Nine days. That is the length of the itinerary we built for Italy, across Rome, Florence and Venice.
Here is what each day holds. Every stop below carries its time, and every gap says how to get to the next stop, with the walk or drive time wherever both stops are mapped.
Italy · 9 days Rome → Florence → Venice
Best time: April, May, and October: warm, long days without July’s heat or August’s crowds (many Italians vacation in August and some city businesses close).
Rome: ColosseumDay 1
🏛️9:00 AMColosseum
The 50,000-seat amphitheater that defined spectacle. First morning slot, underground-and-arena add-on if you can get it.
🚗 ~8 min · 2.3 mi
🖼️1:30 PMVatican Museums and Sistine Chapel
Four miles of papal collections ending under Michelangelo’s ceiling. Book the timed ticket well ahead; head for the chapel first, then loop back.
🚶 ~39 min · 🚗 ~5 min · 1.4 mi
🌆6:00 PMTrastevere
The medieval quarter across the Tiber, ivy-hung lanes, evening passeggiata, and Rome’s best cheap-and-honest eating streets.
Rome: Roman Forum and Palatine HillDay 2
🏛️9:00 AMRoman Forum and Palatine Hill
The downtown of the ancient world, on the same ticket as the Colosseum. The Palatine terrace gives the view that explains the whole site.
🚶 ~38 min · 🚗 ~5 min · 1.4 mi
🥾1:30 PMVilla Borghese gardens
Rome’s central park, with pine-shaded lanes, a boating pond, and the Pincio terrace hanging over Piazza del Popolo.
🚶 ~42 min · 🚗 ~5 min · 1.6 mi
🎟️6:00 PMColosseum night tour
On select evenings the Colosseum reopens after dark for small guided groups, the arena floor and the underground without the daytime crush. Slots are few; book the moment dates release.
Rome: PantheonDay 3
🏛️9:00 AMPantheon
The best-preserved Roman building on Earth, a 43-meter concrete dome, unreinforced, open to the sky since 126 AD.
🚶 ~36 min · 🚗 ~5 min · 1.3 mi
🖼️1:30 PMGalleria Borghese
Bernini’s marbles doing impossible things (Apollo and Daphne turns to leaves in front of you) in a cardinal’s villa. Strict two-hour slots; book well ahead.
🚶 ~39 min · 🚗 ~5 min · 1.4 mi
🌆6:00 PMCentro Storico
The baroque heart between the Pantheon and Piazza Navona, where every wrong turn produces a fountain, a Caravaggio church, or both.
Rome: Trevi FountainDay 4
🏛️9:00 AMTrevi Fountain
Baroque excess at full volume. Coin over the left shoulder; come back after 11 PM if you want it nearly to yourself.
🚗 ~13 min · 3.8 mi
🥾1:30 PMAppian Way
The queen of Roman roads, cypress-lined basalt paving you can walk or cycle past 2,000-year-old tombs, twenty minutes from the center.
🚗 ~11 min · 3.2 mi
🌆6:00 PMMonti
Rome’s oldest neighborhood, now its most village-like, vintage shops and wine bars ten minutes from the Colosseum.
Arrive in FlorenceDay 5
🚄8:30 AMHigh-speed rail to Florence
Rome Termini to Florence S.M.N. in about 1h30 on Frecciarossa or Italo. Book ahead for the cheap tiers; seats are assigned.
🚄 ~1h30 · 144 mi
🏛️2:00 PMThe Duomo and Brunelleschi’s Dome
The largest masonry dome ever built, raised without scaffolding by a goldsmith who reinvented engineering. Climb it or Giotto’s bell tower, one queue is always shorter.
🚶 ~16 min · 🚗 ~2 min · 0.6 mi
🌆6:00 PMOltrarno
"Beyond the Arno": artisan workshops, the Boboli Gardens, and the neighborhood trattorie the center lost, Florence as Florentines use it.
Florence: Ponte VecchioDay 6
🏛️9:00 AMPonte Vecchio
The medieval bridge of goldsmiths’ shops the retreating Germans spared in 1944, allegedly on Hitler’s direct order.
🚶 ~4 min · 🚗 ~1 min · 0.1 mi
🖼️1:30 PMUffizi Gallery
The Medici collection: Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Primavera, plus Leonardo, Raphael, and Caravaggio in chronological order, the Renaissance explained in one building.
🚗 ~45 min · 13 mi
🎟️6:00 PMChianti sunset minibus tour
Late-afternoon tours roll down the Chiantigiana road to Greve and the vineyards for a golden-hour tasting, the countryside the train misses. Siena and San Gimignano deserve a full extra day if you have one.
Florence: Piazzale MichelangeloDay 7
🏛️9:00 AMPiazzale Michelangelo
The terrace above the Arno with the whole-city panorama; walk up through the rose garden. Morning is the quiet, crowd-free hour, sunset the famous one.
🚶 ~22 min · 🚗 ~3 min · 0.8 mi
🥾1:30 PMBoboli Gardens
The Medici’s hillside garden behind Pitti Palace, cypress avenues, grottoes, and the template for every royal garden in Europe.
🚶 ~27 min · 🚗 ~3 min · 1.0 mi
🌆6:00 PMSan Lorenzo and the Mercato Centrale
The Medici parish: their church, their tombs, and the iron-and-glass food market that feeds the city.
Arrive in VeniceDay 8
🚄8:30 AMHigh-speed rail to Venice
Florence to Venice Santa Lucia in about 2h05, the station opens directly onto the Grand Canal, which is the best arrival in Europe.
🚄 ~2h05 · 127 mi
🏛️2:00 PMDoge’s Palace
The pink Gothic headquarters of the Republic, council halls by Tintoretto and Veronese, then over the Bridge of Sighs into the prisons.
🚶 ~18 min · 🚗 ~2 min · 0.7 mi
🌆6:00 PMDorsoduro
The quiet art quarter: the Accademia, the Salute church, and sunset spritz on the Zattere promenade facing Giudecca.
Venice: St. Mark’s Basilica and SquareDay 9
🏛️9:00 AMSt. Mark’s Basilica and Square
Byzantium transplanted: 8,000 square meters of gold mosaics looted and gifted over a millennium. Book the timed entry; go at opening.
🚶 ~16 min · 🚗 ~2 min · 0.6 mi
🖼️1:30 PMGallerie dell’Accademia
Venetian painting at full power, Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and Veronese’s wall-sized Feast in the House of Levi.
🚶 ~19 min · 🚗 ~2 min · 0.7 mi
🎟️6:00 PMTraghetto or rowing-boat crossing
The two-minute standing gondola ferry across the Grand Canal costs a couple of euros, the local’s version of the gondola experience. Proper rowing lessons with a certified school are Venice’s best splurge.
This is how Petrel lays out a trip. Upload your own confirmations and it builds this for your dates: flights and hotels included, with live flight status and the travel time between stops.