Italy. I cannot say enough good things about this beautiful country. This (approximately) 2-week itinerary is my best curated trip to date! It had just enough planning to make sure we had a place to stay most nights but enough spontaneity to let us be flexible as we traveled about the country. I always want to be spontaneous on trips and decide when we get to a location how long we will stay but I also always want to make sure that I see all the things in all the places…constant struggle.

Day 1-4, 14-15: Rome! We flew into Rome and decided to start our Italian adventure here. Check out my in depth post about where we stayed, ate and what we did in Rome. I feel like you can’t go to Italy without visiting the central hub that is Rome at least one time.

Day 5-7: Cinque Terre, more specifically Vernazza. This was a must needed relaxing part of the vacation after the hustle and bustle of Rome. Check out my all about Cinque Terre post here!

Day 8-9: Verona:

I’ll be honest, my main motivation for going to Verona was because of the movie “Letters to Juliet”. 😊 My first impressions is that this city was FAR bigger than I expected so I don’t think we stayed in the safest part of town but it was an incredibly nice place. The touristy sections were a bit of hike so I recommend taking an Uber if you are going to stay off the beaten path. We prefer to walk everywhere so we can find unexpected surprises and mingle with locals more so we didn’t use the Uber option. For example we stumbled across a random castle on our long hike in Verona.

Piazza Bra: This is the best square in Verona and houses the Verona Arena which looks just like a mini coliseum from the outside. In the summer, they have outdoor performances you can attend!  As in Rome, make sure you don’t eat anywhere in the Piazza as the food will be subpar and more expensive but it is fun to walk around. Also they have a big, fun market to explore!

Unless you are an avid Shakespeare or Romeo and Juliet fan, feel free to skip checking out Juliet’s balcony. It is right off of a busy street, is overcrowded with tourists and not as impressive in person. BUT people travel far and wide to see this balcony that inspired Romeo and Juliet, so I’ll let you be the judge. It is free to visit and only takes a few minutes of your day so if you are walking in downtown Verona you may come across it anyways.

Make sure to snap pictures of the Adige River from the Verona side, it is breathtaking!

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Day 9-10: Venice

I was also under impressed by this place; it seemed to be just a bunch of shops on canals. If shopping is your thing, you will be in heaven; I personally don’t go on vacation to shop.

The architecture and canals were beautiful in parts though. The Doge’s Palace was also pretty mind-blowing in person. We didn’t tour it but bet it would be an intriguing tour. I’m not sure what Verona is like in the on-season but in the off season most of the island shuts down around dinner so there is no need to stay overnight there. You can easily take a train there for the day and then stay somewhere else for the night. It was strangely eery at night with very few spots open except for the very touristy streets.

Day 10-15: Florence

We based ourselves in Florence for a number of days and explored it and a few other smaller towns via train during the days.

An absolute must-see/do in Florence is pay for a tour of the Duomo. The toyur we took was exceptional. In that tour you get a tour of the Duomo, the The Baptistry of St. John, original duomo now in the basement and get to climb to the very top of Brunelleschi’s Dome, and also a tour of the Museum of Opera of Santa Maria of Fiore. We highly recommend the tour we took as we learned and had access to waaaaay more than we would have by ourselves!  We were inches from intricate, beautiful artwork that covers the dome inside and then rewarded with views of all of Florence!

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Go see David in the Accademia Galleria!! My husband was not excited to see this but in person he was completely enamored by the details and sheer size of the statue.

Piazzale del Michelangelo is a relaxing spot to hang out, drink wine and see Florence at a different angle. Also, you get to see the other ‘David’ statue that has not held up as well as the one in the museum and shows why statues are not made of bronze anymore (beautiful green color now).

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Florence also has a happening night life and restaurants; any bar is good and they had a few Irish pubs that we hit up on St. Patrick’s Day. But the restaurant that changed our lives was La Fettunta. Florence is where Florentine Steak was invented (shocking right?! Haha) so we had to try some. The place we went to made the most mouthwatering, savory steak we’ve ever had and truffle pasta. It was rainy most of the days we were in Florence so we want to go back as there is so much more to explore!

Day 12: Orvieto

We took a train to this small hill top town and were not disappointed. It is completely walkable with lots of fun shopping and restaurants to check out. There were a few tours that we would like to go back and do someday like a tour of their underground system but hours were limited and many places were closed due to being in the off season. We were also impressed by their duomo and the views of the hillside once you took the lift up to the town.

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Day 13: Siena

This is a highly hyped up town that we don’t feel like it was necessarily worth our time. It was much bigger than Orvieto but smaller than Verona. Again, the duomo was beautiful but we didn’t see any other tours/experiences we wanted to go back and check out in the future.

OVERALL, we felt like we had the perfect mix of touristy, busy, relaxing bits of Italy. Leave a comment with your favorite spot in Italy and don’t be afraid to ask for more information as this a very brief overview of our itinerary!