Hotel Delle Vittorie

We are flying into Florence next week and staying in Florence for 1 night, at a hotel in the middle of town. We are then picking up a rental car at the airport and driving to a village.

It will obviously be a little hectic, and our hotel is in a pedestrian zone, so we're wondering if we could leave our large bags at the Florence airport, then retrieve them the next day before we get our rental car.

Thanks!

I’m considering a week in Sicily in August. I’m a 34 year old single female traveler and would like to stay in one place the entire time as I’ll have to be working some during the day - I’ll be staying in an Airbnb. I love the ocean and love being by the coast, would like somewhere walkable and not too remote, and somewhere with enough restaurants, cafes, and people to keep me entertained for a week. Any suggestions are appreciated!

Just looking for some additional advice or recommendations - here is what we have so far;

8/26 - Arrive at FCO 745am, will take car service to our hotel (Hotel Martis Palace) to drop luggage and start exploring Rome.

8/27 - Rome. Vatican museum.

8/28 - Rome. Colosseum tour.

8/29 - 710am Fresciarossa train to Milan. Arrives 1050am. Already booked the tickets. Pick up car rental and drive to Lake Como. Staying in Diamond Apartments in Bellagio.

8/30 - More Lake Como. Staying same place.

8/31 - Driving to the Dolomites. Staying at the Hotel Angelo Engel in Ortisei.

9/01 - Dolomites. Won’t bore everyone with the list of hikes, but the hikes and scenic pass drives are the main reason for coming to the area. That and some of the lakes in the area.

9/02 - Dolomites

9/03 - Dolomites

9/04 - Dolomites, then driving back to Milan, staying at the Sheraton airport hotel that is literally in the terminal.

9/05 - 1020am flight back to US.

I think having basically 3 full days/nights in Rome is this plenty. Not sure that a day and a half (2 nights) will give us much time in Lake Como, but we’ve never been and would like to check it out unless someone has a better option. I think our time in Dolomites will give us enough time to do some hikes and explore the area. Obviously I’d rather have weeks to spend in each area, but unfortunately that isn’t an option haha.

Any suggestions or recommendations for these areas?

Evening

Me and my wife are coming in September for four days and was wondering what is the best area to stay in. We are flying into Cagliari airport and would like to be on the beach but near a town with bars and sightseeing no more than an hour away from the airport, any suggestions?

Regards

My husband and I visited Syracusa, Ortigia, and Catania a few years ago and promised we would return some day, and we are scheduled for 2 weeks in October! Can't wait!

We are interested in history, wine, biking, scenery, and local flavor. We do not want to be changing hotels every other day, so let me lay out what we are thinking and then get some feedback.

3-4 nights in Trapani: Fly into Palermo, rent a car at the airport, and drive to Trapani. If we aren't to tired we will detour to Segeste on the way. We would like to take the cable car to Erice, bike on Favignana, and then maybe visit salt flats.

Day 4: We were thinking that if we got up early we could make it to Agrigento, visit the ruins, and then continue on to Ragusa. If that's too much we would spend a night in Agrigento.

3-4 nights in Ragusa: We originally thought we would like to rent ebikes and visit wineries and other towns like we did in southern France and Tuscany, but as I'm researching I am wondering if that's a thing in that area. I couldn't find bike rental places in Ragusa and don't see any vineyards in that area either. (I did find a map that shows vineyards north of Vittoria and Comiso.)

3-4 nights in Palermo: We would do a day trip to Monreale cathedral, a day trip to Cefalu by train, and a day seeing the sights of Palermo.

Here are my questions:

1) Should we skip the Ragusa area and stay to the west, and if so, what should we do with those days? Should we stay in Vittorio or Comiso and try to rent bikes and visit those area wineries? Is that a pretty area? (I love the pics I've seen of Ragusa and Modica.)

2) Is there an area that has biking options (single day rides vs. multiple days). Ideally we would like to visit wineries on these rides, but scenery is a good incentive, too.

3) In my itinerary above I still have a few nights unaccounted for. Should I add another place, like Cefalu to the itinerary, or a place on the southern coast, or Marsalla, or should I just add the days to the places we are already staying?

4) We thought about visiting the Villa Romana del Casale, but it's about 2 hours north of Agrigento so not really on the way to any place unless we stayed in that area (Enna?) for a day or 2. Thoughts on that?

5) We also thought of staying overnight on Favignana to have 2 days of biking. Is that too much time allocated to see the island?

I will stop there. Vagabonda and others were so helpful on our last trip that I'm hoping for some common sense wisdom again this time. Thanks in advance!!

