Planning a 12 day - Italy trip in May
From what we read
Florence city + day trips -5 nights
cinque terre - 3 nights
Rome - 4 nights
Is what we are thinking ,
we are in mid 30s and like to take it easy enjoy every place we visit ..
but sounds like all the 3 places we picked are toooo crowded n touristy in summer
..Can you suggest A NICE OFF. BEAT. PLACE. WE. CAN SPEND A NIGHT OR 2
Thank you
Hetal
India
Posted by
Washington DC
28450 posts
The difficulty is that Italy has been well and truly discovered. The most picturesque and accessible places do get substantial tourist traffic, and the feeling of being packed in seems magnified in the smaller towns. It may not bother you as much in Rome, where most of the people you'll see around you (except when standing in line) will be locals.
Places I visited in 2015 that were not overrun with tourists included: Arezzo, Viterbo (and the hilltown of Tuscania), and Ravenna. Except for Ravenna, which is truly a world-class destination, the others wouldn't be on most "A" lists for Italy. The problem with Ravenna is that it is way off your path of travel (and everyone else's, which is why it is remarkably untouristy considering the town's beauty and its incredible mosaics).
If you're prepared to rent a car for 2 or 3 days, I'm sure there are people here who can recommend more obscure hill towns in Tuscany or Umbria. I've always been limited to places I could reach by train or bus, which means other tourists can get to them easily, too.
Posted by
5276 posts
Let us know if you are willing to rent a car, and from where you wish to subtract the days from your current itinerary. Are you looking for a coastal place, a hill town, or ???
I don't feel the touristy crush in cities so much, as you can stay in an apartment in a more residential area and only interact with other tourists when you are at museums and such. CT gets very crowded during the day (but you should be hiking then, or why go there?), but many say it is still quite pleasant in the mornings and evenings.
Posted by
1970 posts
Italy is great. Even during"tourist crunch" time - there are still many places that are uncrowded. Also, I noticed a difference between weekends versus middle of the week. "End of day" can be a good time for more popular sites as well. The Vatican is always a crunch, I believe. Orvieto would be a good choice to get off the beaten path a bit for a reprieve. You can easily tuck Orvieto in between Florence and Rome. Seriously though, you can find many nontouristy places without altering your current itinerary.
Posted by
Forest Grove, OR
11839 posts
Turin (Torino in Italian) is fabulous. I would skip the Cinque Terre and go to Torino for 3 nights. It is totally overlooked by most tourists. Easy train connections between Torino and Florence as well as Torino and Rome.
Posted by
Washington DC
28450 posts
A lot of the tourism to Orvieto seems to be Italian, but it's not a particularly non-touristy destination. I think choosing to visit Monday-Thursday might help.
Posted by
99 posts
Hi,
We visited Italy last November and I would suggest that you redistribute the nights in Florence. You can stay at the wonderful walled town of Lucca where the crowds are much less than in Florence. Pisa is a 45 min bus ride away from Lucca and you can spend half a day there.
Another town in Tuscany that I love and promote with great enthusiasm is Siena. It has the best cathedral and the best town square in all of Italy. Although it is not off the beaten path most tourists are day trippers from Florence and Siena in my opinion is more beautiful at night.
In between Rome and Florence is the Umbrian Hill town of Orvieto which is another place close to my heart since we spent our anniversary there.
By the way most of Cinque Terre would be booked for may by now. I myself am going there in the 1st week of May and found a decent room with great difficulty.
Have a great trip