Travel to and between Venice, Florence, Paris

We don’t know where you are flying from so impossible to advise what is best

Use Google flights multi city into one, out of the other and vice versa to see what is more economical for ypu

Thx- Flying from Philadelphia PA (USA)

Flying home from Venice usually means a really ugly, get up up at 3AM to get to the airport. Ending in Venice is not ideal.

Flying roundtrip to Paris means an extra flight back from Italy, so any savings will probably spent on the extra flight.

Your original Venice (4 days), Florence (2 days), Paris (4 days) order looks like the thing to do; at least that would be my choice.

Just for curious clarity, how many nights are you spending at each stop?

I think that is a good flow, starting in Venice, then Florence and home from Paris. I think flying to Venice to start with will be easier to manage. If you are flying in/out of Paris and going to tack on Venice and Florence you are going to have 2 days wasted in flights from Paris to Venice and Florence back to Paris.

Tell me how you are counting your days? When you say 4 days in Venice are you meaning 5 nights which gives you 4 full days and a little on your arrival day?

It's your trip and you can make your own decisions, but to me 2 days (3 nights?) in Florence is not a lot. 4 days in Venice would be fine for me. 4 days in Paris is fine for the 1st time but if you can extend that would also work.

crossposting with Joe and it looks like we are using the same brain!

As mentioned, go to Google Flights and play with various airports and dates to see your options.

Because I'm bored at the moment, I picked a couple of random dates in March. It seems that there are no direct flights from Philadelphia to or from Venice or Florence, but there appears to be a once daily non stop to and from Paris. The Venice flights to the US leave ridiculously early in the morning.

Just my opinion, but I'd go with your current plan. I didn't see any big differences in cost.

We do. nearly all our flights under a multi-city ticket or open jaw simply because it is generally cheaper. Your original plans looks good.

Thank you ALL so much - the info is VERY helpful. Venice is my main interest (for this trip), so I'll see what I can in Florence & maybe add another day or two in Paris. I listed the full days I want in each place -- so would probably add an additional night to each. I'll look into open jaw, as I didn't know about that!

• Fly PHL to VCE with the airline of your choice (only AA has a non stop on that route, but I think it's seasonal, so possibly not operating in March)

• High Speed Train from Venice (Venezia Santa Lucia station) to Florence (Firenze Santa Maria Novella station). 2h10m journey. (2 train companies to choose from: www.trenitalia.com or www.italotreno.it)

• Fly from FLR to Paris (CDG or ORY)
  Air France flies from FLR to CDG
  Vueling Airlines flies from FLR to ORY

• Fly back from Paris CDG to PHL with the airline of your choice (AA flies non stop on this route)

My strategy would be to go to GoogleFlights or Kayak and select a Multi City flight (aka Open Jaw flight)
Going: PHL to VCE (date of your choice)
Returning: CDG to PHL (date of your choice)
The FLR to CDG leg needs to be purchased separately. As I mentioned there are only 2 airlines operating on that route: Air France and Vueling. There is also the option of taking the train to Pisa (PSA), about 50 miles from Florence, and take EasyJet, or whichever other low cost airline you find (Pisa now operates almost exclusively low cost airline flights).

With your limited time you should definitely fly into Paris. It looks like the Florence > Paris - Orly is basically either 7:00am or 7:00pm from Florence on a couple different carriers. You could also check Pisa which flies EasyJet into Orly later in the evening but given the transfer time to Pisa there's probably not much difference.

Orly is much easier into the city than CDG (Charles De Gaulle) but you'll want CDG for international flights. There's a direct metro line now or use the old one transfer method to save ~10e.
https://parisjetaime.com/eng/article/from-paris-orly-airport-a539

Both Florence and Pisa airports are quite close to the city. You can take the tram from the train station or a taxi in Florence. There is a 5m tram to the airport in Pisa from the train station.

Budget carriers will treat your internationally okay sized luggage as if it was a giant sea chest so read the carry on and checked bag restrictions and pricing carefully.

Venice and Paris are probably my two favorite cities, have a great trip,
=Tod