My girlfriend Amie and I will be heading to Europe at the end of October. I’ve been to Paris, but have never been to Italy, so I’m looking for any suggestions of places in or around Rome, Florence, and Venice that I must see. Without your suggestions, I’ll have to rely on the tourism guides/books. 
Thanks in advance…
Update: Looks like I had comments disabled, sorry about that. You should be able to comment now.
September 14th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
I honestly do not see Rome to stay more than one day there. I do recommend if you can stick as much time around Venice (north east side of Italy). Cities I do recommend to you are (in no particular order):
- Rimini (a nice resort, with specifics foods, Renaissance art) and with it’s very close San Marino (also a great attraction, with great landscapes and art from Roman era, to medieval era, to modern one). You may find good offers there and people are really friendly.
- Urbino: old historical city with great museums and not only
- Venice (of course)
- Modena if you like cars as such and Verona for it’s mix of new and old. Sometimes at Verona are great exhibitions expos.
- Bologna is interesting too, if you want to see a student city with a lot of interesting street architecture and nice people around
I do not recommend Rome especially as I did enjoyed some sights and some places I’ve did not. Probably it happens as many people going to a city with big big expectations. Anyway Rome have it’s own beauties, but is better to not have the highest expectations
One last point: I’ve told this from my personal views, so your mileage may vary
September 14th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
Hi,
if you’re heading to Venice, you could also visit Villa Pisani, http://www.villapisani.benicul...../index.php, and Marostica, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marostica, and Montagnana, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montagnana.
If you’ve got a car, from the A4 highway you should take the A31 highway to the Thiene-Schio exit, and go up in Valli del Pasubio direction (about two hours from Venice). The “Strada delle 52 gallerie” (”road of the 52 galleries”) in the Pasubio mountain is one of the most interesting and refreshing walks available in Veneto, for its historical background as well for the naturalistic environment. http://www.panoramio.com/photo/5374446. These are the last good periods in the year to take the route up the mountain since it will soon be cold. http://translate.google.com/tr.....angpair=it|en&u=http://www.streva.it/itinerari/gallerie.html
If you head to Florence, you probably want to have a look at Gubbio, Siena and Assisi.
Rome is enough to visit by itself. Visiting the capital city requires weeks, so I wouldn’t recommend taking much outdoors trips there as it seems you won’t be staying much.
I’m from Veneto, by the way :-).
Matteo
September 14th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
@Ciprian: really, as an Italian, I can’t agree with you on Rome. There are so many things to visit there it makes your head spin. Maybe you just took the path made for tourists, sometimes knowing someone there brings you in the best places you wouldn’t otherwise discover.
Turin is another beautiful and underrated Italian city, by the way. Milan sucks, now that’s a horrible and awful place. Yuck.
September 14th, 2010 at 2:38 pm
Being from the north of Italy and currently living near Rome, I can definitely recommend visiting Rome. If you don’t have much time, skip every place in which you have to book or wait endless time for your turn. Many people around here say a week is needed to see the best about Rome, but if you can book for Michelangelo’s Chapel and organize well the trips in the city, I think you really need four days to see Colosseum, Pantheon, the Capitoline Hill, and the major other architectural wonders (did I say Trevi Fountain?).
On the other hand, seeing the museums is very time consuming due to queues for the tickets or for admittance, which is limited to a small group of people at a time.
If you can afford the prices, you should consider using Eurostar (High Speed) trains to travel between Rome, Turin, Venice and Florence, unlike planes they more or less take you in the center of the cities.
If you have plenty of time, I can recommend both Pisa and Naples (althought by my fault I never went to Naples, yet).
In Milan there are only two very important (yet good) things to see: the Castle (Castello Sforzesco) and of course the gothic cathedral which I like very much. Not far from Milan there is my home town Cremona, which is very small but hosts the highest bell tower in Europe.
September 14th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
Verona is worth a visit too: there you can visit the Arena (an enormous, spectacular roman amphitheatre), Juliet’s house (with its famous balcony), the roman amphitheatre, castle Scaligeri, Castelvecchio, Ponte di Pietra (”Stone Wall Bridge”) and much more.
Verona is about 100km (65 miles) from Venice and has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
For more details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verona
http://wikitravel.org/en/Verona
September 14th, 2010 at 11:48 pm
I just visited Rome for the first time in June and I thought it was a great trip. The city is packed FULL of things to see. A general tip: Book your tickets online where ever you can. For things like the Vatican, this can save you literally 2+ hours standing in line.
A few additions to the other suggestions:
* Galleria Borghese (must book in advance!)
* Basilica of San Clemente (short but impressive)
September 15th, 2010 at 2:05 am
In Rome there are some “must see” that you find in the guides: Collosseum, Fontana di Trevi, The Vatican, Sixteenth Chapel, Pantheon, Foro Romano.
There is a square quite close to Pantheon with some Bernini fountains that figured in the movie Angels&Demons that is quite nice as well.
One day is not enough though. I would say three days is sufficient for Rome.
September 15th, 2010 at 2:15 am
Siena, S. Gimignano and Volterra are near Florence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siena#The_Palio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Gimignano#History
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volterra#Main_sights
In Venice there should be the “Biennale Architettura”
http://www.labiennale.org/en/calendar/arch.html
I’ll suggest you to see the lakes:
Lago di Como (where even international stars set their houses)
Lago Maggiore
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.....ide_villas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lago_Maggiore#Islands
Just to name a few other very important and beautiful places…
As you could see Italy is full of beautiful places, almost everywhere so for us (as italians) is quite hard to tell which are the best!
September 15th, 2010 at 8:37 am
Thank you all for the fantastic suggestions! I’m looking forward to this trip immensely.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
If you are going to stay in Florence (where is located 10% of all italian art), try to book at my girlfriend’s hotel and say that you are a Linux user sent by me, you’ll get a special treatment
September 16th, 2010 at 3:53 am
Just came back from a trip to Venice with my gf.
If you didn’t book your say already I’d suggest looking at some B&B offers. I stayed there on her birthday in a very neat B&B room (more a shared appartment, really) for a reasonable (in Venice….) price.
We hopped around before that quite some time, so ping me if you are interested in “reviews”. I don’t want to post unsolicited links/suggestions otherwise.
Enjoy Europe!
September 21st, 2010 at 2:40 am
i JUST got back from a trip to northern italy (and southern france).. walked off the plane last night.
- milan - very nice. full of beautiful people, it manages to be a modern city filled with stunning classic buildings and is not packed or hectic.
- cinque terre - this place is amazing. it’s 5 perfect little villages which sit on the coast between genova and la spezia. take the train from pisa/milan into the first town, and hike/train/ferry between the 5. it’s a UNESCO site, because it’s awesome. http://wikitravel.org/en/Cinque_Terre
September 25th, 2010 at 6:12 am
Visit Elba island, a really beautiful island!