The Best of Italy in two weeks

When anyone asks me where I would go in the world if I could go tomorrow my answer is always Italy. Years ago I visited this wonderful country and have been madly in love with it ever since. As a Travel Agent I’m always thrilled to assist my clients in creating their own Italian experience, the best and most unique part of it is working with them around their ideal budget and travel goals. A recent itinerary that I have been working on for a two week vacation looks something like this one below. Of course this can be adjusted in many ways and if you have a little more time we can arrange a flight or cruise within Europe to another country such as Greece, France or Spain! We encourage our clients to take 3 nights if possible at each of their stops to allow time to truly see the city or village you are staying in. We have learned from personal experience that the beauty of visiting Europe is to be present with where you are so you can become immersed in the culture and your surroundings. For this reason we specialize in creating travel experiences that will have you remembering the feelings that you had in each of your destinations over coming home and feeling like it was busy and a bit of a blur.

Day 1-4: Rome

• With direct flights out of many of our large airports in Canada we highly recommend starting or ending your vacation in Rome.
• Plan to stay 3 nights so you have time to see as much of Rome as possible. It’s nice to have a little time to adjust to being in a new country and in a different time zone.
• When we help our clients with selecting their hotel, typically we like to use Expedia or Travelbrands. It works well for both us and our clients to look at the hotel options together and choose something that feels like a comfortable fit from our perspective and our clients. This allows the opportunity for our clients to get involved in the planning process and understand where they are booking their hotel.
• Once the hotel has been booked we suggest visiting YouTube to find many great channels that will offer ideas on all of the attractions of Rome. Personally we like to write the suggestions down in our notes on our phone and then narrow down our itinerary day by day with what makes the most sense based on the areas we will be in. Google maps will save the day for you when it comes to this!
• When booking your train we suggest using https://www.italiarail.com/. You will want to set up an account and pre book your trains for the transfer days, the rest of the trains that you will take can be booked on the day you are exploring. Remember when booking your trains not to book the early bird trains, you are on vacation! In Europe you will find that the evenings are popular such as eating a little later than we are used to in North America which means sleeping in a little longer if you can. The biggest reason I suggest that you don’t book an early train though is because it feels a lot more comfortable to be out walking mid morning than it does at 5:00 am in a city that you aren’t familiar with.

Day 4-6: Cinque Terre

• This is an absolute must to visit when you are exploring this wonderful country. These 5 villages are all so unique and special, if you have the opportunity you will want to plan on staying in one of them. This is the one place that I would suggest staying for two nights vs three if you are watching your budget. It can be a little pricier but you want to make sure you are staying in something that is comfortable. The solution is to remove one night and upgrade your hotel.
• What we love about these villages is that you can take the train between each of them or you can hike. If you do choose to hike make sure you’re wearing good walking shoes and have water with you.
• With so much available online with suggestions of what to do in Cinque Terre we like to leave that for our clients to research. Everyone likes something a little different!

Day 6-9: Florence

• While on the train from Cinque Terre to Florence we suggest stopping along the way in Pisa and Lucca if you have time. If you’re traveling with suitcases you will need to travel to your next hotel first, however if you have backpacks you are a little more free to make some adventurous stops along the way.
• When in Florence there are so many great places to visit such as San Marino, Rimini, San Gimignano and a wine tour in Tuscany. 3 nights is a must!

Day 9-12: Venice

• Once you leave Florence and take the train to Venice you can make a stop in Verona along the way if you have the flexibility with your luggage or you can get settled at your hotel and then take the train to Verona and any of the surrounding towns very easily.
• Our top tip for Venice is that we like to book our clients in a hotel that is close to the train station. There are a few reasons for this, first is that you have to walk everywhere or take a water taxi which is expensive. It makes life easy to get off the train and have your hotel right there. It’s also nice to be able to leave your hotel and jump on the train to head over to another town very easily.
• Venice is magical and so fun to get lost in. When you are there we encourage you to have fun each evening with finding a great restaurant that is a hidden gem. When we visit Venice we always say that we’re so glad we decided to walk just a little further or around one more corner and up another little staircase. When you do you will find yourself dining at a nice table that is overlooking the water. In this moment you will feel like the luckiest person on earth.

We hope to work with you on your next adventure in Italy. Creating an experience is so important over simply checking it off as another trip on your bucket list of places to visit.