Earlier this year, we traveled to Italy for a little less than two weeks during the offseason! It was a magical trip, full of delicious food and Italian culture. This was the first time both my husband and I had been to Italy, and we did SO much research and preparation beforehand. I literally spent an entire month reading and learning everything I possibly could about where to visit, how long to stay in each place, how to get from place to place, etc.
I’m so excited to be sharing a general overview of our entire itinerary, including where we stayed, ate, and what we did each day! I’ll be doing a detailed itinerary of what we did exactly in each place in the coming weeks, but I feel like a general itinerary would’ve been very helpful for me to see when I was planning our trip, so that’s why I wanted to write this for you guys!
Days 1-3 – Rome
We flew into Rome on Day 1 and spent 3 days exploring this huge, bustling city! We walked 10+ miles each day, ate delicious food, and saw some amazing historical sights! Timothy and I both have agreed in the past that we are not big fans of cities, so the 3 days we spent in Rome were just enough to see everything we wanted to see and then get out of there! It was a very packed 3 days, but here’s a list of everything we were able to see:
- Pantheon
- Colosseum
- Trevi Fountain (both at night and during the day!)
- Roman Forum
- Palatine Hill
- Vatican
- Piazza Navona
- Campo de Fiori
- Vatican City/St Peter’s Basilica
- Vatican Museums
- Aventine Keyhole/Parco Savello
- Circus Maximus
- Trastevere
- Villa Borghese Gardens
Our AirBnB was located in the neighborhood of Monti – about a 10 minute walk from the Roma Termini station. It was the perfect location! So many yummy restaurants and very central to everything there is to see!
Here’s a link to the AirBnB we stayed at:
Also, if you’ve never booked with AirBnB before (we use it to find places to stay for all of our trips!) click here to sign up and get up to $35 off your first stay!:
Whew! Like I said, we did a loooot in 3 days. By the end of that 3 days, we were ready to head out to the countryside. Luckily for us, we were only a 3 hour train ride away from the Amalfi coast!
Days 4-6 – Amalfi Coast/Positano/Sorrento/Pompeii
Just a short 3 hour train ride from Rome is the beautiful Amalfi Coastline. The Amalfi Coast has become extremely popular over the past few years, with people flocking to it’s rocky beaches and small, quaint towns every summer.
Even in the offseason, it’s pretty expensive to stay in the town of Positano, perhaps the most instagram famous town of the Amalfi Coast. So we decided to stay in the nearby coastal town of Sorrento, at the most amazing AirBnB we have ever stayed in. It was a good sized apartment located on a lemon and orange farm, with a beautiful view of Mt Vesuvius and Naples across the water. It was spectacular. We just wanted to stay forever, drinking fresh squeezed orange juice and exploring the coast line. We spent 3 nights here, and would absolutely have stayed longer if we could’ve.
Here’s the link to the AirBnB that we stayed in:
Also, if you’ve never booked with AirBnB before (we use it to find places to stay for all of our trips!) click here to sign up and get up to $35 off your first stay!:
We decided to take this portion of our trip a little bit slower. I insisted that we still get up early, but we weren’t rushing from place to place like we were in Rome.
We spent an entire day exploring the Amalfi Coast, and we even had Positano all to ourselves for a few hours, which is unheard of in the summer! It really is just as beautiful as everyone says! I would love to come back later in the spring, when there’s still not as many tourists, but more things are open and it’s a little bit warmer!
We hiked some of the Path of the Gods, which I would totally recommend. So many breathtaking views!
Then we drove all the way down to the town of Amalfi, explored Fiordo di Furore, and just soaked in the beauty of it all.
We did brave driving the Amalfi Coast in a car, but only because we went in the offseason. It wasn’t stressful at all because there just weren’t very many people at all! But I can’t even imagine trying to drive on the narrow winding road during tourist season when there are a million tour buses trying to also make the trip!
We spent another day in Pompeii, which was insanely cool! So much history and perfectly preserved artifacts. Did you know that they’ve only excavated about 75% of Pompeii?! The other 25% is still buried! How cool is that?!
