Venice and surrounding area

"We plan to do day trips to Florence, Tuscany and Milan for the remainder of the trip."

Where will you be based to do these day trips?

Surely not from Venice...

If the OP plans to base in Venice and do day trips to Florence/Tuscany and Milan, he/she didn't really look at the distances between them.

Rick Steves' Guidebook for Rome is the best resource for what is open and closed on what days. Monday you can easily "do" ancient Rome: Colosseo, Forum, etc. Pantheon is always open.

The Amalfi Coast is a long way to go for two days. Is it two nights or three? If only two nights allocated here, skip it and add a night to Roma and a night to Tuscany wherever you may be.

Do not try to day trip from Venice, if that is what you have in mind. Skip Milan unless you are flying out of there.

Hi there, we will be based in Venice for the day trips. We rented an apt there

Yes, so basically you are saying that we can't do day trips to Florence and Tuscany and Milan from the apt in Venice? We will have to do overnights? Also, we were planning on one overnight in Positano. Yikes. so where can we easily do day trips and go back to the apt. ? The plan is Rome for two days.

Venice is not the most convenient city for day trips to places like Florence or Milan, unless you don't mind 2-3 hrs on a train each way. Of course it can be done but I don't know anyone who has done it. Most people plan a few days in Florence as a base to see the Tuscany area. A good day trip from Venice would be to Verona with or without a stop in Padua. Other good trips are Bologna, Ferrara, Chioggia.

Only 2 days in Rome? What a shame. Have you been there before?

Your choices are limited from Venice, but I recommend Verona as an easy daytrip. I enjoyed Verona so much I'm making a second trip there in May. Padua would be another option.

Hi there we have never been to Rome before. So basically we will be in the area for a total of 14 days and from the posts it looks like we should skip Amalfi Coast (it was just one overnight) maybe add more days in Rome and overnight in Florence or Tuscany instead?

Florence is the capital of Tuscany. Where else in Tuscany are you interested in going?

Ready, set , go! We are open. We are traveling with a somewhat large group of 20. So I am not the trip leader but just passing on information. They had a meeting abd at the meeting they discussed from our home base of Venice, Rome, Florence, Milan and Amalfi Coast. We are open to suggestions of any must see cities or attractions while we are in the area. We rented an apt in Venice with another couple and definitely have the ability to steer away from the group at any point . So far just a private tour of the Vatican is planned and a day trip to almalfi coast. We were going to stay an extra day since it was so far away .

You cannot day trip to the Amalfi Coast from Venice unless you fly. Rome is also a ridiculous expectation for a "day trip" from Venice.

Have any of you read a tour guide, like Rick Steves' excellent Italy Guide on how to travel and plan a trip to Italy?

I will suggest the guidebook and also Rime will be two full days. How many days are needed there ?

Even though the distances look short, it takes lots of time to move about in Italy... especially from Venice. I would suggest trying to really enjoy Venice and the close, surrounding area... especially with such a huge group. Definitely take a day trip to Burano... Venice will be hot and crowded in July. Since you are in an apartment will you be doing grocery shopping and cooking? Maybe taking a cooking class might be fun. Be sure to try and get up really early at least 1 or 2 mornings to watch the sunrise in Venice. Much less crowded than sunset:) You get to enjoy the city and see it in a different way than most tourists.

Check Rome2rio.com for travel times and different means of transportation. I think your expectations for efficiently moving such a large group are a little optimistic. Get a good guidebook (Rick Steves Italy or Lonely Planet) and decide what are your top choices. Does the group of 20 have to move around as a unit? You mentioned being able to break off from the main group with another couple.

No one can tell you how many days you need in a place - opinions will vary, and it's your trip, so once you get a map and a guidebook and decide what you want to see in each city, you can figure out how much time you will need.

Stay in Venice to see Venice, Verona, Pudua, Murano/Burano

Move to Florence to see areas of Tuscany including Pisa, Lucca, Siena

Move to Rome to see Vatican, Appian Way, Pompei (on a long day trip)

Move to Sorrento to see Capri, Pompei (much easier), Positano

You most definitely cannot stay in Venice and make daytrips to all of these places. Venice is a WONDERFUL destination in and of itself. Get out and about and walk around in Venice...get LOST in Venice, it's fun.

Tim from Knoxville is spot on!! His is a very good plan.

Thank you! I think that the trip leader was trying to be as economical as possible since we have the apt rented and trying to limit hotel stays and lose the benefit of the apt, but we need something that makes sense. Yes, I am not trying to navigate such a large group and the only thing right now that is planned is a private tour of the Vatican on a Monday, but we do not know if the private tour means after hours or not being able to actually tour inside? Is the Vatican closed on Mondays?

