Hellobee Boards

@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: nope. Italy was only one of the countries we visited on our honeymoon. We went to Italy from Greece then from Italy to Spain. Both via ferry. We started our honeymoon in Ireland and ended in Spain. So we flew into Dublin and out of Barcelona.

When we toured Italy (I was in college and my dad was stationed in Germany for the military), we just rented a car. Seriously, we drove through the Alps, to Venice, Pisa, Florence, to the Cinque Terre. So amazing, and so worth it.

Italy is easy to travel in, but if you want to do a tour/package, I would keep looking - there are so many companies with different packages!

There is a great high speed train from Rome to Florence that we took. Sorrento is fantastic, so is Capri. I would definitely time your Vatican visit; wait times and crowds can be brutal there.

Super easy to plan your own trip to Italy. The only "gotcha" I can think of is that you need to get certain train tickets validated before you hop on. Otherwise they aren't valid (because you haven't stamped a hole through them, so they are technically reusable until you do) and if a train inspector asks for the ticket, you will be fined.

Italy is SUPER easy to book and do on your own. We went 2 years ago for 2 weeks and hit Sorrento, Rome, Florence, and Venice in that order, then continued on to Switzerland for another week. We flew into Naples and out of Geneva. And took trains in between each city. While in Florence we booked 2 day tours with Walk about Florence, one to Sienna, including a stop at Pisa, and other to Cinque Terre, both were awesome and well worth it to not have to drive out there and try to find our own way around in just one day.
Our itinerary was:
5 nights in Sorrento with day trips to Positano, Amalfi, Pompeii, Capri, & Vesuvius/Herculaneum
4 nights in Rome
4 nights in Florence with 2 full day tours – one to Cinque Terre and one to Siena, San Giomangio, & Pisa
2 nights in Venice
2 nights in Lucerne
3 nights in Wengen
2 nights in Geneva
Total cost was about 9k

2200 airfare
900 train tickets and buses
3200 hotel
1800 food
1000 attractions (tours, museums tickets, etc)
50 foreign exchange fees

We went for our honey moon, I booked everything myself. The only thing I found you needed to book is your flights there, your hotels in the different cities and then the travel between the cities. And purchase a really good up to date travel guide for the country, like a frommers guide.

Flights were easy to do online, and then travel between cities could be booked online. we took trains, a bus and also rented cars between cities (totally recommend this if you or your SO can drive stick shift and aren't a timid driver - we pulled off the road so many times to take in views, take pictures, stop at little towns, it was the best way to see things!), and ferries.

I booked hotels in advance, it was so easy to book online, read reviews and find good deals.

The only thing we didn't plan was the sight seeing, we bought a really good up to date travel guide and booked guided tours when we got to places. We also asked at hotels what was most recommended and we got a lot of great suggestions of things that were amazing and not so crowded with tourists.

Another option besides paying for a guided tour of a museum or a site, which can be expensive, is to rent these little devices that you hold like a phone and listen to while you walk around. You can go at your own pace, skip things you aren't interested in and stay longer for photos etc wherever you want. They usually have a head phone jack, so often dh and I would both listen to it as we wandered around.

We also used the travel guide for where to eat as well, and asked for recommendations. We would look over the book before we went to bed and then sight see the next day.

I highly recommend the afternoon seista . It took us three full days of sight seeing, up early for breakfast, and sight seeing all day and in bed by 8 to realize hat a nap in the afternoon in the heat is amazing! Plus everyone eats so much later in Italy, we found restuarants were empty before 8:30-9ish.

I realize I just wrote a novel, but we so enjoyed our trip to Italy, feel free to wall me if you have any questions!

@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: Florence is a must see! We love Venice and Pisa was a quick (all that was needed) stop. Which tour company were you looking into?

@Maysprout: Cinque Terre is our top 3 favorite stops on our honeymoon! It's so beautiful and out of this world.

DH and I did Italy without a tour company for our honeymoon. We flew into Venice took the Ferrari high speed train to Florence and then the Trenitalia high speed train to Rome. We also did Pisa as a day trip from Rome using just a local and very cheap regional train. We felt like the day trip was more than enough time to see the city. It's also pretty easy to book guided day trips from the big cities out to the countryside, medieval cities and what not. We did a day trip to Tuscan wine country from Florence which was fabulous. Anyways I'm rambling and definitely agree with pp's that Italy is super doable sans a tour company!

DH and I have done two escorted tours through Europe and have come to prefer traveling on our own simply due to the fact that we can plan our itinerary to exactly fit our interests and it's typically a bit cheaper to boot.

I planned my own trip through Italy without any problems, and I had never been anywhere in Europe before. I highly recommend Cinque Terre and Florence. They were my favorite areas.

@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: three bags?! Woman, you need to pare down. LOL

We were in Italy end of August / early September. Some days were hot and some days were cooler. So I recommend layers, pack thin, articles that are mix and match and use travel space bags. It's amazing how much space you gain!

@Anagram: that's amazing about your mom! We backpacked through Europe for our honeymoon. At one of the stations there was an elderly couple, probably 60s, just like us. All they had was a backpack and you could tell they were backpacking because of their attire. DH and I looked at each other and said we hope we're fit enough to backpack after retirement!

@Beth24: agreed! Packing light is key. Plus almost anywhere, you can send clothes out to be washed through your hotel. I backpacked for a whole summer (well, several summers) with just about 4 changes of clothes and would just have them washed and would go pick them up later.