Paris - Venice - Florence - Rome

I don't have any recommendations for travel agents, but check your local area and see who comes recommended. If you want some advice, read on: I have done this sort of trip for our family of 4 several times and it's not that difficult to arrange. I would just make sure you leave some flexibility in your daily plans to account for anything that may arise (like you just want to sleep late!).

I agree with seeing Paris first, mainly to help alleviate jet lag. If you want to try to tackle this yourself, there are a lot of resources that you can rely on to make a good trip. The main thing is to make sure you know what you want to see (like the Vatican) and what you don't want to see. Do you like museums? Churches? Architecture, wine, cafes? For flights within Europe, look at Skyscanner.net. Be aware of the exact airport some of these carriers use. For Paris you want DeGaulle or Orly, for Venice you want Marco Polo and for Rome you want Fiumicino or Linate. You can pre-purchase high speed train tickets between Venezia S. Lucia and Firenze Santa Maria Novella and from Firenze SMN to Roma Termini on trenitalia.com. Look for 2nd class super economy tickets up to 120 days in advance. The downside to buying these tickets is that they are non-refundable and you lock yourself into a specific train, but you can save a bunch of money that way. Make sure you create an account on the trenitalia web site so you can retrieve your tickets later if necessary. For lodging, I recommend a 3 bedroom/2+ bath apartment. You can find these on homeaway.com or vrbo.com. You can set a price range and look at the locations on a map. Just make sure you read the reviews and be wary of any listings without any ratings.

Here is one possible way of taking this on:
April 28 - Arrive Paris, check into lodging, walk the Marais or Rue Cler area to get over jet lag.
April 29 - Paris sights
April 30 - Paris sights
May 1 - AM flight to Venice, afternoon Venice
May 2 - Venice
May 3 - AM Venice, late PM train to Florence (2 & 1/2 hours)
May 4 - Florence
May 5 - Florence/ side trip to Siena
May 6 - AM train to Rome (1 & 1/2 hours)
May 7 - Rome
May 8 - Rome/side trip to Orvieto
May 9 - AM Rome, late PM flight to Paris (stay at airport hotel?)
May 10 - Return home

I cannot imagine having the task of taking care of 5 people for 3 weeks--all day, every day. And throw in transportation and being in foreign countries and the pressure's quadrupled on you.
Have you considered spending a little less time in Paris, as 10 days in one place would be too long for most groups?. It's time you could spend in other interesting places.
I suggest you talk with Ron Phillips who's a travel agent in Atlanta--Phone number (404) 474-3851. Ron is best known for living in Rome and putting out the best online travel website ever for Italy--RonInRome.com. He's taken down the website now that he's no longer living in Rome. He's capable for putting together such trips.
Another great travel agency of the highest order is Brownell in Birmingham. See: BrownellTravel.com.

All of the frequent contributors to this websites are, collectively, better than most travel agents. Individually we may not know it all, but collectively we are no match for most travel agents, whose main purpose is not to see you depart for your travel, but to see you depart from your money.
You don't say where your family is coming from, so we can't help you with making flight arrangements from America to Paris. Give us that info and we can advise you.

Your family has 12 nights available in Europe. I would imagine that they would want to spend at least 4 in Paris (at the beginning and end of their travels). So the most they can have in Italy is 7 or 8 nights. It's a very short time for the three most famous cities in Italy. Assuming you don't want to eliminate any of the 3, you could allocate 2 nights to Venice, 2 to Florence, and 3 to Rome (totally above is 7 nights). If you have 8 nights, then add the extra night to any of the 3 depending on your preferences.

From Paris to Venice you would fly (EasyJet, Vueling or AirFrance). Go their respective websites to see pricing for the dates you wish. AirFrance uses CDG, the others ORY.
From Venice to Florence, and Florence to Rome, you would take the high speed train. Two companies to choose from:
www.trenitalia.com
www.italotreno.it
The cost of each leg on a standard class ticket is €45 one way (at the full Base fare)
There is no need to book in advance, you can purchase at the station, however purchasing in advance online gives a chance to buy the same tickets at a discounted fare (super economy and economy). However discounted tickets have strings attached. Once booked, you are locked on the train you book and you can't change or get a refund, if needed.
From Rome back to Paris you would fly (EasyJet, Vueling, AirFrance, Alitalia). AirFrance and Alitalia use CDG, the others, ORY.

To say what we're all thinking, even though it may be too late: Have they already booked the roundtrip flights into and out from Paris? If they have not yet booked, then they could look at a "multi-city" flight into Paris and out from Rome. (Or into Venice and out from Rome if you want to just fly to Italy to meet them.)

Hi Laura,
Yes, too late for that. They jumped at the ticket prices for roundtrip from Toronto to Paris via AirCanada - it was a great deal. So unfortunately, it'll mean flying out of Paris at the end. I don't think we'll need to spend more time in Paris at the end of the trip other than getting to the airport.

