Trip Planning Help

Mostly your plan seems reasonable. Sorrento is centrally located so you have the ability to see the everything in the area from Naples to Amalfi. Siena can be done as a day trip from Florence by bus.

I would stay an extra day in Venezia and visit Murano and Burano - but I am partial to Venezia :-)

Venice - Cinque Terre:

Check http://www.trenitalia.com, search on "Venezia S. Lucia" to "La Spezia Centrale".

If you know which city in Cinque Terre you want to visit, you can make a better search. We took the opposite trip last summer and selected to go via Milano (Milan), but for you Firenze (Florence) might be a better route.

Since you already know which day you want to travel you can buy the tickets now and get a better price - but you are locked to that specific departure.

Definitely stop in Siena, it's gorgeous, worth at least one night there

Take the train from Venice to Cinque Terra. You'll pass thru Milan, another worthwhile destination, but save that for your next trip.

We stayed in Sorrento (actually just outside Sorrento proper, in Piano di Sorrento), which was a great base from which to visit Naples, Pompeii, Herculaneum (another fascinating ancient Roman town that was buried during the same eruption that buried Pompeii), the Amalfi Coast, and Capri. Naples was pretty intense, and a 1-day visit was plenty for us 2 years ago. If you want to make Naples your home base in that region, go for it, but a bit farther south, around Sorrento, seems to be ideal.

Marie,
I would switch CT and Florence, especially if you will be heading to Rome after visiting the CT.

Keep in mind that spending 3 nights in any one destination means that you will have 2 full days to visit that destination,
so 4 nights = 3 full days, 5 nights = 4 full days, & so on... and... each time you relocate from one destination to the next you will lose about half of that day (checking-in/out of hotels, getting to train station, waiting for train, transit time, walking to new hotel, checking-in, unpacking, getting situated to new location, etc, etc...)

I would leave Naples/Sorrento/AC for another trip.

I'd suggest doing something like this:

• Venice (3-4Nights) with day trip to Padua
• Florence (4-5N) with day trip to Siena.
• CT( 3-4N) with day trip to Pisa & Lucca
• Rome (5N) with day trip to Orvieto &/or Ostia Antica
• Fly home from Rome

Enjoy your trip!

Marie, I don't know if the trains have changed but I found that going from Venice to CT took all day by train. We changed our plan to go to Venice first, then Florence then CT. You may want to go to Florence first then CT then continue on with your itinerary. It's been several years since we went so don't know if there are better train connections now from Venice to CT.

Marie,

As some of the others have mentioned, your Itinerary is reasonably well organized but I'd also suggest re-arranging the order somewhat, perhaps along these lines.....

• May 7 - D1 - flight to Venice (I assume you're travelling from the U.S.?)
• May 8 - D2/N1 - Venice
• May 9 - D3/N2 - Venice
• May 10 - D4/N3 - Venice
• May 11 - D5/N1 - Train to Florence (your departure station will be Venezia Santa Lucia and arrival station Firenze SM Novella - about 2 hours)
• May 12 - D6/N2 - Florence (day trip to Siena? use the Bus as it's only about an hour each way)
• May 13 - D7/N3 - Florence (day trip to Pisa and Lucca?)
• May 14 - D8/N4 - Florence -May 15 - D9/N1 - train to Cinque Terre (which of the five towns are you staying in? You'll need to know that when you buy your ticket. There are a variety of trains used on that route, and you can use the Trenitalia or bahn.de websites to research the solutions. Travel time will be about 2.5 hours depending on which train you use. There will be at least one change).
• May 16 - D10/N2 - Cinque Terre
• May 17 - D11/N3 - Cinque Terre
• May 18 - D12/N1 - train to Sorrento (you'll first need to travel to Napoli Centrale and then connect with the Circumvesuviana commuter train. The trip will be about 5H:30M depending on train, with one change at Roma Termini. When you arrive at Napoli Centrale, walk downstairs to the Napoli Garibaldi station and buy tickets for the Circumvesuviana. Trip from Naples is about an hour and Sorrento is the last station on the line).
• May 19 - D13/N1 - Sorrento
• May 20 - D14/N2 - Sorrento (day tour to Pompeii)
• May 21 - D15/N3 - Sorrento (day trip to Naples?)
• May 22 - D16/N1 - take train back to Naples and then from there to Roma Termini.
• May 23 - D17/N2 - Rome
• May 24 - D18/N3 - Rome
• May 25 - D19 - Return flight to U.S. from FCO (take Leonardo Express from Roma Termini to airport. Fare is €14 PP and DON'T forget to validate your tickets prior to boarding the train on the day of travel).

A bit more time in Rome would be advisable as there's so much to see there. In order to do that, you could cut one day from Florence and the day trip to Pisa and Lucca. If those two places are important to you, one solution would be to still cut a day from Florence but spend half a day in Lucca on one of your Florence days, and visit Pisa on the way to the C.T. (although that will be a bit of a nuisance while hauling luggage).

I'd suggest having a look at the Italy 2015 guidebook, as it will be a tremendous resource for planning hotels, sightseeing and transportation.