Kim

I won't be travelling for about a year, but I am already excited and thinking about a solo trip back to Italy. Ideally, I would like to start my vacation relaxing in the Tuscan or Umbria countryside. I am thinking outside of either Lucca or Cortona or anywhere in between. (I'm not fussy, I love the Italian countryside and am just looking for peace, hills and beauty so I know that could be anywhere!) And I would like to do this mainly by train, and without driving myself (I don't want to rent a car). So my initial question then is.... if I fly into Italy, take a train to the nearest small town to where I would be staying, is it expensive to get a taxi to drive maybe 20km or so to a location outside of that small town. Also, any recommendations on what small town country side I should focused on? I know it's not much to go on, but any advice would be appreciated!

Hi! I'm planning on doing a long holiday in Italy from the end of September until November. I will be doing most of my transport via public transport, but biking/hiking or renting a car every now and then might be an option too.

What I'm currently thinking about:

- Enter sicily by train, hop off on the east coast. Visit Taormina, Catania, Siracusa, and possibly Ragusa as main sites. 5 days?

- Take the ferry from either Pozzallo or Augusta to Malta

- Spend about a week on Malta

- Take the ferry back, see (possibly Ragusa here) Valle dei Templi, and the north and west of sicily. About 10 days?

- Take the ferry from Palermo to Cagliari

- Spend about two weeks on Sardinia (not sure what places yet)

- take the ferry from Porto Torres to Barcelona

Is this a feasibily itinerary? The suggested staying times for these places seem to be all over the place (e.g. 5 days enough for Sicily, two weeks in Malta) so I'm wondering if I'm taking it easy enough or if I could include Amalfi for example. Is two weeks in Sicily enough if I go by public transport? I want to see the main sites and take some relaxed days off too. I don't need to spend days in every town exploring every alley.

I plan on staying in hostels and cheap hotel rooms mostly. I can also bring camping gear but I'm not entirely sure if it's worth it as I think a lot of campings will already be closed in October. I don't particularly have a set budget but I prefer to spend my cash on good food and perhaps some guides. I don't have a need for luxury hotels or driving a car everywhere.

we're departing to Italy tomorrow. brother and sister in our 30s. all this trip was booked pretty last minute so practically nothing is finalized.

we want to start our trip in the area around the 2 locations I mentioned but can't decide which is better (and we're departing to Italy tomorrow evening so time is short to make up our minds).

we'll be arriving at Malpensa Airport at night (booked a hotel near the airport) and want to go to either Como or Lecco fir about 2 night before returning to Milan.

we'll be using public transport for the entire trip.

as far as transport goes, it doesn't make much difference since the traveling time from the airport to either of them seems similar.

Lecco was my original plan since it seems there are some hikes around which is something that appeals to us.

looking for hikes around como proves more difficult since all search results are about the entire lake como and that's not helping considering we'll be using public transport.

I've read comments here that Lecco is not that attractive of a town. on the other hand it might be less crowded than Como.

I was thinking maybe taking a day and going from Lecco to Varenna and taking the ferry from there to Bellagio and Menaggio.

I can basically the same from Como as well.

but again, can't find any real info on hiking from Como city specifically.

bottom line, I'm confused. I sometimes find that the "prettiest" town us not always the best to stay in.

can you help with any kind of input?

I’m coming in through Milan, picking up a rental car to drive around Piedmont. We fly in/out of Milan and dropping our rental car before a couple days before we fly back to avoid car return stress on the day we fly back.

Instead of heading to the city, it appears Omenga is the same distance from MXP as Milan city center and planning to spend last 2 nights there.

. Any advice on ease of getting a taxi to the airport? Or am i best to just add a day to Piedmont the stay at an airport area hotel the last day? I hate to be in an airport hotel, but not feeling like going into Milan at the end of the trip.

Thoughts?

We have 2 or 3 days for some hilltop towns. Out of these which would be the top 4 or 5 must see?

Cortona

Spello

Civita di bagnoregio

Orvieto

Pienza

San gimignano

Volterra

We don’t want a big town like Siena. From my research they seem to be the top seven in the area unless I missed one and if I did could you please let me know.

The ones I was thinking about seeing are

Cortona

Civitia di bagnoregio

Orvieto

San gimignano

Volterra

We tend to move fast depending on the size of the town. Maybe this is too many for the 2 maybe 3 days?

We just don’t wanna make the mistake of seeing too many towns that are too similar we really want to see different looking towns if that makes sense.