Tim, I will pass along your suggestion.

Thank you! I think that the trip leader was trying to be as economical as possible since we have the apt rented and trying to limit hotel stays and lose the benefit of the apt, but we need something that makes sense. Yes, I am not trying to navigate such a large group and the only thing right now that is planned is a private tour of the Vatican on a Monday, but we do not know if the private tour means after hours or not being able to actually tour inside? Is the Vatican closed on Mondays?

Tim, I will pass along your suggestion.

I also agree with Tim's suggestion as that provides your most realistic day touring options. Choosing Florence as your "home base" location would have been more central and would have provided a better range of realistic day touring possibilities. Venice is not exactly the most convenient location for what your tour leader is proposing, and it may also be more expensive than other locations. Day tripping to Positano from Venice is absurd. Even with a flight to Naples, you'd spend the better part of a day just getting there, so there would be no time to actually see anything.

It would have been prudent to have planned all this prior to booking apartments or flights.

Good luck!

We've done a few day trips from Venice (we've spent a total of about 2 months in Venice over time): Padua, Torcello, Burano, Murano, Trieste (however Trieste is about a 2 hour train ride each way). You will find plenty to do in Venice, however. It is one of the most incredible cities we've ever visited. Save those other cities for your next trip. They are too far to travel for a day and most of them require days by themselves to experience more than a "look". Enjoy having an apartment, go to the fresh fish and vegetable markets and cook dinners with ingredients that you can't find at home. Stroll around St. Marks Square in the evening and enjoy the orchestras (free if you don't sit down). Venice is very safe, even late at night, and that is one of the best times to just stroll (in July the narrow walkways in Venice will be very crowded with tourists during the day).

Thanks so much for your help! We tagged along to our friend's friend's 50th birthday celebration with family and friends, so not sure why they chose Venice as the home base, but we will have to make it work as we have already booked the apt and also airfare RT to and from Venice, but thanks so much for the advice. We are open to overnights that make sense and don't want to make a day trip that doesn't make sense for us to just lay our head at the apt. The cost savings from having the apt versus staying in hotels for 14 days will surely still be a cost savings for us. We don't know when we will go back again and just want to splurge where it makes sense. We surely plan to enjoy all of the sights and culture in Venice and look forward to that.

So far, we have a private tour of the Vatican etc scheduled as well as the Amalfi Coast day trip which we may stay overnight here. Also, we will be in Rome for two full days. I will look at your other suggestions as well as we identify our must see cities/attractions.

Thanks so much for your help. I have been to Venice before, but it was when I was a teenager and I can't remember anything! I have never been to Rome either or any of the cities for that matter on our list.

I am just re-reading some of your responses again.
We will be moving to Positano from Rome and not from Venice for an overnight. So after two overnights in Rome we will travel to Positano for an overnight.

Sounds like your plan is coming together... I also agree with Lois.... Really do make the best of the apartment... you can enjoy the cooking and the markets and being with friends in such a beautiful location. Such a wonderfully relaxed way to see Venice and the surrounding area.... You will probably even become 'regulars' at your favorite places. I just got back from Italy and spent 3 days in Venice... and it was much too short of a time! I have spent 7 days there on one of my previous trips and it is a really different experience.

I have a questions for Tim from Knoxville.. How many days do you recommend in Rome? Two nights enough?

No one is going to tell you that 2 nights are "enough" for Rome, but you have to do what fits into the time you have. Rome has many, many sights; read a guidebook and see how many of them you want to go inside and can't stand to miss. You can cover a lot of ground in one day if you're basically just wandering around and looking at interesting buildings. I do that a lot. A tourist who wants to really see (go inside) sights like the Coloseum in Rome needs considerably more time. And Rome is large, so simply moving from one place to another can take a good bit of time. Florence is much smaller, but you could potentially spend a lot of time inside museums there.

It will take time to move from Venice to Florence to Rome to Positano and back to Venice.

You need to figure out how much time you'll actually have between arrival and departure in each city. I love the idea of staying in Venice for a good while and absorbing the atmosphere. Consider dropping either Florence or Positano. Dropping Positano would make more sense geographically, but if you're more interested in coastal scenery than art museums, maybe it would make more sense to eliminate Florence.

Edited to add: A lot of museums and other sights in Rome are closed on Mondays, so that is something you need to be very much concerned about. Guidebooks normally cover this issue, but once you have a list of places you want to enter, you should check for current online info.