Italy rewards the booked ahead.
Sistine ceilings before the crowd arrives, Pompeii with a guide who knows which houses are unlocked today, the coast road swapped for a boat. Prices, timings and the real differences between them.
Seven tickets that shape a trip.
Seven bookings that between them take in the Vatican, ancient Rome, the Uffizi and the Bay of Naples. First visit or fifth, a week tends to get planned around these.
Vatican Museums & Sistine Chapel Tour with Optional Basilica
Fast-track guided Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel tour with headsets and skip-the-line entry, plus optional St. Peter’s Basilica.
From $79 per person
What the morning is like →
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See the coast from the water.
The road to Positano is one hairpin after another and the bus stops where it can. A boat day puts you at the Amalfi steps instead, past Li Galli and into the Grotta dello Smeraldo, and has you back in Sorrento before the last coach has cleared Praiano.
Which Rome day comes first?
Three days in Rome splits three ways, and the order matters because the two big tickets sell out weeks ahead. Pick the morning that suits you; everything underneath it is already priced and timed.
Ancient Rome
The Colosseum day
from $78 · 63,148 reviews
Arena floor at opening time, the Forum while the stone is still cool, then up Palatine Hill for the view down over both. Guided entry is the only way onto the underground level, and those tickets go weeks before the rest.
Compare the Colosseum days →
Across the Tiber
The Vatican morning
1 day · from $38 · 144,003 reviews
Four kilometres of galleries end at the Sistine Chapel, and the queue outside is the part nobody plans for. Early entry gets you through the Gallery of Maps ahead of the coach groups; add St Peter’s and you are finished by lunch.
See the Vatican mornings →
No ticket needed
The piazza walk
from $6 · 21,008 reviews
The Pantheon, Trevi, Navona and the Spanish Steps sit inside a twenty-minute triangle. A guide is what turns the walk between them into the reason the city looks the way it does. Late afternoon, when the light hits the travertine.
See the walking days →
Dinner is at nine, and that is the point.
The passeggiata starts when the light goes and never really finishes. Cicchetti and a glass along a Venetian canal, a box at La Fenice, a Roman street that only fills after ten. Book the table and the ticket; the walking in between costs nothing.
Every region cooks something different.
Ragu in Bologna, cacio e pepe in Rome, a pizza in Naples that folds into four. The classes worth the money put you at the board with your hands in the flour rather than watching a demonstration.
The vineyards are closer than you think.
Chianti is forty minutes from Florence, Valpolicella twenty from Verona, the Langhe about an hour out of Turin. Nearly every cellar day includes the driving, which is the part you would rather not do on Italian back roads.
Pompeii is a town, not a ruin.
Twenty thousand people lived here. The bakeries still have their millstones, the laundry still has its vats, election notices are painted along the street walls and cart wheels have worn ruts into the paving. A guide with an archaeology background is what turns stone back into streets, and knows which houses are unlocked on the day you go. Herculaneum, twenty minutes north, is smaller and better preserved.
Pick the Italy you have time for.
Rome and Naples want a day each and repay two. Florence is a morning of galleries and an afternoon of hills. Venice works best before the day boats arrive and after they have gone.
Start from the thing, not the city.
Choose the afternoon first and the city second. Each list underneath is priced, timed and open for booking.
Most of Italy is an hour away.
Italian trains make short work of the map. Siena and Pisa from Florence, Vesuvius and Capri from Naples, Como from Milan in forty minutes. Most of these are done and dusted by dinner.
Rome, Florence, Venice, in that order.
Three cities, three trains, one week that actually works. Go south to north so the heat is behind you and the last night is out on the lagoon.
Day 1
Rome, the ancient half
Colosseum and Forum in the morning while the stone is still cold, lunch up in Monti, then the Pantheon and Trevi on foot once the coaches have gone.
Plan the Rome day →
Day 2
Florence, gallery to hill
The Accademia at opening, the Uffizi after lunch, then up to Piazzale Michelangelo for the roofs at six. Both galleries need booking before you fly.
Plan the Florence day →
Day 3
Venice, before the boats
St Mark’s and the Doge’s Palace early, the lagoon islands by vaporetto after eleven, then cicchetti somewhere the day boats never reach.
Plan the Venice day →
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