Little extra time in Venice and Rome

Stay in Rome and see the sights. A day trip to Amalfi is too much. If you have seen Rome consider Hadrians Villa and/or Tivoli east of Rome for day trips, also Ostia Antica.

Take a look at Rick's itinerary for Venezia and compare it to everything in the guidebook: there's more to see! The Guggenheim Museum, a walk out to Sant'Elena, or just soak it up and get over jetlag with a walk! We've been to Venezia 6 times and are still enchanted.

Roma: As mentioned Tivoli for Villa d'Este or Hadrian's Villa ( I like Villa d'Este more), Ostia Antica, maybe a day trip to Orvieto. Or you might see something on the R.S. tour you want to return to. Absolutely not reasonable to day trip to the Amalfi Coast. Go there your next time when you are experienced Italian travelers!

I'd advise just doing more sightseeing in Rome as well. The tour only provides two full days in a city with a GREAT deal to see, and it may be nice just to do some more leisurely sightseeing before heading home: the two previous day will be "strenuous".

I might suggest:
Making reservations for Galleria Borghese: excellent museum that's far less overrun than the Vatican's

Walking some of the Appia Antica. This was the highlight of our several trips to Rome.

Visiting any number of important churches not included in the tour: Santa Maria Maggiore; Santa Maria del Popolo; Gesu; Basilica San Giovanni in Laterano; Santa Sabina; to name just a few.

Explore Trastevere. The mosaics at Santa Maria in Trastevere are wonderful, and very old.

The suggestion for Ostia Antica was a good one. It's much closer than Pompeii so it's a less time-consuming way to explore more of the ancient Roman world.

The Amalfi Coast is not really a day trip from Rome, IMHO, so I'd save that one until you can give it more time than that.

For that extra evening in Venice, I highly recommend a cicchetti tour. I tried to book one with Alessandro (rec. by RS) in August 2015, but he was not sure if he would be in town, and eventually didn't return my emails as time got close to the date. So, I booked with UrbanAdventures and had a fabulous evening, visiting 5 small bacari (cicchetti bars/cafes), all within a short walking distance of each other, and all quite close to the fish market where you will be staying. There were 7 wonderful friendly people in our group, and the amount of food and wine we consumed was amazing for the price we paid. Elizabetta was a great guide, fun, enthusiastic, and very knowledgeable about her city and the bacari culture. The price is a bit more than Alessandro's (who goes to 3 bacari instead of 5); I had a 20% discount code that another traveller had given me; hunt around... they apparently publish discount codes quite frequently. This is a great way to really dive into Venice early in your trip there; I only wish I had done this tour on my first night in Venice instead of my last! (Also: it runs early in the evening, like 5-8 pm, so if you are jet-laggy, you'll be able to get "home" to sleep before too late in the evening.)

We took that tour in June. It was excellent.

You will find that there are some "open" afternoons during the tour where you are "on your own." There's only so many things you can do during a day. For example, the last day, we did the Vatican as a group. It took up about 3 hours and then we were left to wonder around the Vatican more or do what we liked the rest of the day.

When in Venice, we had some extra afternoons and visited the Guggenheim on our own.

There are a number of sites in Venice that have been renovated and allow a modern artist to have a showing...that is free to the public. There are dozens of these specially designed exhibits throughout the city. From the comments of our RT tour planner, the buildings are what you really are there to see, because many of them are private...but with open exhibit, you gain access to see the inside of the buildings. I think it's called the Venice Biennale.

As far as Rome, we had 2 extra days after the tour and ended up going to Pompeii one day. I would suggest, as others...don't day trip out...it's really a long day. I would suggest going to some of the other sites. There's a lot to do in Rome and there's a lot you will not see in your tour. Try the Trastevere tour. The RT tour doesn't really hit on anything to do with the Trastevere...and it's a beautiful part of the city that is less crowded than the other places.

We went in June and it was very, very busy.

My wife & I also did this tour in May of 2015. For Venice I would highly recommend the Ciccetti tour with Alessandro (contact info in the Italy and venice guidebooks). It was a blast and it seems that you are already staying in the area of the tour.

In Roma I agree with Laurel and Kathy. Personal favorites would be the Galleria Borghese & Ostia Antica.

It's a great tour. Enjoy. Wear your money belts.
Gene

Add another vote for Ostia Antica. It was a easy metro-and-suburban-lines 30 min. trip and is as impressive as Pompeii or Herculaneum. Ostia is better preserved than Pompeii and has plenty of shade trees. One of many resource: http://www.roninrome.com/sites-and-attractions/day-trip-from-rome-ostia-antica.
Hope this helps.

Thanks for all the replies. The cicceti (sp?) tour with Alessandro and Ostia Antica sound like sure winners, so we'll do those. I'll look over some of the other suggestions for our one more day in Rome. It's getting close finally (land in two weeks!) and we're getting pretty excited. Appreciate everyone's taking the time to post!