What would you do with 15 days in Italy in December?

Help! My granddaughter is studying in Florence from August -December 15th. My husband and I are taking this opportunity to visit her and travel some throughout Italy. I have studied and have an itinerary of places to visit from Rome to the Dolomites. We love views and sightseeing. I can not decide if it’s best to go the first two weeks in October or the first two weeks in December when all the Christmas markets are open. My main concern is weather….mainly rain. Decided on December but read several places it can rain a lot in December. First time visiting Italy. Thanks for any input!

My husband and I are planning to vacation in italy for our 25th wedding anniversary next year.

i am so overwhelmed with decision making and he is no help as he is very go with the flow and says yes to everything. which doesn't help me decide. lol.

we want to go to rome, pisa, florence, tuscany, amalfi coast

is it better to rent a car and travel this way or is it better to travel via train with all our luggage as we move from city to city?

or

could we be based out of one city for the entire vacation and travel to each place for the day trips?

if so, which city do you recommend to be based out of?

is renting a car a good idea?

i am planning a 14 day vacation to Italy, what is the best time of year to go?

thank you so much in advance for all of your help in planning this trip.

Hi all, we have the pure joy of a month to explore Italy by car this autumn (covid etc dependant). We have a few of the obvious places to visit; Venice, Florence, Amalfi Coast (likely the furthest south we will go) but to join these up we are looking at “non obvious” aka not big city places to stop. Somewhere with beautiful views or old villages to explore, places with beautiful hotels or hideaway gites to stay.

We will travel from the north, likely Pisa / Florence first, then work down South until Naples so particularly looking for suggestions in this area. It’s a round trip so we go Naples back up with some stops (east coast perhaps?) to Venice, Como and home

Many thanks!

Group of 7 including 3 teenagers traveling at the end of June 2022. Flying into Venice and spending 2.5 days there and will finish the trip with 4 days in Rome. Half of the group has been to Italy before, 1st trip to Europe for the other half.

One member of the group wants to meet up with a friend in Milan for a day.

Thinking it might be nice to spend a few days at Lake Como for these reasons -

Would be an easy trip back and forth to Milan for the friend meet up.

Nice relaxation time with swimming, boating, laying out by the lake etc.

Lake Como is gorgeous!

If you were traveling from VCE to Rome and had 3 or 4 days AND needed to spend 1 day in Milan where would you go? Am I on the right track or should we be looking elsewhere?

Greetings! Our younger 18 year old son will be studying in Florence for the year, and we'd like to visit him following a work trip to Monaco. I have a two part question.

Traveling with my husband and me will be our 21 year old special needs son. We are open to suggestions from experienced travelers as to our transportation and itinerary.

Our 21 year old is hyper-verbal and has an intellecutal disability along with autism, so visiting very quiet museums, churches, etc is something where his vocalizations may not be welcomed and also where the content isn't something that would interest him. He's sweet as can be but a bit loud.

I was thinking of taking a train to the Italian border and then perhaps renting a car. From reading other forum posts, I *think* there are two towns near the border where there are rental car agencis. That said, in the US where we are from, there is a major shortage of rental cars. I don't know whether that is so in Italy or Europe overall, but it seems like smaller cities might be more impacted than say Rome or Milan, etc.

We would enjoy spending a day or two in the Cinque Terre area. Our older boy enjoys easy hikes, walking along the beach, and perhaps a boat or ferry ride. Other than that area, I am entirely clueless as to what might be lovely spots to visit. I'm betting that there are many, but we again need to take into consideration our 21 year old's disabilities.

The conference in Monaco finishes on Thursday, October 21. Our younger boy will be out on a 10 day break through Sunday evening, October24th, so he can meet us.... somewhere.. for a couple of days, depending upon where he might be traveling with his college classmates. Or we can just meet up with him in Florence where we do plan to spend a few days.

Can you tell we are just at the very start of figuring this out?

Is renting a car and driving to Florence adviseable? Or is rail the way to go? My husband and special needs boy will likely fly back to the US from Florence after several days, but I may meet a gal pal there and extend the trip. Thank you for your patience in reading and for any ideas you may have to assist us. Grazie mille!

Hello! Our family is planning a trip to Italy in early June. We want to spend 7-10 days there. There are 5 of us, two parents and three kids ages 18-24. We are thinking of flying into Rome and taking the train from there to Florence then Cinque Terre then Venice and flying out of Venice.

1. Does this sound like a reasonable itinerary or is it too much to fit in?

2. I have seen some articles online about some of these places being overrated and crowded. Is this true? Is there somewhere better worth seeing?

Thank you for your help!!

Hi,

My husband and I are hoping to do a road trip around Italy mid sept for 2 weeks. We are flexible with respect to which city we fly in/out from.

We love quiet, scenic beaches (especially quiet coves away from too many tourists), but also like mini city/local town/village trips. We would like our trip to be more beach heavy with a few day/overnight trips to cities/local towns/villages thrown in!

We are happy to do a mix of trains/rental cars but are thinking it probably makes more sense to just hire a car for the whole trip.

Could anyone suggest a 2-week itinerary that could incorporate these things? We are thinking south of Italy, as assuming the weather will be better there in Sept.

Thanks in advance!

Hello!

We're headed on a month long trip to Italy mid July-August and could use any input / advice on the best places to stay. We're two musicians planning to do some music work and find an Airbnb to bunker down in for the month while we work on projects.

The current goal is to find a city near some water (lake or sea!), a small to medium sized city that doesn't feel overwhelmed by travelers or city bustle and has a small town more authentic feel to it. Since we'd be staying in and exploring the local area for a big part of our time, the local feeling is very important!

Ideally it'll be a place that we can get to from Rome without a car (we don't mind if its a long train ride) & it would be a place that could allow for little weekend trips to other cities and areas again without a car.

We've explored Como, Siena, Pisa, Bologna & Florence as possible options, but still having a bit of trouble sorting through the options. Hoping to get some advice from people with a bit more experience and knowledge than us!

Thanks so much !!

Hi. I am hoping to visit Italy next year and I’m currently on the lookout for reasonable airfare for the end of March/beginning of April. Is this a pretty good time to come weather wise? Rome is a must do and there are several other places I’d like to see and I have to figure out a reasonable itinerary for 14 nights. Florence, Venice, Bergamo, CinqueTerre, Burano, Lucca, Orvieto, Amalfi Coast, San Gimignano are all on my wish list. This will be my and my husbands first trip overseas. I like culture and my husband likes the outdoors and hiking. I would like to also stay in a agroturismo during part of our stay. I think three full days in Rome would be good and the rest divided up perhaps between Florence, Cinque Terra and Orvieto might work? Perhaps flying in and out of Rome/Florence. Does this sound doable?

Hello. We are planning our trip next summer, which will be based in Italy since our daughter already has a school trip scheduled there.

We're planning to spend about 12 days in Italy, ending in Venice. We have 5-6 more days to play with, and were debating between going to Switzerland for the first time, or going to Milan/Lake Cuomo (also for the first time).

I'm hesitating to add the Switzerland portion onto our trip, out of concerns that it might complicate our travel next summer for Covid-related reasons. I'm worried about things like a difference in entry requirements, extra testing requirements, etc. We are all four fully vaccinated, but who knows what the rules will be concerning that by June 2022?

Since nobody has a crystal ball, I was hoping someone could at least talk about how easy it was to travel between Italy and Switzerland this summer (for vaccinated Americans, if that is relevant).

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give. :)