May 2010- Itinerary Advice

Sounds a little ambitious! :) But doable I think. You will be spending a lot of time traveling though (i.e. Venice to Vernazza looks like 6 hours on the fastest train). There have been many wine/car rental questions very recently - you should read through a couple of pages here.

Sarah,

As Anthony mentioned, this does sound a bit "ambitious". Regarding Days 1-3, don't forget you'll lose the first day in flight times and time zone changes (you'll generally arrive the day after you departed).

I'd suggest a slightly different order in your Itinerary. You might want to go to the Cinque Terre after Rome. It's an easy four hour trip via direct train to La Spezia, and then only a short time to the villages.

You might want to allow more time than one day in Florence, as there's LOTS to see. This Itinerary would probably be more feasible if you dropped one location (perhaps Lucca?).

One question came to mind regarding your flight home. Florence doesn't seem to be served by many Canadian airlines. Have you verified that you'll be able to get a flight from there? You might be better to look at Milano / MXP, as there are flights from there (will probably be a "code share" with Lufthansa or other airline, rather than Air Canada, and likely via Frankfurt).

I'll try to have a closer look at this in the next day or so and offer more detailed suggestions.

Happy planning!

Thanks for the feedback so far.

Day 1 is our landing day, not travel day. We've already got flights sorted out from Florence.

My suggestions are as follows: 1. Drop Cinque Terre. Haven't been there, but many posts on this forum state you really need more than one day there to do it justice. 2. Drop Lucca and Siena as places to stay. These are doable as day trips from Florence. 3. So now you have 14 days of siteseeing time and 3 cities. I would break them up as follows: Days 1-5 in Rome. This will give you time to overcome jet lag and still have 4 full days to explore all Rome has to offer. Day 6 Eurostar to Venice.....about 6 hours. Spend the rest of the day orienting yourself. Days 7 and 8 Venice. Day 9 Eurostar to Florence about 3 hours. If interested and timed correctly, you would have plenty of time to do a short trip to Pisa. Otherwise just walk about and orient yourself. Days 10-14 Florence. This will give you plenty of time to do a day trip to Lucca, day trip to Siena, a cooking class in Florence and still leave 2 days in Florence to see everything there (which I truly believe is the bare minimum if you want to see both the Accademia and the Uffizi). Do a web search and you will find several cooking classes in Florence....some in town and some (including transportation) to other locations. Some of the "in town" ones include a trip to the market where you select the ingredients you will be using. Ultimately it is your vacation and only you can decide what is the most important things for you to do and how to allocate the time.

With regard to your cooking/wine tour...check this out. I have heard that Faith Willinger has one of the best experiences in Florence. She has a "market-to-table" or "lessons in lunch" (group) sessions where she takes you to the local market where you shop for your ingredients and then in the afternoon, you go to her house where you and your group (and she) cook your meal together.

http://www.faithwillinger.com/market_to_table.php

Hi Sarah. I agree with staying in one place in Tuscany & then visiting Florence, Siena & Lucca as daytrips instead of moving around so much. Siena would be in between Lucca & Florence but keep in mind that Lucca is a good 2-hr drive from Siena so you'll spend 4+ hrs driving to/from Lucca plus time to find parking, etc.

I would recommend taking the train from Rome to Orvieto on day 3 or 4, sightseeing in Orvieto all day (it's a cute town) & then renting your car there to drive to Tuscany. We did this and we stayed near Siena in an agriturismo. From Siena, you can easily do Florence as a daytrip & then maybe a few of the closer hill towns instead of Lucca (maybe Montepulciano, Pienza, Volterra, etc.) If you stay somewhere near Siena then you can return your car in Siena & then take the train to your next destination. You don't want to rent or return your car in larger cities like Rome or Florence...it's a nightmare.

I don't think one day is enough time in the Cinque Terre. I just returned from there & I took the advice on many on this forum & spent 2.5 days there. I could have easily spent another night & full day there. One day isn't enough to do it justice. So, I would cut out the Cinque Terre & maybe travel straight to Venice after Tuscany.

I agree with the previous poster that if it's your first time in Rome, 2 full days isn't enough. I would cut out the Cinque Terre & add that time to Rome.

My reading of this itinerary is that Days 7 through 9 would be spent in Cinque Terre, so the concern about one day in the CT has been addressed. But I'm not sure that doing Venice and then Cinque Terre makes sense.

You'd basically be criss-crossing Italy twice, whereas if you go to CT after Rome you would only have to do it once to get to Venice. From Venice you could head to Florence and visit the other cities on your itinerary before flying home.

Hi Michael,

You're correct - days 7-9 in CT with one day in Lucca (that may have caused confusion). Thanks for the suggestion of altering the route - we'll have to take that into consideration.

Sarah,

Happy to help.

Feel free to ask any further questions. And definitely let us know how your trip went after you return!