Hello my husband and I will be in Rome for 4nights/5days in mid-October and have a day trip planned to Orvieto, however, I am thinking of making our Rome trip 3nts/4days and staying the night in Orvieto and just taking a late afternoon train there and leaving from Orvieto around 10 to catch a train to Florence. I am stuck on what to do. Any suggestions? Our original plan is following; leave Rome 8am Thursday morning to Orvieto then back to Rome around 3pm to do more site seeing. Friday (last min a.m. site seeing)leave Rome 12pm take train from Rome to Florence arrive in Florence around 1:30 but I am now looking into leaving Rome Thursday around 2pm to Orvieto, staying overnight and leaving Orvieto Friday morning at 10am to catch train to Florence. Any thoughts, not sure on what to do. This is our first trip to Italy and want to make the most of our trip since we don't know when the next time we'll be able to return.
Posted by
Carbondale, IL, USA
1201 posts
consider this instead of either option... I normally would suggest the overnight but in reality these one night stays really eat up time with just checking out and in and out again. So stay in Rome and see Orvieto on the way to Florence. Depending on how energetic you are, there is an 06:13 train out of termini on Fridays that will get you to Orvieto by 07:30. there is also one at 07:13, 08:25 and 09:13 with travel time of a bit more than an hour. So you can get to Orvieto in time for breakfast or brunch. Then there is a train to Florence from Orvieto that leaves at around 14:30 and one leaving at 16:30 with travel times around 2 hour 15 min. So you can be in florence before 5pm or 7 pm. There are also later trains.
Posted by
Minneapolis, MN, USA
1525 posts
I would stick with your original plan and do Orvieto as a day trip. That avoids the process of checking in & out of an extra hotel and it means you can do the day trip without lugging luggage around with you on the train & through the town. If you buy your train tickets on the spot, this also allows you the flexibility to spend just a couple hours in Orvieto or up to 12 hours if you are motivated to do so. It's nice to have that flexibility. I found Orvieto to be lovely and very enjoyable, but I rarely spend more than 4 hours in small towns. That's just me. I would also avoid arriving in Florence before your room is ready. There's nothing wrong with getting there a couple hours later if necessary.