Rome, Florence and Venice in one week, tips for travel and sight seeing

How many days to do have including arrival and departure days?

This may not be enough time to see all three cities considering travel and orientation time.

Are you going this August? Where are you flying in to and out of?

I'd agree with Bob, trying to see all 3 cities in "1 week" is probably too much. You might be able to do 2 of them if you are flying open jaw.

Are your flights already booked? If so hopefully you are flying open jaw— into one city, out of another
How many Nights do you actually have on the ground in Italy?
Even if 7 nights 3 major cities is a lot to cover.
Your first day is a jet lag day so really only counts as half, if that and your travel days count as a half day as well ( for example from Rome to Florence, from Florence to Venice)

Could you provide more details?

Thank you for the quick response. As you can see, we are still kicking things around. If we do only two cities, we will skip Florence. My daughter is mostly interested in Rome and Venice. I thought possibly we could throw Florence into the mix but it may not work. We are also trying to add a couple more days if possible. As of right now, we are flying from the US to Venice on the 18th; landing on the 19th AM and leaving the 24th or 25th from Rome. I was looking at Raileurope.com and the train times seem pretty quick; 2hrs from Venice to Florence and 2hrs from Florence to Rome. Am I not reading this correctly? How much time do you think we would need in Florence. My 16 year old would not want to see too many museums.

If you leave on 8/25 that is just 6 Nights
I would try hard to at least do that
Skip Florence
3 nights Venice equals 2.5 days
Train to Rome
3 nights Rome again just 2.5 days
Both places deserve a lot more time but it is what it is!

Use the official Italian train sight
trenitalia.com
i believe raileurope is a reseller

The station names are
Santa Lucia Venezia and Roma Termini
Probably too late for any discounted tix for fast trains

Even if a train trip is only two hours long, you have to take into account the time it takes to check in and out of hotels, get to and from the rail station, and at least some cushion to find the right track in the station. That plus meals and restroom breaks etc, means every time you change location, your eating up at least half a day of vacation time.

We dont know where you're coming from, but your three city proposal would be like trying to see San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego all in one week. Thats a lot of ground covered with no depth.

You can totally do those 3 cities in a week - we did it, and RS says you can do it (see https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/italy/itinerary). That being said, just know you're going to have to pick and choose what you want to do, and know that you can't do it all. We did 2 nights Venice, 2 nights Florence, and 3 nights Rome.

We flew into Venice, and on the day we landed, did St. Mark's Basilica and the square. The next day we did Doges Palace and Ca' Rezzonico Palace. We took a train the next day to Florence. (Very easy connection.) We did the A'ccademia the day of our arrival. The next day we did the Duomo and shopped a bit. The next day we took the train to Rome (also super easy). We did RS's Night Walk and saw the Trevi Fountain and Pantheon. The next day we did the Forum, Colosseum, Palatine Hill, and the Mamertine Prison. The final day we did St. Peter's and the Sistine Chapel. We flew home the next day.

So, in 7 nights/9 days we did the 3 cities and felt reasonably unrushed. Of course as you see we were pretty conservative in what we did each day--the day I remember being super tired was the Forum/Colosseum day because it was quite hilly.

And, if you have to skip a city, personally I'd skip Florence. But of course others will passionately defend Florence, so it most depends on what you are interested in.

Nobody is saying it can’t be done
OP looks to have at most 6 nights so if they do all 3 locations that is 2 nights each which equals 1.5 days to actually do or see anything.

I would skip Florence ( we usually do). The train from Venice Santa Lucia to Rome ( either station) takes just under 4 hours. You can book with Trenitalia or with the other train company, Italo.

https://www.italotreno.it/en

Their website is a bit more user-friendly than Trenitalia. Fares for August 22 start at €35.50 per person.

We rode the ,"red rabbit" (Italo) fonnthis route three years ago and it was quite nice. They have their own waiting room at the Venice train station, with access to the tracks they use ( unless things have changed since 2016).

We went in May. While it was early in the season, there were still crowds and it was sappyingly hot in Rome and freezing in Florence. Four nights in Rome, our first stop, was adequate. I'll own up that two nights in Florence was the biggest planning mistake of the trip. It just wasn't enough time even though the only museum we went to was the Accademia. We did three nights in Venice and could have spent a couple of more. The trains may be fast and convenient but packing/unpacking, checking out/in and transportation to hotels, still takes time. It's hard work being a tourist.

https://www.ricksteves.com/tours/italy/venice-florence-rome

That can be used as a guide for what to do in Venice and Rome. With your limited time just 2 cities may be the better choice

...flying from the US to Venice on the 18th; landing on the 19th AM
and leaving the 24th or 25th from Rome.

So at best you have 5 nights/4.5 days or 6 nights/5.5 days to work with. Because of the time it takes to pack up and relocate from one city to another, get orientated to new surroundings PLUS deal with the energy-sapping August heat/humidity and high-season mobs, I wouldn't do more than 2 cities.

If your daughter is not interested in museums, yes, skip Florence. It's a goldmine of Renaissance art and I loved it but if you don't like museums...

My recommended minimum for Rome is 4 nights/3.5 days to comfortably cover the biggies + some others. You will need advance, timed-entry reservations for the Colosseum and are VERY late for landing an opening next month. Once you get your itinerary down, give a shout back and we can talk about options; best not to go into detail at the moment. Same for the Vatican Museums/Sistine, if that one is on your list. Sounds like you wouldn't be interested in (excellent) Galleria Borghese but it's likely much too late to get tickets anyway.

It depends what everyone wants to see. If you are young and fit it might be possible however based on my personal experience having visited there twice I don't think so . I have also tried to see as much as possible but it turns in to work not fun. Florence is a beautiful city and I highly recommend it for the museums alone. Rome is ok the Vatican to tour could take weeks , I only took 1 tour there it was beautiful. Speaking of tours I highly recommend them due to the sheer numbers of thousand of tourists. It will have specific times and you get to see what you are interested at and not stand in endless lines. Venice is so beautiful but again many people. Whatever you end up doing watch your belongings I was robbed on the open street in Rome in daylight they took my backpack right out of us standing there. Italy is beautiful enjoy!

I would skip Venice and divide between Rome: 4 days and Florence: 3 days.

Or else: between Florence and Venice:
3 days for Venice and 4 days for Florence. Doing the three cities is too much specially in August when queuing can be long.

You've got a lot of good advice so I will only comment on the train ride. Buy some snacks in the station and treat the ride as a pick-nick. Much better and much cheaper than what you can buy on the train and then you don't have to start looking for lunch when you arrive.

Further to l.p.enerson’s picnic advice. You might feel a bit nervous about bringing your own food onto a train, in the same way that you might feel nervous about bringing food onto an aircraft.
Don’t worry about it for a minute.
Taking food (and wine) onto trains is just normal in Italy. The fun thing is that it can become communal.

7 days won't work for all three, cut down to two.

Rome deserves 5 days, you can do Venice in 2-3 and Florence in 3.
Use the fast train.

Since your daughter wants to go to Venice,I concur that you need to skip Florence, although it's my favorite city in Europe. Try to fly home from Venice rather than spending 1/2 a day or more returning to Rome.