Hi Stephen,
Thank you for the tentative itinerary and suggestions! That looks like just the right pace to cover everything.

Hi David,
Thankfully it's only 10 full days of travel and not 3 weeks! Haha, I can't imagine that. I appreciate the contact and phone number!

Airports in Roma are Fiumicino and Cismpino; Linate is near Milano.

I agree to contact Ron for help.

Hope you can pull this off, let us know how it turns out.

I think you need to cut back on your Italy plans, you don't have enough time.
Paris is a really large city and takes awhile to see even just the top sights.

This sounds like a large group and likely some seniors that may not move around too fast paced.

You also lose time having to fly back there so may have to spend a night on the way back or day of arrival. So figure 4 nights plus then another night maybe in Paris ; that does not leave much time for Italy.
You would definitely want to fly and not train from Paris to Venice/Florence or Rome faster and cheaper.

4 nights Paris upon arrival
Fly into Rome on May 2
Book Vatican tickets for morning on May 3rd
Do a day trip to Florence from Rome on May 4th BUT don't change lodgings. Come back same evening.
Depart Rome May 7th on train to Venice in the morning ; spend 2 nights Venice. Fly from Venice to Paris in the evening on May 9th. Stay overnight at the airport in Paris May 9 and catch your home flight May 10th

Alternatively you could try to save a day and give it to Venice if you can fly the same day you arrive in Paris onto Rome but without the flight being on the same ticket I don't think I would try that and your group will likely be too tired for such a day.

My main advise is to not try 3 different bases in Italy with your time and your group unless you really short change Paris.
I also recommend no other day trips to Siena or Orvieto, I don't see you having the time for that
Fear of leaving too little time for Paris is people will try to squeeze the main sites in too quick and burn themselves out right at the start. Even 4 nights is barely enough time for Paris.

I'm looking at planning a similar itinerary for my parents...without the return to Paris however ;-)
Looking forward to see how this thread develops and what you eventually settle on.

jc and zcorsair, take a look at the itinerary for the Rick Steves 11-day Tour Venice-Florence-Rome, and see how well you can match that. It makes a pretty good attempt to hit the highlights of these three cities. Then you can see how much you have to cut out to make it fit into your timeframe.

That's been my base itinerary model, however it's always good to see what others have to say.

"I suggest you talk with Ron Phillips who's a travel agent in Atlanta"

Ron is actually based in Vienna now. Unfortunately his website doesn't seem to be working at the moment. He tends to specialize in luxury travel, so that may or may not work for your situation.

I'm not sure if a time frame of 10 days is going to be enough to see four cities, especially as you have to return to the starting point for the flight home. That's about the same as the time frame for the RS Venice-Florence-Rome tour. Also keep in mind that travel such as Paris to Venice are going to take the better part of a day, when all is considered. Each change-of-location will generally take at least four hours. Transportation will reduce your sightseeing time so for a short Itinerary, it's best to minimize changing locations as much as possible. The other point to consider is that groups tend to have a certain amount of "inertia" and getting everyone moving could be an issue. The group will only move as quickly as the slowest person. Finally, even though they're only travelling from Toronto, an older group may still have some problems with jet lag, so won't be up to full "touring speed" for a day or so after arrival.

If the budget will allow, I'd suggest contacting Air Canada to see what the charges would be to modify your flights. If that doesn't work for you, you might consider cutting one city from the list. A few suggestions you might consider.....

• Change the flights to inbound Venice and outbound Rome. As you're living in France, it shouldn't be too hard to meet them in Venice, and start the tour from there. Use the RS V-F-R tour as a guideline to plan sightseeing.
• If you want to stay with the Paris flights, you might want to scratch one of the cities in Italy. Rome would be the most logical one to skip. You could (for example) tour Venice and Florence, with day trips from both of those. The day prior to the flight home, use an easyJet flight from PSA to ORY and spend the last night in Paris.
• If you want to stick with four cities, the group might go immediately from Paris / CDG to Venice, and leave a day or two in Paris at the end.

It's often not a good idea to purchase flights on price alone without considering how this will impact the rest of the holiday. i use Air Canada on most flights to and from Europe, and have found that they're able to offer a good selection of open-jaw flights.

Good luck.

Even though there's some non-love on this site for travel agents, they serve an actual valid purpose - to take over trip planning! And yes they charge you a fee, why shouldn't they? Your taxi driver charges you, yes? Your hotel, your restaurant? Even though there are plenty of DIYers in Home Depot at any given moment, there are also people called contractors.

Anyway, two of the leading glossy travel magazines (Travel & Leisure and Conde Nast Traveler) each year have issues listing their favorite recommended travel agents. I was just looking at the CNT list. Broken down by region of the world and/or speciality travel. This info is probably up on their respective websites, it's certainly worth a look and a phone call/email or two.

As others have noted, you've bitten off too much given the situation. I'd suggest either France OR Italy, not both.

