. I will take a look at those options.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

We have lodgings booked based on the following schedule:

Rome - 4 nights
Lucca - 3 nights
Florence - 3 nights (one day is April 25, a holiday)
Venice - 4 nights
Then on to Paris for 5 nights.

Can I say how much I like booking.com and the option to not pay everything right away? I like to spread the payments over two or three months for cash flow purposes.

I have a spreadsheet with the cancellation dates as well as dates to purchase advance tickets for Colosseum, Vatican/St. Peters, Uffizi, Accademia, and San Marcos Basillica.

Did I maybe misread your original post? You are not much interested in art or architecture?

Then, yes, 5 nights in Florence might be overkill for you. The main attractions of the city are absolutely centered on art, particularly Renaissance art and architecture of that time period. Not to say there aren't other things to do, but you will have to do your research. Same comment with other areas of Tuscany, really.