The classic 10-day Italy itinerary for the first time: Rome (3 days), Tuscany and Florence (3 days), Venice (2 days),
The Rome-Florence-Venice itinerary is the most frequented in Italy, and for good reasons. These three hubs tell almost 2,500 years of Western history in an accessible and spectacular way. The problem is that almost everyone does it in a rush, seeing the main sites without understanding the context, eating in the wrong places, spending twice what's needed. This guide does it differently.
| Days | City | Travel | Train |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-3 | Rome | Base | — |
| 4 | Naples (day trip) | Round trip from Rome | 1h10, €23-45 |
| 5-7 | Florence | From Rome | 1h25, €25-45 |
| 8 (opt) | Siena or Cinque Terre | Day trip from Florence | 1h20-2h |
| 8-10 | Venice | From Florence | 2h, €20-35 |
Morning: the Colosseum + Roman Forum + Palatine (book online on coopculture.it, €16, the ticket includes the Forum and Palatine). The Colosseum is enormous, give it at least 2h30. The Roman Forum: walk slowly, it's more evocative than spectacular, the ruins require imagination. The Palatine: the imperial gardens with the views over the Forum are the best part, often skipped by rushed tourists.
Afternoon: the Capitoline Hill (the Capitoline Museums, €14, the original Capitoline Wolf, the most important collection of classical sculpture in the world after the Vatican's) → Piazza Venezia → Via del Corso on foot to Piazza Navona.
Evening: Trastevere, the liveliest neighborhood in Rome in the evening. Dinner at one of the trattorias on the inner lanes (not the ones with the menu in 8 languages and the waiter waiting for you at the door, look for the places where the Romans themselves sit). Dinner budget: €20-35 per person with house wine.
Morning: the Vatican Museums + Sistine Chapel (booking MANDATORY on www.museivaticani.va, €17-27, without a booking, 3-4 hour lines in summer). Give it at least 3h, don't rush to the Sistine, because the Museums' route has enormous masterpieces most visitors ignore (the Hall of Animals, the Gallery of Maps, the Raphael Rooms, Raphael's four frescoes, are far more important than the average guide suggests). The Sistine is the climax, but not the only reason to come.
Afternoon: St. Peter's Basilica (free, a mandatory dress code, shoulders and knees covered; free loaner jackets at the entrance) → Castel Sant'Angelo (€14, open, a view over the Tiber) → Ponte Sant'Angelo (Bernini's 10 angel statues).
Evening: an aperitivo in the Prati district (Via Cola di Rienzo, quiet and Roman, less touristy than Trastevere). A Spritz or white wine with snacks.
Early morning (8:00): the Galleria Borghese (booking MANDATORY on galleriaborghese.it, €15 + €2 booking, without a booking you never get in). Only 360 visitors every 2 hours. Bernini's sculptures (Apollo and Daphne, The Rape of Proserpina, Aeneas and Anchises) and the Caravaggio collection are among the most extraordinary works of art in the world. This is the museum visitors to Rome regret not having seen.
Afternoon: departure for Naples on the roughly 14:00 Frecciargento (1h10, arriving in Naples at 15:10). A quick visit to Spaccanapoli and real pizza (at Sorbillo or Di Matteo). Back to Rome on an evening train.
Train from Rome SMN to Florence SMN, a morning departure (7:25-9:25), arrival in 1h25. Choose a hotel in the Santa Croce or Oltrarno district, more authentic, prices slightly lower than around the Duomo.
Day 5: the Uffizi Gallery (online booking required in high season, €20-25). The room of Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Primavera (rooms 35-36) is the heart, but don't miss the Caravaggio room, the Vasari corridor, Michelangelo's Holy Family (Tondo Doni). Afternoon: a stroll in the Oltrarno, Piazzale Michelangelo at sunset (a 20-min walk from Via de' Bardi).
Day 6: the Galleria dell'Accademia (Michelangelo's David, €12, 30 minutes of line on average even with a booking), Florence's Duomo (the nave free, Brunelleschi's dome is worth the €18 ticket but requires 463 steps with no elevator), the Mercato Centrale on the upper floor for lunch. Afternoon: a trip to Fiesole by bus (€1.50, 25 min) for the view over Florence from above.
Day 7: Siena (the SENA bus from SMN, 1h20, €9), Piazza del Campo, the Duomo, the Pinacoteca Nazionale. Alternative: Cinque Terre by train (2h, a day trip hard to manage in one day, if you want Cinque Terre, extend to 12 days).
The Frecciarossa train Florence-Venice Santa Lucia (2h, €18-35). Venice is expensive: hotels €100-250/night even in low season for average quality. Alternative budget: sleep in Mestre (the mainland), connected to Venice by a train every 10 minutes (€1.40, 10 min), hotels at €50-80/night.
Day 8, historic Venice: St. Mark's Basilica (free, a strict dress code), the Doge's Palace (€25, include the Bridge of Sighs and the prisons, the full route is impressive), the vaporetto on the Grand Canal (line 1, upper deck at the bow, the best view of the Grand Canal for €9.50). An aperitivo with a Spritz and cicchetti at a bacaro in the Cannaregio or Dorsoduro sestieri.
