Logistics help w/Pre-side trip to Orvieto before RS My Way Italy tour

Charming town. Fiumicinio Aeroporto to Orvieto, under 2.5 hours with one change downtown. Get the Trenitalia app; tickets after retrieving your luggage. Check out the Hotel Duomo on booking.com. To get to the Piazza del Duomo you take the funicular to Piazza Cahen and Bus A. Bus B from Piazza Cahen goes to the Piazza della Repubblica. However for the latter take Bus 1 from the station.

https://wikitravel.org/en/Orvieto

Stay in Rome. Get outside to stave off the inevitable jet lag. Walk around Paletine Hill.

Then train to Florence, stay the night, visit the Dumo, see David at the Accademia Gallery, then train from there to Venice.

Just so there's no confusion, if you depart from LAX on April 14, you will arrive in Italy on April 15.

The My Way tour as described on this website includes two nights in Florence and makes a stop in an unspecified Tuscan hill town on the way to Assisi, which is in Umbria. So the tour does provide some time in Tuscany.

Orvieto is in Umbria, not Tuscany; if you're looking for a base from which you can see more of Tuscany, Orvieto is not the right choice. I like Orvieto a lot; for a fairly small place, it has a lot of sights. Although it's popular, the pace of life is slower than in Rome, making it a pleasant place to recover from jetlag.

Different people will have different opinions about whether you should spend your first night in Rome or travel on to Orvieto upon arrival in Italy. It's rather a hassle to check into a hotel for just one night, and it's entirely possible you'll be barely awake on your arrival day, anyway. Therefore, I don't think there's a lot to be gained by spending Night 1 in Rome. If you want extra time in Rome (and you would certainly benefit from it), I think it makes a lot more sense to add a day or two after the tour, ideally staying on in the tour hotel so you avoid an additional hotel change.

My choice would be to head to Orvieto. You can wait until you get to Italy to buy the ticket so you don't have to worry about a major airline delay causing you to miss the validity period for a pre-purchased regional train ticket.

I'd take the train from Orvieto to Venice. If you want to fly, you'd probably do better by returning to Rome rather than going to Florence, which I think will take longer by the time you figure the short trip from the city to the (small) airport. Even going to Rome, I'm not sure flying would save much time at all by the time you go through all the necessary connecting steps. For me the train would be preferable because there's less hassle.

Part of the Orvieto-Venice trip will probably be on a Frecciarossa train, though there's at least one direct InterCity departure. The Frecciarossa part of the ticket will be considerably less expensive if purchased well in advance, but that will tie you to a particular train on your chosen day. I think InterCity tickets are also price-variable, but I'm not absolutely sure about that.

It's only about an extra hour by train from Rome to Orvieto, so go directly to Orvieto. I believe a few trains to Orvieto originate at Roma Tiburtina (not Termini), which may give you additional options.

It will be much faster to take the train from Orvieto to Venice than to go to Florence airport, fly to Venece and then get from the airport into Venice.

I think spending some some in a smaller town such as Orvieto is a good way to begin your vacation. Depending what time your flight arrives in Rome, it may be too early in the day to check into a hotel in Rome. I think a better strategy is to just continue on to Orvieto by train. It is a long train ride from Orvieto to Venice, but I think it is less stressful than traveling to an airport, then flying to Venice airport and then needing to travel onto Venice proper. I'd look at the train ride as a chance to relax, read a bit, and watch the scenery. Be sure to take a picnic lunch with you.

Flying from Florence to Venice will extend your travel time between Orvieto and Venice, will add expense, and generally be a hassle.

The train leg from Florence to Venice is only two hours. You cannot shorten this by flying. Add up the transfer time from Firenze SMN train station to the airport, the security wait time ( recommended 2 hours before scheduled departure), the flight time, and the transfer from Marco Polo Airport into Venice itself (around one hour unless you take an expensive water taxi), you have used up much more time than than the 2-hour train ride.

Further, the flights from Florence Airport to Venice Could be infrequent and not be at convenient times; you could end up waiting more than 2 hours for the flight.

The train between Orvieto and Venice is pleasant and easy, with a single change at Firenze for the 5-hour trip. There is a shorter trip (4.5 hours) with no changes, but you end up in Venice Mestre, where you would have to change to a regional train or local bus to get into Venice itself.

If you want to visit Tuscany. I hope you realize Orvieto is not in Tuscany, rather in Umbria. If you want Tuscany, look at Siena.
Orvieto is on the main train line and autostrada north from Rome so gets a lot of tourists, lots of day trippers Friends who just spent three nights there were sorry they had chosen Orvieto as it apparently has become quite touristy since we visited. It is, however, an easy choice if traveling by train, and a nice town.

I think Orvieto is an excellent choice. The Umbrian landscape you'll see from various viewpoints in Orvieto is very similar to the Tuscan vistas. It's an interesting town. Climb the bell tower. Take the underground tour. Get a drink or gelato and grab seats on the benches opposite the Duomo facade and watch the colors change in the late afternoon sunlight.

My only suggestion would be to add one more day pre-tour and get to Venice a day earlier. It's one of my very favorite cities and there's a lot to enjoy there as well.

Thank you all so much for your contributions!

Good insight on departure date acraven, we should leave on the 13th. This is the kind of logistics help we were looking for! Yes I see we do stop in Tuscany and Orvieto is in Umbria so now I’ll just clarify that my wife does have her eye on Siena as suggested by Suki. We thought it would be too much work to get there after landing in Rome. The whole idea of this pre-trip is to give my wife 2 or 3 nights in Tuscany as the My Way tour stop is quite brief. We also don’t want to run ourselves ragged after landing so how would you suggest we adjust for this? Stay in Rome our first night before heading into Tuscany? I don’t think there’s a direct flight to Florence.

Again, thanks for all of your knowledge and advice! This kind of planning can be overwhelming and we want this trip to be as relaxed and stress-free as possible.

Our kids flew into Florence from Zurich to meet us in Tuscany. They flew BOS to Zurich. Check Florence airport website to see where flights there originate.