Stuck trying to plan a route

My preference would be for itinerary 1. I find the Amalfi Coast more beautiful than the CT and infinitely more interesting. I think it might be good idea to look into flying or taking a train from Florence to Sorrento. It would save you that long, exhausting drive, and a car is fairly useless for that area. The train from Sorrento to Rome is very easy.

However, if you start blocking out what you want to see in each locale and figure out how many days you need, you might just find yourselves eliminating a lot. Venice with a couple of side trips, Florence and the Tuscan countryside, and Rome with some possible side trips will easily fill all your time.

I don't think you have enough time to fully enjoy the Amalfi Coast. I would choose Cinque Terre as a more manageable 2 night option.
1. Arrive MXP, to Venice (3 nights)
2. Cinque Terre (2 nights)
3. Florence / Tuscan countryside (3 nights)
4. Rome (3 nights)

I count 11 nights for your trip which means you will have about 10.5 days in Italy.

If this is your first trip to Italy, I would concentrate on visiting the big 3, Venice, Florence & Rome.

You can travel via train & forgo the rental car as the Italian Railways are excellent & will get you to your destination much faster
via high speed trains that may travel up to 300 km/h.

You may split your nights something like this:

1. Arrive MXP- freccia train to Venice (3N) = 2 full days to explore Venice.

2. Freccia train Venice => Florence (3-4N) -- possible day trip to Siena or Lucca/Pisa.

3. train Florence => Rome (3-4N) {with possible day trip to Orvieto}

Keep in mind that each time you relocate to a new destination, you will lose about half of that day (packing, checking in/out, traveling, getting situated in new location, finding hotel, etc, etc...)

IMPORTANT: Make sure your passports are valid for at least three months beyond your planned date of departure from the Schengen area. (Six months recommended.)

Enjoy your 30th birthday trip!

Forget the car, take trains. The car will cost a lot of money and you can't drive it in Venice or the historic centers (where all the sights are) of most towns you want to see, driving in Rome is a nightmare.

Trains in Italy (and most of Europe) are frequent, fast and comfortable. You only have 10 full days on the ground. Getting to the Amalfi Coast from Tuscany will use up most of a day. Getting to Rome from there will eat up another 1/2 day.

The best route is
1. Arrive MXP, train to Venice
2. Florence with day trip
3. Cinque Terre (if you can fit it in)
4. Rome

Venice is the best place to soak up the atmosphere while you get over the jetlag and catch up on sleep after the overnight flight. 3 nights gives you 2 full days. If you feel you've seen enough after 1 day, you can day trip by train to Verona.

It's 2 hours by train to Florence, but allow an hour to get to the Venice train station. If you leave early, you can stop in Padua for the day, then arrive in Florence in the evening. 3 nights in Florence gives you 2 full days. You can use one to day trip by bus to Siena.

On to the Cinque Terre. If you leave Florence early, you can stop in Pisa for 2-3 hours to see the Field of Miracles. The Leaning Tower is what everyone knows, but the church and especially the baptistry are worth seeing if you go. 2 nights and then a direct train in the morning to Rome for your last 3 nights. This only gives you 2 days in Rome, so consider dropping the CT.

I agree with Priscilla's route. Venice, Florence and Rome…much to see and all quite romantic. Do Cinque Terre or Almalfi Coast on another trip, if you must.

I, too, agree with Priscilla. But, you can easily day trip to Verona from Venice by train if you want to go there. However, once in Venice you likely won't want to leave. check out 2-3 day Vaporetto tickets, they save money. Have fun!

I just visited Venice, Florence, Cinque Terre, and Rome (in that order - 13 nights total). I loved Venice and Cinque Terre! I liked Florence and Rome as well but not quite as much as the first two. I think that it would be very hard to drive in CT. Parking looked limited and those roads looked scarey to me. But if you do go there, I highly recommend Hotel Villa Steno in Monterosso. I paid $120 Euros for a single room and it was one of the best deals I have ever had in all of Europe - beautiful place!

Thanks so much for the advice!

