Open jaw. Arrive Rome and depart Venice or Milan?

No advantage other than, perhaps, a price difference in the airfare. Do you plan to visit either Milan or Venice? If you plan to visit one and not the other choose that city to fly out of.

Donna

Rcalr,
I have not departed from Venice Airport so I can't help you with that, but I have departed from from Rome & Milan.

Have you considered reversing the order? Fly into Venice then work your way south & fly out of Rome.

It only takes 30 minutes via the Leonardo Express train to Fiumicino Airport (Rome)

It takes 52 minutes to Malpensa Airport via Malpensa Express train from Milano Centrale or 29 minutes from Milano N. Cadorna.
(The Cadorna train station is near Milan's historic center & it's convenient if you stay in a hotel in this area)

I suppose the answer depends on where you want to be at the end of your trip.
If you want to explore Milan, you may want to fly out of Milan.

I'm sure others will chime in with more info.

Happy planning!

You should do the reverse: arrive in the north and return from Rome.
Flights to NorthAmerica depart in the morning and the airports in Milan and Venice are far from their respective cities, whereas Rome airport is just 30 min away from the city center.

Whether you want to use Milan or Venice to arrive in the north depends on two factors:
1. Your itinerary (is Milan part of your intended destinations?)
2. Airfare (flights to Milan are generally cheaper, but then you need to spend 4 hours on the train to get to Venice and trains aren't free).

Rcalr,

Read Nigel's reply to this post where he explains advantage of starting in Venice & ending in Rome:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/order-of-travel

If flight prices are similar (or if money is no object), then I wholeheartedly agree with the above posts - arrive in the north and depart from Rome - for the reasons given in both this thread and the one linked by Priscilla.

However, recently it has been much cheaper to fly into and out of Milan compared with other Italian airports, sometimes by several hundred dollars per person. So, you have to balance that against the inconvenience of getting to Malpensa, as well as at least one night in Milan before departure (fine if you had planned to see Milan, not so great if you hadn't). You also have to add the time and money it takes to get from Milan to where you want to be (for instance, landing at Malpensa, taking the train to Milano Centrale, then a train to Rome, all of which is not an easy way to start a trip). Again, normally I am very against this sort of thing, and feel it's a false economy. But that was before there was such a consistent price discrepancy between Milan and other Italian destinations.

Arriving in Venice and leaving from Roma is a good strategy because the flights departing from Venice for North America depart EARLY, EARLY in the morning. Many times the flight leaves before public transportation is operating requiring more costly transit expenses. It seems the rule of thumb on many travel bulletin boards is to suggest this itinerary. Also, Venice is a great place to walk off any jet lag you may experience.

Buon viaggio,

Just to reinforcement RB comments. The big drawback to leaving from Venice is the very early flights that connect to the return flight to the US. Unless there has been a recent change there are no direct flights from Venice to the US. The flights from Venice have to leave early to connect through international airports such as Milan, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, etc. If I am going to have to use a smaller airport such as Venice I would fly into Venice and home from the major airport. The logistics are easier.

"Unless there has been a recent change there are no direct flights from Venice to the US"

There are seasonal flights from Venice nonstop to JFK and ATL (on Delta) and PHL (on US Airways soon to be American). I haven't looked at the ATL flights, but the JFK and PHL flights leave later than the flights connecting in Europe, and consequently are not hard to make. Of course, connecting in the US (particularly at those two airports) is harder than in Europe, since you have to go through immigration and customs before you can make your connection.

all of the above advice is solid, however, we stayed in the "burbs" of venice......it was the end of the trip. we took the commuter train into to Venice, did one longer, killer, glorious day in Venice, the next day we left our suburban hotel at some civilized time like 9am utilizing the hotel shuttle, checked my bag, flew to Zurich and changed planes, and arrived in Chicago about 6pm (local time).

I don't know about April, but we got stuck in Rome (FCO) flying standby on Delta to Atlanta or JFK in early November. Our final solution was to take the train from FCO to Malpensa (MXP) via Roma Termini and Milano Centrale. Why? Because the flights from MXP to JFK were running half-full (!) and the ones from Rome were overbooked. One was delayed 4 hours arriving from ATL and even though seats for the return trip were available because people had jumped to the JFK flight, the plane was overweight, so we couldn't get on.

We took the Frecciarossa (http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=89ddbd6bc1abf310VgnVCM1000008916f90aRCRD) from Rome to Milan and the trip was about 3 hours between the city centers. If you go to the link, you can see that the fast trains run very frequently.

We did stay at an airport hotel ( I wouldn't stay at the same one again), but we at least made it to JFK the next day after 5 days of waiting to get on a plane from Rome to Atlanta or JFK. Our flight left at around 10 in the morning.

Perhaps the prices are cheaper to and from Milan because people are concerned about time or the cost of taking the train between Milan and Rome (or Venice), as many have mentioned here already. I think maybe with good planning that involves buying an advance train ticket, it might be worth the extra time and cost.

I usually start in the north and move south. If you leave from Rome, you don't need to sleep at an airport hotel the night before (you don't need to in the other cities, either, but transportation is more expensive/takes longer from Venice or Milano); worst case would be an early taxi ride to FCO at a fixed price.

There are good connections leaving Venice back to the States between 9:30 am and 11 am through Zurich (Swiss) or Frankfurt (Lufthansa). Stay away from anything earlier as it is a headache getting to the airport that early. There will be direct flights when prime season hits late spring. Right now, I'm seeing best prices flying round trip Milan.

To Lo,

" I don't know about April, but we got stuck in Rome (FCO) flying standby on Delta to Atlanta or JFK in early November."

Sorry you had this experience... We had the same experience a few years ago while 'flying standby'.

"Flying standby", has it's perks but one must be prepared to wait (standby...) if there are no seats available, and it can be very inconvenient.

I don't think this is the case with Rcalr65.

On our honeymoon, we flew as you described, into Rome and out of Venice. We did not have any problems and found the Venice airport easy to navigate and get through. We did have to get up very early to catch our boat ride to the airport though. VERY early. I haven't flown out of Rome yet so no comment there. Happy travels.

To fly out of Rome, you would not have to get up very early. Noon flights are nice.

I took the into-Venice home-from-Rome approach and it worked perfectly. An early-afternoon departure from Rome is the way to go IMO.

Cynthia