Planning trip to Italy 9 full days

[anomander]

@kiddie

I was going to also say you will need to book tours for the vatican, Uffizzi, etc. In Italy the tour guides get to skip the line with their groups. If you aren’t with a group you will spend all of your days waiting on lines.

Yup, we had a morning tour with a private guide and when we arrived the line was already blocks long. But our tour guide got us in right at opening.

Unfortunately we weren’t able to do the full tour and left a little early. But the silver lining was having this amazing stairway on the way out all to ourselves for a solid 10 mins of photos and video. That’s us walking down - our tour guide was very patient with us and took a ton of pics!

[citivas]

Wow, we did almost your exact trip some years ago – fly into Italy and out of Venice with 9 days total.

Going from memory, here’s approximately what we did:

• Day trip from Rome to Pompeii. You can take the super fast train from Rome to Naples (and reverse later) then there are various ways to get to Pompeii from Naples, including car service, shuttles or local train. We did the local train but might do car if we did it over. We had no problem feeling we had enough time to explore Pompeii and still make it back to Rome.
• While in Rome we got around by Uber, walking, etc. Did not rent a car for this first portion, especially since many Italian cities have special zones only for residents to drive and you could wind up with three-figure fine tickets that show up a year or later back home.
• Rome highlights include doing the special Colosseum tour where an architect guide takes you underneath and along the floor. And the special Vatican tour which included breakfast inside the Vatican and a private tour before it opened.
• When we were ready to check out of Rome, I rented a car near the train station one way for a Venice return.
• I found a castle for rent near Sienna. We literally were staying in a 1,200 year old legit castle with towers, etc with one of the most amazing views we’ve ever had. Downside was the bat that flew out of the enormous fireplace. We did day trips including to Florence and Siena.
• Eventually drove to Venice and turned in the car outside of the main city and did the rest on foot. Stayed at a hotel right in the heart of Venice itself, walking distance to everything.
• In various cities, I found private “guides” in advance online. Each of these people were licensed and had special passes that let us skip passed the lines to get into the major museums, and they were not that expensive. We did this for Pompeii, Florence and Venice.

EDIT: Found the castle we rented: Tuscany vacation rentals by owner in a Real Castle near Siena

[Colorado_mom]

@Twoin18

If you do the Vatican, start with the museums but make sure you know about the back door exit from the Sistine Chapel (at the most distant point of the museum loop) that takes you right into St Peter’s. Tour guides use it but anyone can go that way and it saves hours of lines.

I think that tip was worth the cost of the guide book (probably Rick Steves). It saved our family a wait of 1-2 hours to get into St. Peter’s, especially nice that day because it was pouring rain.

[gardenstategal]

You might want to check out the “with locals” app/website. Really fun and effective way to find a private tour guide with a focus that matches yours.

[momsearcheng]

Thanks! I have never heard about.

[momsearcheng]

Need to get to library to get Rick Steve’s recent book

[momsearcheng]

Yes, we probably will book ferry Sorrento to Amalfi.

[momsearcheng]

Looks like I need to prebook absolutely everything. (Stays, all museums, all trains, all tours.) Do not remember soo much planning ahead for any trip. This planning will keep me very busy for a while

[conmama]

That’s part of the fun!

[Colorado_mom]

The following is an old story about doing research. The Rome example may or may not still work the same.

We took the kids to Rome in 2015, before pre-booking as common. We were overwhelmed by the morning crowd at the Coliseum, eyeing the skip-the-line ticket salespeople roaming the crowd. I said, “let’s go see what it’s like over at the Palestine Hill entrance”…. twas a Rick Steves tip for going counter to crowd trends. The kids, who had mocked my old fashioned use of tour books, were skeptical. We walked a few minutes and found exactly 2 people in line at that multi-location ticket desk. In the afternoon, there were still mobs at Coleseum. We had to wait in bag-inspection line but not the ticket line.

[lb5]

Just a heads up on possible free excursion to Murano. Our very nice hotel on the canal also had an offer from a company for us for a free trip to Murano, right from the hotel dock. Once we were there we learned a return trip only was included if we bought something sizable in price from the glass blowing place and store to which we were taken. Return options were not plentiful, it was late afternoon and the weather had turned rainy. We were then told we could have a ride back with the next people who had a sizable purchase, only if we did not leave the premises of their store and only to the closest part of Venice from Murano - which was far from our hotel. We still had a good time, but would probably rethink doing the free trip or ask more questions.

[momsearcheng]

Are there non-free trips? We are not staying inside Venice anyway. 0 AirBnb options.

[lb5]

Yes. My daughter did trips to both Murano and Burano by ferry, and I think you could hire a more private boat. There are also paid excursions.

[naviance]

I got that tip from Rick Steves in 1987! At the Sistine Chapel, way in the back there is a door (on the right?) which says “tour guide only”. I have happily gone thru that door without a tour guide 3 times!!

[momsearcheng]

People said that this is now guarded since they collect extra fees from groups to use it…