We also spent a brief time in Naples, for one thing and one thing only, the best pizza in Italy! We visited Antica Pizzeria da Michele, supposedly the very first pizza joint in Italy, and also where they filmed a scene from the movie Eat, Pray, Love with Julia Roberts. I was so stoked to try this pizza, and let me tell you, it lived up to the hype! Definitely worth the trip if you have time!
Days 7 – 9 – Florence
We spent the next 3 days in Florence, and it was such a different experience than Rome. Definitely smaller, so we could walk everywhere, and the locals were also so much friendlier than the Romans in my opinion.
We stayed at two different hotels, Hotel Calimala and Hotel Milu, both in different parts of the city. Both hotels were amazing, but our favorite was definitely Hotel Calimala! The hotel is in a great location, and they have a rooftop bar with amazing food, and spectacular views of Florence!
Here’s a link to learn more about staying at Hotel Calimala:
https://www.hotelcalimala.com/
While we were in Florence, we found our absolute favorite gelato of the entire trip. Venchi. Oh my goodness it was amazing. They have house made gelato and their own version of Nutella that they put in the bottom of the cones, and it is decadent and amazing. I’m pretty sure that Venchi has a chain of stores all throughout Italy, and I would highly highly recommend visiting one of their stores if you can during your trip!
During our time in Florence we visited:
- Duomo
- Uffizi Gallery
- Pitti Palace
- Boboli Gardens
- Palazzo Vecchio
- Giotto’s Bell Tower
- Piazza della Signoria
- Ponte Vecchio
We really loved the food in Florence, very hearty, and everyone was so friendly!
Day 10 – Pisa
We took an hour long train ride from Florence to visit Pisa for the day! We saw the famous leaning tower of Pisa, which is even crazier in person. Then, we took the rest of the afternoon to explore some of the back roads of Pisa. It was such a cute town with yummy food! I would definitely recommend spending at least an afternoon in Pisa if you can fit it in your itinerary!
Day 11 – Cinque Terre
Day 11 was spent in Cinque Terre, which means ‘5 towns’. They’re 5 little colorful towns on the rocky coast, about an hour train ride from Pisa.
Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso al Mare are all connected by train. It’s about a 5 minute train ride between each town. We stayed in the town of La Spezia, which was way cheaper than staying in one of the 5 famous cliff towns!
When we actually visited, it was a rainy day, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying our time! We had purchased a Cinque Terre Card online before visiting, which allows you to hike any of the trails and ride the trains between towns for free for the entire day.
Here’s a link to purchase the Cinque Terre Card for your visit:
Here’s a breakdown of how we spent our day:
We started at the closest town to La Spezia, which was Riomaggiore. My goal was to visit each of the 5 towns in one day. Pretty much everything was closed, and there were maybe a handful of other tourists, which was fine with us! We would much rather explore places when they’re less crowded! So we hiked from the Riomaggiore train station up the hill and through the village, to get to the famous view point of the colorful village.
Next, we stopped at the picturesque town of Manarola. This is perhaps the most Instagram famous of all the towns, it’s so colorful and there’s a great vantage point to take photos not far from the town. This was probably my favorite of all the towns!
Next, we decided to skip Corniglia, since I heard that it wasn’t actually on a cliff, but inland a little bit. And, because the train only came through every hour, we had to use our time wisely. We decided to take the train all the way down to Monterosso al Mare, and then hike back to Vernazza and eat dinner there.
The hike between Monterosso al Mare and Vernazza was breathtakingly beautiful. It was difficult, since we had to hike up and down and around cliff like mountains, but it was amazing nonetheless! It took us about 2-3 hours to hike, and we would’ve absolutely taken longer if it hadn’t been a rainy day and if we hadn’t been hungry!
We finally made it to Vernazza at sunset, and had a great vantage point of the village from our hike! We found a spot to eat dinner, which was pretty much the only restaurant that was open, and ate some delicious pesto pasta! Cinque Terre was such a perfect way to wrap up a wonderful trip!
I really hope you enjoyed this overview of our trip to Italy! If you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the comments below!
Thanks so much for reading!
Megan
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