Help me figure out trip to Italy with 2 college kids.
We were with DH in Italy 25 years ago for 2 weeks with a bus tour :).
Now returning with kids without booked tour…
We will have 9 full days (already subtracted arrival and departure days), arriving to Rome and departing from Venice.
Would love to include Pompeii, 2 days in Florence, and possibly Sorento (as base) for trip to Amalfi.
We with DH spent in past a lot of time in Rome and Venice. Visited before all of the above (only 1 day in Florence but hit all major museums. )
Need mostly help from young adults point of view. These “adults” are not museum lovers but promised to cooperate 
. Any advices, planning strategies?
Since last time we were for 2 weeks there, we are having hard time to squeeze our wishes without making it too crazy running around vacation…
Trip is in second part of May so weather should be fine and days are long. We plan to travel by trains.
I went to Rome and Florence with my daughter in 2019. My advice is to book guided tours of the museums you want to visit. We did tours of the Vatican, the coliseum, the Uffizi, and the museum with David (Academia). The tours saved us time as we got to skip the line and the tour guides had wonderful stories that made the museums more interesting.
One highlight was a food tour in Rome in Trastevere visiting several bars and restaurants. I am sure your college kids would enjoy that.
Sorrento is a great base for the Amalfi Coast towns and Pompeii also, good choice.
Wanted to point out that 2025 is a jubilee year. Here’s a link to that news instead of me explaining it
Rome is expected to be very crowded with pilgrims.
It sounds like Rome is not a place you are visiting and I would think that is a good idea. Whether or not the pilgrims increase tourism all over Italy, I’m not sure.
We are visiting Italy later this year so I’m very interested in what is being suggested. We spent 10 days in Rome a decade ago so it’s not on our list of things we have to see.
Have you already booked your airfare into Rome and out of Venice? Are you planning ing on visiting Rome again? I can help out better if I know these things.
There is a lot to see in Rome. I have recommended a private tour guide to many people, even though she is not inexpensive, everyone has raved about her. She knows the history and can get you quickly to places you should see. For 4 people, she could get a car to drive you.
I think if you are going to 3 cities already, I am not sure if you would have time to “move/stay” at another city because every time you travel it takes up a day.
I have been to Venice a few times, so I would have no need to go again. May is a good time to visit Venice before the canals get smelly. I feel the same about Rome after few visits. But Florence and the Tuscany region, I could go back there over and over again. My kids call it our happy place. I am also liking Milan and the Piedmont region, a lot of great vineyards.
Very jealous you are going to Italy this summer. I think your family will love it.
In the last few years, my family have been going to Spain and Portugal. We are going to Portugal again this summer.
Lake Como and the Dolomites mountain range in northern Italy.
For the young adults I’d recommend food tours. They’re a lot of fun, can be very social, and you basically get a walking tour of a part of the city.
In Florence we had arranged a private tour guide to take us to a couple museums. But when the time came, we decided we’d seen enough museums and asked him to take us on a shopping tour instead - W was looking for a leather jacket. That turned out to be tremendous fun. He took us to all the more reputable shops, with the highlight being a leatherworking school that sells finished goods. It’s the sort of place you could find if you knew about it, but otherwise would never just stumble upon - you go through the back entrance to a monastery, through the gardens, through a big wooden door into a big courtyard, up a set of unassuming side stairs, and then boom you’re in a modern shop. Very fun place with a lot of history.
If you’re a foodie, our favorite restaurant of our 3-week trip to Italy a couple years ago was Santa Elisabetta in the hotel Brunelleschi. The tower of the restaurant is the oldest building in Florence and used to be a women’s prison. It’s a 2-star place, I think around $300/person and I can’t recommend it highly enough (it’s easily as good as 3-star places we’ve been). We actually stayed at the Brunelleschi and it’s a great hotel and very central if you’re looking for accommodations.
If you’re a gelato nut, the absolute best gelato of that trip was Marave in Rome. Surprisingly we had a lot of mediocre gelato in Italy, and some outright bad gelato. Marave was simply amazing and redeemed all of our disappointment.
We also stayed there in Florence back in 2019. I know we ate in their restaurant our first night, but I think it was the less fancy Osteria Pagliazza. The hotel was very nice. We booked with a travel agent and the hotel staff were bending over backwqrds to treat us nicely (welcoming us, etc.) The location is top notch, we walked to everything we did during our Florence stay.
We had Gelato every single night when we were in Italy. We really liked Vento and just kept going to their locations (chain so they are in Rome, Florence, etc.)