Our proposed schedule did seem a bit ambitious. We talked, and it looks like we'll have to save Amalfi (and anything south of Rome) for another trip. I think we both really value getting ...
1. history
2. culture
3. beach townish
into our trip.

We are going to try and make Venice, CT, Florence, and Rome work. I was a bit intimidated by the train websites, but I think that was my own fault (I didn't know the names of stations and everything came up as N/A). I'm going to get back on the train websites and try again. That said, I really liked the idea of renting a little Italian car for a day or two (I'm smitten by cars). If I were to do that, when do you think would be the best time to fit that in?

Lastly, I should have asked this sooner, anyone going to be in Italy around the time we are? We love making friends!

Don't go to the CT for the beach. Go for the hiking. The views are beautiful. Most of the beaches are small and pebbly. The only sandy one I saw, also pretty small by any standard, was in Monterosso.

Here's another suggestion, for your 10.5 days. Right now, you have four (or five) destinations. Be strict with yourselves, tell yourselves that you will return, and cut out your outlier city, Rome. Then you will three nights or so in the Cinque Terre, Venice and Florence. That still only gives you two full days in each location, plus your travel days.

You could do your trips by train, but could also rent a car for one leg. Or you could cut your time somewhere, and rent a car for one night in Tuscany, then drive from there to the Cinque Terre. We're driven that route, and it worked out well. We stopped at various Tuscan towns on the way. And there are a few Cinque Terre hotels that offer parking - try Villa Steno, in Monterosso. Also beautiful views from their rooms. I preferred driving tot he Cinque Terre over the train. I'm fine taking the train point to point, but try to avoid transferring or making connections; just a personal preference.

Enjoy!

Lexma says cut out the outlier. The true outlier is the CT when you look at how much time it takes to get there. Never mind that you have to get to Rome anyway for the flight home.

My 2 cents worth:

I would also forget the car. Take train to Venice and spend 3 nights. It's a great place to recover from overnight flight. We took the bus from airport and also bought the vaporetto pass ahead of time.
( check RS book for details)

We then took train to Florence. I don't care for Florence, but our travel mates had never been. We used it as a base for day trips. We used walkaboutflorence.com for a full day of sightseeing in the Tuscany area including Sienna, San gimigano, Pisa and this included a nice lunch with wine at a winery. It a long day and we were glad someone else was doing the driving. This company as has a Cinque Terre Trek from Florence that includes a full day with hiking or beach time if you wish. We didn't do this because it was late March and the season wasn't open yet for this trip.

We visited the Verranzanno castle and winery by public bus. This was a great winery tour with lunch and more wine. See website for bus directions from Florence. This was a great day in Chiant in Greve.

I would then take the train to Rome for the remainder of your nights. You'll be glad you stayed in one place and did day trips from there. You may be able to pick up a day tour of Orvieto and Civita Bagnoreggio from Rome. Or you can even take the train to Pompeii from Rome. To cover the Amalfi area would be too much, but you maybe able to squeeze in Sorrento with. Pompeii. We were on train with others that we're doing a day trip from Rome.

Remember to travel light. You need to be light with train travel. All four of us used a 22" carry on and a tote or backpack. We saw all kinds of fools lugging big cases. I use packing cubes and folders. You won't believe what you can pack if you do it correctly.

Hello again!

I really appreciated all your responses. We modified the schedule a decent amount based on your input. Since you added so much insight to the trip, I wanted to share what our final schedule is...

1. Arrive in MXP, Metro to downtown, look around briefly, then train to Venice
2. Venice for two nights, train to CT
3. Monterosso Al Mare CT for 3 nights.
4. Car from La Spezia to a couple wineries, ending at IlColognole in Tuscany (stay 2 nights)
5. (return the car) Florence for one night
6. Rome for 3 nights
7. Hopefully miss our flight home and stay several more weeks.

We opted for mostly train travel (with the exception of Tuscany). Hoping to keep out of ZTL and eye out for speed cameras. Thanks again and hope everyone is traveling soon.

Patrick

Sounds good. A shame though you don;t have an extra night in Venice. After the long travel day Minneapolis to Milan to Venice, you then have Venice to Florence to Cinque Terre only 2 days later.