Italy - where to go?

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Hi all,

I am madly excited as we have just booked our airfares to Europe... and even though we don't go till August I am in full planning mode!

The major part of our trip will be visiting my parents who live in London and we will travel with them to Whales, France and to Cinque Terre in Italy. (A cheap way to go since they pay for all the accomodation!).

After that my partner and I will have about 7 days left to do whatever we like in Italy before flying home from Rome. At this stage I was thinking about training it from Cinque terre to Venice, Florence and then Rome and spending a few days in each place.

Does anyone have any other places they would visit? Given the short time we'd rather see a lot of a few places than a little of everything. As much as I'd like to head down to Pompei I am not sure we have the time, or could we do it as a day trip from Rome? Are there any top spots in or around those trhee citys that we should make sure we see??

And any suggestions for accomodation - we had thought about taking camping gear but are thinking that it is not worth the hassle for just a week. But we are definitely not flush with money and although we'd like to have our own room if that will be too expensive we aren't against sharing.

Also any ideas of how busy it will be at the end of August / beginning of September? We had trouble getting flights so I am guessing it will be fairly busy in London and France and Italy?? Will we need to book accomodation in advance? This isn't such a problem except it means we can't change our mind and stay long or chorter ins ome places rather than others.

thanks in advance

Kate

[LHR02]

Hate to sound like a party pooper here, but with 7 days you are already overbooked with Venice, Florence and Rome!  I won't base this solely on how long I spent in each of these places, but will say that you need at a minimum 2 days in Venice, 3 in Florence and 3 in Rome.  And that is true bare bones, major sights only whirlwind visits.  Plus add travel time between them and you are over booked.  And, I understand in August they are all packed in like sardines, so that will lessen the number of things you can see and visit as well.

I'd suggest you drop one of the three and just plan on 3 days in two of them.  To each their own of course, but Florence knocked my socks off and was one of my two favorite cities I visited.  Rome......spent 10 days there when I had planned on 5, so need I say how much I enjoyed it as well.  Venice is a place unlike any other, no cars, no noise, but needs a couple of days just to get your bearings.  

All three are so very worth visiting but they each need a bit of time to really appreciate them.  My best advice is to not cheat yourselves out of getting a feel for any of them by being in a rush to get to the next place on your list.  Allow yourself some time to just wander around, sit and do a bit of people watching, and savor the place you are in.

happy travels,
ginger

[Cat]

It is a lot of travelling for just 7 days, I think. I would stick to Rome, you can easily spend a week there. I do recommend a daytrip to Pompei then. It is very impressive, we spent a whole day there, just visiting the ruins! It can easily be done from Rome, it's about an hour trip by train, and they run regularly.

[me]

this is a long orphanned topic, but i just found this website. but, i don't know enough to be sure that its info is comprehensive:

www.concento.it/canali/italydaily/festival_italydaily.jhtml?category=ItalyDaily/Travel

looks like it might be useful. any comments?

- d