I love those convoluted European hotels where they have to guide you to your room because you’d never find it on your own otherwise. I think to get to our room at the Brunelleschi we took 2 different elevators, a set of stairs in-between, and a hallway with a glass floor that passed over a street 
And definitely the staff was amazing. We got there early but they grabbed our bags, assured us the restaurant would take us immediately, walked us to the restaurant, and afterwards our room was ready with our bags already there.
Young adults love Sorrento, and I personally think you could easily stay there for four of your days and see most of the things you mentioned.
It is contained, but has an easily accessible train to visit Naples, Vesuvius, and Pompeii. There are plenty of bars, but it isn’t too rowdy. It has beaches nearby that aren’t too hard to get to, though if I recall, you have to pay to use the beaches right in town. There are a lot of excellent restaurants and great shopping.
The best thing we did was rented a motor boat right from Sorrento. Every one took turns driving, even our kids who were teens at the time. We didn’t choose to go to Capri, but we did stop at beautiful coves and beaches along the way to swim. We brought our own lunch, but we heard of a restaurant that has a water taxi to pick you up at your boat and bring you to their restaurant. It sits over the water. They make some famous zucchini dish, can’t remember what it was called. Then we tootled down to Positano. We saw flying fish leaping in the water. It was an amazing experience.
I’ll be there for eight days in mid-late May. Flying into Milan, then heading to Venice, Verona, Ravenna… very quick stop in Bologna for real ragu alla Bolognese… hanging out with friends in Modena… then doing a day in Cinqueterre/Portovenere, a day in Florence, and two days in Rome.
LOL we might unwittingly run into you somewhere!
Our family was there in May 2022; we stayed there a week, using Florence as a base but taking a couple of trips out of town.
We used Tripadvisor for several trips both in and out of Florence, and we also did a combined tour of the Duomo/Brunelleschi’s Dome and David (which lasted about 3 hours), booked via internet with Walks of Italy. The latter tour was an excellent introduction to some of the most popular attractions in Florence: Michaelangelo’s statute of David at the Accademia Galleria; the Duomo with a tour – including the option to walk to the top of Brunellschi’s dome where there was a small walking area on a terrace; and also the Baptistery with bronze doors by Ghiberti. We also used a tour outfit through Tripadvisor to visit the Uffizi; my only complaint about the latter was not having enough time after the tour was over – it was later in the day – to walk around the Uffizi and see the things that we passed by during the tour. But given the numbers of people who visit the Uffizi, I do recommend using a tour with private entry to the museum.
My wife and I also went to the Bargello museum in Florence on our own, and enjoyed that very much – the Bargello is to sculpture what the Uffizi is to paintings. Fewer people there, despite an exhibit on Raphael during our visit.
If you do avail yourself of tours, be sure to take cash for tipping the tour guides.
We did three nights in Rome, four in Florence and four in Sorrento. In addition to food tours mentioned above, I think college students would like a pasta or pizza making class. In Sorrento we rented scooters with my son and rode to Positano for the day which was wonderful. I also highly recommend a day trip to Capri (can book a small tour on a private boat with 10 or so people). We loved the pizza in southern Italy. Otherwise, our favorite meals were in Florence at Zanfa Bros and Osteria Cinghiale Bianco (recommended on Stanley Tucci’s show). Our favorite gelato in Florence is Vivoli (try their affogato!) I also loved doing winery tours while we were in Florence (lots of day trips are possible from there). Enjoy!
As part of our May 2022 family trip to Italy, we spent a day in Modena where we visited the Masarati factory, following by walking around the center of the city, where we found a balsamic vinegar tasting room run by the Giusti firm. We tasted various types of balsamic vinegar there, of varying ages (one was 25 years old), with cheeses and meats; they were really quite good, and I purchased some nice balsamic vinegars that I brought home with me on the airplane when we returned. The walk around the city center was very pleasant, and there we entered the was a very old — Romanesque — and charming duomo. As I recall, there are aceto (balsamic vinegar) production/tasing tours in Modena, through Tripadvisor or Get Your Guides. Due to time constraints, we were not able to make such a tour.
Been there. Loved Sorrento 
. In fact we liked it more than Venice.
Yes airfair is booked.
I have no idea about future. Possibly if we will explore other coast of Italy boot at some time in the future.
We love Italy, since it was our first European trip after college and it was hard later since hardly any other country could compete 
Now we need to try gelato at Marave 
I need to think about. Yes, last time we went to Pompeii, Vesuvius and Amalfi from Sorento. City was amazing. Fiesta and late open stores. I would never forget leather bags store. We came in pretty much window shopping. The owner asked what we are looking for. I said maybe bag for mom. He turned store upside down “for mom”. We left with 2 amazing handmade bags, one for me