Rome, Florence, Venice

Fly into Venice-3days…train to Florence-3days… train again and rest of time in Rome and fly home from there

I'd basically follow the Rick Steves Venice, Florence, Rome itinerary - it is fabulous. And, NO, Venice needs at least 3 days.

Fly into Venice for 3-4 days, train to Florence for 3-4 days (I'd do a day trip into Tuscany with WalkAboutFlorence or another company - we loved their BEST OF TUSCANY TOUR and their CHIANTI WINE & FOOD SAFARI TOUR). Then take the train to Rome for 3-4 days and fly home from Rome. Be sure and book MULTICITY tickets, NOT one way tickets. The Rick Steves tour has great ideas for each city. Get the Pocket guidebooks for each city. They are sometimes cheaper on Amazon vs this site.

Trains between those major cities are super-fast, much faster than buses or cars. There's the potential to save a good bit of money on tickets if you buy them early (usually a few months in advance), once you're confident of your timing. However, Italian rail tickets are pretty reasonably priced even if you aren't comfortable buying them very early.

Fly in to Venice
Much easier to fly in here than departing and it’s the perfect place to get over jet lag

Venice 3 nights

Train to Florence 3 nights, add a night for every day trip (Tuscany countryside tour or Siena)

Train to Rome-bare minimum 4 nights
Add extra nights here if you can

Fly home from Rome

A 3 night stay equals 2.5 days in that location
Each location change takes up a half a day or more

All easily done by train
Use the official Trenitalia site or their easy to use app
https://www.trenitalia.com/content/tcom/en.html

Station names:
Venezia S Lucia
Firenze SM Novella
Roma Termini

Depends on what interests you. For me at least three nights in Venice, just walking around, taking a ride to another Island, enjoying the city. Tend to avoid galleries and museums, though usually visit the Guggenheim, as I like the cafe for lunch and the sculpture garden; the modern art is refreshing after too much religious themed art. I didn’t make it to San Marco Basilica until my third visit to Venice, turned up when there was no queue just before it closed at lunchtime!

I’ve not been to Florence, it just doesn’t appeal to me, but people seem to like two or three nights there

As for Rome, so much to see and do. I did the RS 7 days Best of Rome as well as staying for a few nights on other occasions and it is never long enough as I will want to overdose on museums, archaeological sites, etc.

Personally on a trip such as yours probably I’d suggest at least four nights in Rome, and three each in Florence and Venice. Don’t forget you will lose half a day each time you travel between cities.

I did the Venice Florence Rome tour, and it is a great tour, but I wanted more time in each location. I have since returned to Venice and spent an entire week. It will depend on what you are interested in. I wandered into a lot of churches, several museums, and spent time on both Murano and Burano as well. I would like to go back to Rome and spend a week or more even though I spent a couple extra days after the tour. Even Florence needs at least three to four days. 12 would be the very least number of days so add more if you can.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make discoveries of a personal nature of the multitudes of layered history in each of these iconic, highly visited and tremendously fascinating Italian cities. For my money and time, I would aggressively stretch my time to the absolute fullest and if cost were no issue, would spend minimum 3 nights Venice, 4 nights Florence, 5 nights Rome and know I would still be itching for (much) more. Make that over-priced airfare count for as much as possible!! I agree with the common advice to arrive north and then meander / head south, easing as it were into the intensity that is Italia. In taking the time, money and trouble to head anywhere in western Europe, please for the sake of all that is holy to travel, never, EVER, 'do' a major city in one day. Said with a smile and no mean intent. ;-}

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

Look at the "Itinerary" tab to give yourself an idea of what each city offers.

Trains link the 3 cities well.

Can you do Venice in one day?

Depends on what you want to "do".( and how well organized you are)

Venice deserves at least three nights. Besides the major museums and churches, there are little gems to find throughout the city. I’m going back for my third visit this year (2024) for five nights. Previous visits have been three and four nights.

After taking the RS Village Italy tour, I am going to Florence for four nights. It’ll be my first visit and I have a full itinerary planned. I end my trip in Rome for five nights. It’ll be my second visit but still have lots to see and do.

I suggest getting the RS Italy guidebook if you haven’t already. It will help you plan your itinerary. I use Google maps to plan a daily itinerary so I’m not criss-crossing town to make better use of my time. To help manage my time, I lay out my itinerary in my phone’s calender so I don’t over plan. You need gelato breaks.

Buon Viaggio!

It would be very easy to spend all of your time in any one of those places, However, since you want to do more than just one city (quite understandable), consider this. If you just want a taste of each, then split the time equally. On the other hand, if you do LOTS of reading and research about each, you may find there is much more to do that interest YOU in one as opposed to the others. Then rank the cities in order of interest, and that should indicate how much time to devote to each. I realized that is very general advice, but not everyone is interested in the same things. Everyone's time line will be different.

To answer your specific questions, use trains. And Venice will always deserve way more than a day.