Day 9, the lagoon islands: Burano (vaporetto 12, 45 min, €9.50) for the colored houses and the lace, Murano (vaporetto 4.1, 15 min) for the glassworks. Afternoon: the Gallerie dell'Accademia (€12, the largest collection of Venetian painting, from Bellini to Tintoretto).
Day 10, return or extension: Punta della Dogana at 7:00 (when Venice is empty) → return to Marco Polo airport (the ACTV bus €8 from Piazzale Roma or the Alilaguna water bus €15). Flights from Venice VCE to the whole world.
| Category | Low | Mid | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lodging (9 nights) | €315-450 | €585-810 | €1,080+ |
| Food | €250-350 | €400-600 | €700+ |
| Internal trains | €80-120 | €120-180 | €200+ |
| Museums/attractions | €100-150 | €150-200 | €250+ |
| Total | €745-1,070 | €1,255-1,790 | €2,230+ |
It depends what you mean by "see". Ten days are enough to understand why Italy is loved all over the world, to see the main sites of Rome, Florence, and Venice without rushing, to eat well, to get an idea of Italian culture. They aren't enough to know Italy, that takes decades of returns. Most of those who visit Italy for the first time come back a second, then a third time, each with new goals. The first trip is the beginning, not the summary.
Only if you see a lot of museums. The €52 Roma Pass (48h) includes 1 free museum + unlimited transport + discounts. It's worth it if in the first 2 days you use public transport a lot AND visit at least 2-3 paid museums. It's not worth it if you mainly visit sites with a separate ticket (Vatican, Colosseum, Borghese) that aren't included or covered. Do the math: metro + bus for 2 days = €3.50 x 8 rides = €28. A free museum (the Capitoline Museums €14) = €42 total. The Roma Pass costs you €52, a marginal saving. Better to buy the tickets individually and the metro tickets as needed.
Book everything ahead, it's the advice almost all tourists ignore and almost all regret. The Vatican Museums without a booking in summer: 3 hours of line. The Colosseum without a booking: 2-3 hours. The Galleria Borghese without a booking: you don't get in (entry by booking only). The Uffizi without a booking in August: 2 hours of line. Online booking saves 10-15 minutes on the ticket and hours on the line. It isn't an optional recommendation, it's the difference between a successful trip and one wasted in lines.
It depends how you travel. Food in Italy is cheap compared to France, Switzerland, and the Nordic countries: an espresso at the counter €1-1.30; a whole pizza at a good pizzeria €7-12; a first course at a restaurant €12-18; an artisanal gelato cone €2-4. Lodging is comparable to France and Spain, more expensive than in Poland or Hungary. Italian museums are among the most expensive in Europe (€15-25 for the main ones) but the quality of the collections is incomparable. Transport (high-speed trains) is competitive with low-cost flights if booked ahead.
No. Italy uses the euro and credit/debit card payment is accepted at almost all businesses (hotels, restaurants, shops, museums). The exceptions are small village bars and some local markets, keep €30-50 in cash for these situations. The currency-exchange fees at the exchange offices in tourist cities are high (5-8%), much better to use a card with no foreign fees (Revolut, N26, Wise) or withdraw at Italian ATMs with your own bank card (average fee: €2-4 per withdrawal).
Italy is the only country in the world to have three of the eight UNESCO criteria for cultural sites met in more than 50 different sites, a concentration of heritage with no parallel. It isn't just the number of sites (58 as of 2024, the highest in the world), but the variety: Paleolithic art (the Italian Altamira, the Addaura Caves of Monte Pellegrino), Roman monuments (the Colosseum, Pompeii, Villa Adriana), medieval architecture (Assisi, Siena, Alberobello), cultural landscapes (the Amalfi Coast, the Val d'Orcia, the Cinque Terre), nature (the Dolomites, Monte San Giorgio), historic cities (Florence, Venice, Rome, Naples). Italian heritage spans 2,500 years of Western civilization, and it isn't a museum but a living country that coexists with it every day.
An often-forgotten fact: the Italian peninsula was the center of Mediterranean trade for almost 2,000 years, first with the Roman Empire, then with the Maritime Republics (Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Amalfi), then with the merchant bourgeoisie of the Renaissance. This commercial continuity left hospitality infrastructure (inns, Roman roads turned into consular roads, ports) that defined the logistics of European tourism even today: many of the Italian state roads follow Roman routes 2,000 years old.
Generally well, Italians have been used to tourism for centuries and have developed a notable professional tolerance. Some real observations: Italians hugely appreciate any attempt to speak Italian, even minimal ("grazie", "scusi", "buongiorno", the obligatory minimums). They find it annoying to be photographed without consent. They disapprove of those who eat while walking in the street (culturally it's undignified in many parts of Italy). They appreciate those who know something about their specific city, not just "Rome" generically, but a detail about the neighborhood or the local history. The Italians hardest for tourists to handle are the street vendors of the tourist areas, ignore them completely without responding.
It depends on age and area. In the big cities (Milan, Rome, Florence, Venice), 60-70% of the tourist-service staff speak English decently. Outside the tourist areas, in the medium-small cities and the villages, English is spoken much less, especially by the over-50s. The Italian generation aged 20-35 speaks English much better than the previous generations thanks to digital media. In any case, non-verbal communication, patience, and a smile solve 90% of situations where English isn't enough.