Zoe - thanks for the correction. I have been recently planning trip into Milan and got confused!

Thanks Ken for the note you sent me on our website; Our provider was "doing some maintenance" so it is up now. Appreciate the "heads up!" Glad to hear you are up and getting around.

Many of you may know me from our Ron-in-Rome website, which yes, it still being updated (piano, piano, piano....). For years I was a DIY supporter, trying to write a website that was geared toward the independent traveler. I also posted often on this and other travel forums. I was approached by a few travel advisors and did join Brownell Travel as an independent affiliate. Now, I am on the other side of the glass and I am able to help many travelers on journeys worldwide. Thus, I have to take exception with Roberto da Firenze's comment: "... most travel agents, whose main purpose is not to see you depart for your travel, but to see you depart from your money."

As a travel advisor, we would not stay in business long with that perspective. We do provide services and experiences that an independent traveler might not be able to research or might be unaware of. A good travel advisor is continually building his network to be able to best benefit his/her clients.

So there' s a place for an independent travel and for someone seeking support. I've certainly done it both ways over the years and still do. Living in Vienna, we travel at least twice a month. (December was a whirlwind of travel as I was home only TWO DAYS! The rest of the month we were on the road inspecting properties.) Many people who come to us do not know what a travel advisor does, how they get paid, and what impact those costs might have on them (often negligible).

Travel Advisors work with all budgets and yes, as an affiliate of Brownell we work with many luxury clients. Yet like most travel consultants we work with all budgets.

josephcimino71, you'll get excellent advice on this site from experienced European travelers - I know I always did when I was learning Europe! I too was thinking that an open-jaw ticket would make your trip far easier. As it appears you're locked in and have to go back to Paris, it does decrease your # of days in-country. And my recommendation might start with a hard look at what you want to do, what are your must-sees ---- but most importantly, WHAT TYPE OF EUROPEAN EXPERIENCE DOES YOUR GROUP WANT?

A good travel advisor, like a good teacher, asks a lot of questions and is a good listener. If you prefer to go the independent path, ASK THIS GROUP a lot of questions! They have a wide diversity of experiences/opinions and that is the strength of any forum. If you don't have the time, seek out a travel advisor you feel comfortable with. Friends are often a great source as 90% of our new clients are referrals.

Even when I lived in Rome I always seemed to default to Dr. Stephen Covey's philosophy of "Begin With The End in Mind." We always started with what did we want out of our trip experience and even now we still do. Moving overseas, our trips evolved from a "check-if-off-the-list" approach (because we had so little vacation time living in the USA) to now often spending days exploring a small town. So you need to find your pace... your end...

Good luck in your planning and certainly this forum is a great place to get answers. If you need more help, then by all means, go find yourself a capable travel advisor!

BTW Ken - we're moving to the Amsterdam area in July 2017. Another country, more to discover. (Your turn to buy the coffee if you come to AMS!)

Thank you all so much!

This has already been incredibly helpful in determining what we really want to see and do.

I think the new game plan may be Paris - Venice - Rome. The family has a main focus on Italy, so I'm not too worried about needing a lot of time in France. I think seeing some of the major monuments will suffice. The bulk of time I'd like to have us between Venice and Rome, including that buffer at the end of trip to get back to Paris (I know, a major travel faux pas, to do round-trip out of the same city). Everyone traveling is fairly active, so I don't have a lot of concern around mobility - however at 26, I definitely feel those effects of walking a new city all day/night. I know the pace will be slowed a bit from my norm (snack/bathroom/rest breaks).

Here's what I'm now considering:

• 4/27 - Toronto departure: 7:35 PM
• 4/28 - Arrive in Paris (CGD): 8:45 AM
• 4/29 - Paris
• 4/30 - Paris
• 5/1 - Paris to Venice (Fly)
• 5/2 - Venice
• 5/3 - Venice
• 5/4 - Venice
• 5/5 - Venice to Rome (Flight or train?)
• 5/6 - Rome
• 5/7 - Rome
• 5/8 - Rome
• 5/9 - Rome to Paris (Evening flight)
• 5/10 - Depart from Paris (CDG): 11 AM

Does this seem more manageable?

Your thoughts and suggestions are welcome :)

The train from Venezia to Roma takes four hours and gets you into the city center. Flying will take as long or longer if you add security time, transportation time and cost to/from airports, flight time. I find train travel much less stressful than flying.

We did your revised trip in 2015. We flew into Rome, spent 5 nights then took the train to Venice, spent 3 nights then flew from Venice to Paris, where we spent a week. I wanted to see Florence too but decided to drop it since my desire to return to Paris again outweighed my desire to see Florence. My only recommendation is to take 1 night from Venice and add it to Paris. Other than that, I think that is a very doable schedule.

We also fly Air Canada & they charge $300 CAD to make changes to their flights, plus whatever the difference in the cost of the flights. We've never had to make a change but that is the amount charged.