re: Fill in the blanks: Rome to Venice, 9 nights

Look, any itinerary is do-able, given sufficient resources and determination. Italy isn’t a huge country, though it is mountainous. Would I suggest the Lake Como area to a first-time Italy visitor who is trying to fit Rome, Florence, and Venice into the same trip? No. From Florence to Como area is 4.5 hrs...then it’s another 4 to Venice. If Como is on the must-see list, then adjust the itinerary—fly into Turin, do Como & then head south to Bologna, Modena, and Florence. Or Venice, Como, Bologna/Modena.

Any trip is a great one, if you match your expectations with your plans. Do you “need” to see the tourist cliche sites? Will you feel as though you haven’t been to Italy if you don’t stand in St Peter’s Square? Do you have a dream of mountains, cool air, and dry cured salami? The country is a patchwork of regions with very distinct traditions, foodways, and appearances. Just don’t try to hit every guidebook highlight in your first trip, or you will spend much of your time in a car or on a train, looking out the window, wishing you had room in your schedule for a long lunch, another scoop of gelato, an evening walk in a beautiful stone town as the sun goes down, or a few more hours to visit a morning market, enoteca, or panifico.

Google Maps are a travel planner’s friend. Train travel estimates are accurate, driving times tend to undershoot the mark a bit for Italy in my experience.

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A 10 day trip is an eternity for the vast majority of American travelers. If you think that’s short you are living in a vastly different reality from most people.

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Definitely. I have plenty vacation time, but I wouldn't be able to be gone for more days than that consecutively.

Plenty of people have the time, they simply don’t choose to prioritize travel. Or, they’re locked into the idea that travel is expensive. Sure, ppl with school aged kids are stuck in re schedules.....but there are literally 30 million retirees in the US, lots of people working in academia or schools with long semester or term breaks, plus a giant section of the workforce that is freelance, flex-scheduled, or able to work remotely. Travel doesn’t automatically mean “not working” in the modern age.....

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have a thread in the sticky. Rome, Florence, and Positano.

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I can’t view any of your pics. It has a photobucket icon. Is that a problem on my end?

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Plenty of people have the time, they simply don’t choose to prioritize travel.

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Or they have jobs that taking off more than 7 days in a row would be an epic disaster.

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It has a photobucket icon. Is that a problem on my end?

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No. Photobucket charges for third party site hosting. I wasn't going to re-do it with Imgur. That took a lot of time on the front end. Sorry.

I'd start at Florence and end in Positano or vice versa to mazimize your time at destinations and minimize your time traveling.

ETA: I don't know your flights so I could be off base. When we go to Italy we look to fly into Venice or Milan and work our way down to a flight out of Rome or Naples.

In September we're flying into Milan. Then Lake Como and Piedmonte then to the Tuscan countryside via the Florence train station then the fast train from Florence to Naples and a ferry to the Isle of Capri. We'll fly out of Naples to Madrid.

This way we're always traveling towards the next destination with no or minimal backtracking.

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I’m heading to Rome/Florence in May with a stop in Postiano and looking for info.

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There should still be some substantial information there, you just may have to google some stuff.

In Rome we stayed in Monti. In Rome & Florence, I cannot recommend Walks of Italy enough. They were a fantastic tour group.

In Florence, we used Grape Tours for one of the wine excursions. The other was through Tenuta Torciano where they set us up with our own private driver. We went to Siena, their winery (tasted about 14-15 wines), and then finished in San Gimignano.

In Positano, we stayed at Le Sirenuse. We walked, we ate, we sat by the pool, drank copious amounts of wine, and enjoyed the views. We did spend a day on Capri. We hopped in one of those crazy looking taxis, and this dude took us all over the island for 130 euros I believe. Seemed legit enough.

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In Positano, we stayed at Le Sirenuse.

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Goddamn. Look at you, we got a big baller in here.

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Goddamn. Look at you, we got a big baller in here.

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Whoa, whoa, whoa.... While it was really f'ing expensive, we went so that it butted up essentially to two days before "ON" season. Significantly cheaper.