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Recommendations 15 to 20 days in Italy in March and April

Posted by (Miami Florida) on

Hi folks,

My wife and I are 72 and active. We speak fluent English, Arabic, pretty good French and OK Spanish. No Italian. I have driven in northern Italy in the mid 1990s.

We land in Barcelona and pick up a new Peugeot lease car on 15 March 2018 and drop the car in Milan on 15 April 2018. We leave Geneva on 26 March for Italy. So..the Italian trip is open. My wife Eva wants to go to the Vatican as her only must do.

I do not really want to drive in Rome. Not the end of the world if I had to but.... I was wondering if I could get a hotel outside the city and take public transport to the Vatican and other typical sites in Rome. I am pretty open to suggestions. The same idea could be applied to Venice. I have a bit of a hip issue and don't like to walk to long at a time. Eva could walk from Miami to Rome...lol

I have only booked hotels for the first two days in Barcelona and the last two days in Milan. I will in general book hotels on the fly as much as that is possible.

So... I would be thankful for any ideas.

Thanks,

Billy and Eva

Posted by
8044 posts

Sounds like a great trip coming up, and a great time of year to be in Italy. Our B&B host in Sorrento said April was the best time to visit Italy, for those who can choose.

Venice is a real walking city, so you might want to get some mobility recommendations, but I, unfortunately, don't have any for you @ this time.

Rome can have some uphill and downhill gradients to deal with, if you venture much within the city, so you may want to explore your options there, too.

We did a semi-long-term lease in Spain one year, and for our days in Sevilla, we paid to park the car in an outlying lot, and took a taxi to the heart of the city, where we stayed. Much easier than navigating the streets and the kids on the whizzing motor scooters. And since the center of the city (whether Sevilla, Roma, or Venezia) is where it's all happening, I'd leave the car outside and stay inside the center, rather than the other way 'round.

Posted by
4105 posts

There are public parking garages around the Termini in Rome. These are located Outside the ZTL zones.
The ones on this link are very near metro line A.

https://www.parkingrome.it/en/

If you're worried about walking great lengths, don't. Taxis are cheap in Rome, but get a map that has taxi locations marked.

Two hotels that some friends use last year, we were able to see them,
Are Hotel Nord Roma Nuovo and Hotel Flower Garden. Both were very nice, with great breakfast. Two blocks from Termini but in a quieter area just around the corner from each other. Two metro stops are very close.

Posted by
2 posts

Thanks for the tips. I think it will be a fun trip. It is a lot of driving but Eva can drive in the country side. I don't really expect any language issues. I have a tablet to translate to Italian. But surely someone will speak one of the four languages we speak.

I will look up the hotels you noted. I am most likely just stressing over nothing. I crossed the Atlantic solo in my sailboat so surely to god I can survive Rome!!...lol

Thanks,

Billy

Posted by
28450 posts

This is going to be the proverbial piece of cake. But do research the rules of the road for each country you plan to drive through. Especially Italy. Rarely does a month go by without a new poster showing up on the forum, reporting receipt of a costly traffic ticket (or sometimes multiple such tickets) for infractions committed many months earlier in Italy. The country is well-equipped with traffic cameras, and it knows how to use them. There are areas (often in the historic district) where only locals are allowed to drive; there are bus lanes where cars are prohibited; there is a plethora of speed cameras.

You'll probably need a highway vignette for Switzerland.

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