We made a trip to Switzerland and Italy during July. We did a lot of study, invested lot of time studying about places, collecting information made our own itinerary and we loved the plan. Want to share to the world about the plan we did after hours of googling and discussion.
Here we have the Itinerary of the trip to Italy..
To know about Swiss itinerary,click here Swiss in four days
or the links on the right side..
High Level Itinerary: ( 6 days in Italy)
Day 1: After visiting the Swiss (first 4 days of our trip) we took train and reached Milan in the night. Stayed in Milan that night.
Day 2: Took train to Venice in the morning, Stayed in Venice.
Day 3: Saw Venice in the morning, took train to Florence in the evening and stayed in Florence.
Day 4: Visited Davids statue, Duamo in Florence. We took train to Pisa. Then took train to Rome and stayed in Rome.
Day 5: We visited Vatican City and stayed in Rome
Day 6: We saw the Roman Colosseum, Forum and Palantine Hill and other places and we stayed in Rome.
Day 7: We left in the morning to the airport and took the flight back to our country.
Detailed Itinerary:
Day 1:
• We travelled to Swiss in the first part of our trip.So we enjoyed this day in swiss and in the evening we decided to take train to Italy
• We took train to Milan (3.5 hours) and stayed in Milan at night.
Day 2:
• We woke up early at 6 am, took metro to Duamo and took photographs of the Milan Duamo.
• Had breakfast and took train to Venice (2.5 hrs). Reached Venice around 11:30 am.
• We got lost in searching for hotel, but we stopped searching for hotel and enjoyed the streets in Venice, took pictures and after 3 hours search we reached the hotel.
• If you are in Venice, you are gonna get lost even if you have a map. Enjoy it. Make sure you don’t reach Venice in the night, because you will not have anybody to help you find your hotel unless your hotel is near train station.
• We put our bags in the hotel, got a 48 hour Venice pass, took vaporetta to Murano Island. Murano Island is famous for glass work and we saw making of blown glass bowls.
• After 2 hours in Murano, we did some shopping and left to Burano Island in the evening. Burano Island is famous for brightly colored houses and lace making. We walked through the streets, did some lace shopping.
• After that we took the Vaporetta to Lido beach, we reached Lido around 8 pm, right around sunset, enjoyed the beach. (*You can skip either Burano or Lido if you this feels hectic)
• After that we took vaporetta 2 to grand canal and we reached our hotel.
Day 3:
• In the morning, we reached St Marks Square around 10 am. First we visited Basilica followed by Doges Palace. There is a secret itinerary tour in Doges Palace at 11:35 am; you have to pre book if you want to visit this. Then we took the lift up the Campaline tower and enjoyed the view from the top.
• After lunch we took Vaporetta #2 via Grand Canal to Rialto Bridge. This is a very famous bridge and good place to do shopping. We did some shopping here, it was expensive compared to other places.
• We reached our hotel, and took the train to Florence at 6:30 pm (2 hour journey). This was the last train to Florence. Stayed in Florence near train station.
Day 4:
• We visited David’s (Michelangelo) statue and then the Duamo in Florence. Around 12 noon, we took train to Pisa. Pisa was 1 hour journey.
• From Pisa Centrale, we took a 10 min bus ride to Pisa Leaning Tower.
• There stood the stunning Leaning Tower, the Cathedral and the Bapistry all nearby. It was a white structure. We took pictures of all. We didn’t climb the top of tower as we have to pre book it.
• Around 5 pm we took the train to Rome (3.5 hours). Stayed in Rome. Next two nights we stayed in the same hotel.
Day 5:
• We bought Roma pass. We visited Vatican City; saw St. Peters Basilica and Sistine Chapel. Enjoyed the paintings in Sistine Chapel. Carry lot of water and it is a long walk.
• After late lunch, we visited Emmanuel Monument, Capitoline Hill, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon and Piazza Navona.
Day 6:
• We saw the Roman Coliseum, Forum and Palantine Hill.
• In the evening we visited Spanish Steps and Borghese Gardens.
Day 7: We left in the morning to the airport and took the flight back to our country.
Things to Consider:
1. Italy Pass: We didn’t buy Italy pass as we found it was expensive for our travel with pass( and moreover we have to reserve seat before we get on to the train. We have to stand in the queue to reserve and you can buy tickets at the same time. No savings in time.
2. Venice pass: We got 48 hour Venice pass. You can buy this in Venice. This covered all vaporetta rides in Venice.Remember to validate the ticket every time u take the ride,though you have the pass..Its an offence not to validate it.
3. Roma Pass: We also got Roma pass which covered the public transport in Rome. With Roma pass, your visit to first two museums is free, and you also get some dicount to other entrances.
4. Go early to train stations in Italy, as there will be queue to buy/reserve tickets. You can get the tickets easily through Kiosks in train stations if you get comfortable with it. You can cut the queue with this.
5. As we did backpack it was easy for us to walk through Venice and Pisa. If you have heavy luggages, all train stations we went had luggage storage. You can put your Euro and store your bags. It was convenient as well.
6. We didn’t have language barrier in Swiss or Italy. If you know English you can manage well.
7. Be aware that many museums in Rome are closed on Mondays and Vatican is closed on Sundays. Pope makes presence in St. Peters Basilica on Wednesday mornings. Plan accordingly.
8.Our 2 main criteria while selecting the hotels were if we reached the city by night or if we had to catch a train early the next day was to book a hotel near the train station and secondly is to have internet connect.So if we had to make any change of plans or to check the whether it was useful.
9.Be very careful with you handbags,Wallets and all the baggages .Be extremely cautious..Experienced a few bad incidences with the baggages and pickpocketting.
10.Its extremely helpful if you have maps of the city that you travel otherwise don't worry you can always buy it or most hotels have a detailed map of the city (the ones we stayed gave us).So don't hesitate to ask.
11.Try and make a plan of all the places that you want to visit.Make a daily plan of the places of visit and print it out.We did make one and found it extremely helpful.
12.We also took print outs of the history of the places of interests. So when we visited those places,we could understand the significance,importance of the places.we sure could appreciate it all!!
Italy Trains:
Eurostar (ES or Treni Eurostar Italia)
Italy's premier and latest train, (Dont confuse with Eurostar that plies the English channel). Seat reservations on Eurostar Italia are mandatory. Eurostar travels swiftly between major Italian cities.
Intercity and the newer Intercity Plus trains
Relatively fast trains that run the length of Italy, stopping at the large cities. First and second class service is available. Seat reservation is mandatory on the Intercity Plus trains, and the fee is included in the ticket price.
Regionale (Regional Trains)
These are the local trains, often running around work and school schedules. They are cheap and usually reliable--but seats can be hard to find on major routes. Many regional trains have only second class seats, but if available, consider first class.
Download Files:
1. Venice Map
2. Venice Vaporetta route
