A Week in Italy Itinerary

Ciao, bella! There are so many places to see in Italy that it is hard to pick! Here are 9 days in Italy seeing Rome, Florence and Venice with hotels, restaurants and trains!

I will preface this itinerary by saying it is not as detailed as my NYC ones because when Matt and I travel abroad the main thing we love to do is explore without an agenda. We have found this leads us to the best non-touristy adventures and memories and more things up our alley. I highly recommend doing the same when visiting abroad. I mean, there are things you want to see of course, and you should book them. But my favorite thing to do when in a new country is walk all day long and beep bop into coffee shops and restaurants and stores that are not in touristy areas. Also, ALWAYS ask locals for their favorite places to eat, see and what they like to do. This is where the best things of the city lie- with the people who live there.

Traveling to and from cities in Italy. Getting to and from cities in Italy is super easy with the ItaliaRail. It is super efficient and reasonably priced way to get around the country. It is super fast compared to the Amtrak in the US. You can get to the next city over in an hour or so. This is how we got from city to city on this trip. Italian Airways is pretty good too and reasonably priced but the train just seemed easier to us.

Days 1-3, Rome:

Rome Hotels: Hotel Teatro Pace, Dharma Luxury Hotels, Hotel Smeraldo

Rome Restaurants: Pipero, La Pergola, Il Pagliaccio, Da Robertino, Barzilai

• Fly into FCO & check into hotel. This is always my least favorite part because majority of the time you take a red-eye to Italy so you land super early in the morning and unless you pay for the extra night before, they do not have your room ready. So you have to brush your teeth and change out of your airplane clothes in their tiny ass European bathrooms.

• Grab some espresso at a local cafe! And a lot of it!

• See the Vatican & Sistine Chapel. If you go to Italy in the summer, do not try to go to the Vatican looking like a whore! They will make you buy a rain jacket and pants in order to enter. Also, if you want to tour either of these sites or even go inside you must have a ticket. The lines to get in are insane. I actually didn’t even go inside. So I could dress like a whore no problem.

• Lunch in Trastevere. Not lunch near the Vatican. Vatican area is tourist central. It might be so touristy that they have an Applebees. Trastevere is my favorite neighborhood in Rome. It is soooo cool and unique and fun and the architecture over there is so unique. Just walking down the streets are so much fun.

• I hope your hotel room is ready. Jet lag in Europe is so fucking real. In order to beat it, you should try to stay up the whole Europe day and go to bed around Europe bed time. If you have to take a nap only do it for 30 min to an hour or you are fucked.

• Colosseum Tour. This was actually one of my favorite things to do in Rome. Normally I do not like tours because obviously they are touristy (LOL) but I don’t think you can get into the Colosseum without a tour guide and I lived my Hillary Duff moment singing in there. Also the history is so interesting and kind of scary, lol. I highly recommend this tour.

• Roman Forum. You could just walk around this or get a tour guide. Honestly, both are good. It is super touristy but SO cool and beautiful. You should not miss seeing this in Rome.

• Pantheon & Trevi Fountain. These are always crowded and in the super touristy areas. So if you want to see these without people and to get cool photos, you should go super early in the morning.

• Food Walking Tour. There are so many! But here is the one Matt and I did and it was fabulous and we got to see a bunch of cool neighborhoods. You get to try so many different types of Italian food from Rome like cheeses, pizza, pasta, artichokes and learn all of the history and fun facts about them. Could not recommend this enough!

• Pasta Cooking Class. Again, there are so many but this one was soooo much fun and you got to eat all of the food after and it was a lot. You make three different pastas with sauces and dessert AND hella wine <3

Days 4-6, Florence:

Florence Hotel: Hotel Croce di Malta Florence- My favorite hotel we stayed in Italy. This hotel has the most amazing rooftop bar with the best view of Florence. The bar is super small and seems like the secret spot of Florence because it was never crowded but it was the best photo op with the best drinks and view. This hotel also has an amazing

Florence Restaurants: Florence loves meat. Steak everywhere. I truly do not remember the restaurants we ate at in Florence but we did follow the Michelin Bib Gourmand guide. And I remember eating nothing but meat.

• Florence is a huge foreign exchange school city and has a few universities. We were visiting in May so school was about to start and it was during peak tourist season so it was crowded as HELL. The literal only thing we did in Florence is walk around early in the mornings before it was crowded and had lattes. Then we spent the days in our amazing hotel by the pool with wine and cheese and at the rooftop bar with a view.

Days 7-9, Venice:

Venice Hotel: Hotel Gardena Venice- Beautiful and old hotel right by the train station. So if you are traveling via train, you can for sure walk to the hotel. The hotel is old and beautiful. They still give you an actual key to get into your room.

Venice Restaurant: Glam di Enrico Bartolini- This restaurant and experience was fabulous. It is in a hotel with a view of a beautiful garden. You have to ring a door bell and a huge gate opens for you. It was the only good meal we ate in Venice.

• Here is the thing about Venice…….. it is sinking. Because it is so touristy and there are a billion people that visit it a day- jk, I don’t know why it was sinking, probably because global warming. Venice is probably the coolest city I have ever seen but unfortunately the whole city is touristy and overcrowded.

• The food in Venice is bad…… It just is. Unless it is on the Michelin guide, it is a tourist trap and very much gives Apple Bees vibes.

• Three days in Venice is one day too long. It is soooo cool to walk around and take a boat or maybe go to one of their islands or beaches but it can all be done in two days. In my opinion, spend more days in the cities with the better food!