Italy!

How exciting!!! My husband and I travelled through Italy for our honeymoon. Loved it! We ended up booking Airbnb’s in several cities, so I can’t help much with hotels. If we did the trip again, we might have added a few hotels (vs. Airbnb’s) to ease the burden of Whatsapping so many different hosts with completely different ideas on check in/check our times. 😂 We started in Venice and then traveled to Milan, then Tuscany, then Florence, Naples, then the Amalfi Coast and then Rome.

For Rome, if you like guided tours I would recommend Walks of Italy and Through Eternity. There are Viator and Roman Guy as bargain tour operators who do a fine job, but the tour groups are huge (like 40-50 people). One of the most unique tours we did was the Domus Aurea - it is Nero’s golden palace buried under the colosseum in Rome and is currently being excavated and restored. If you’re interested in the Vatican art collection I recommend booking an after hours/evening guided tour.

I think Sicily and Salerno are a bit far from Rome. Roma to Amalfi is 4-5 hours by car with a confident driver. You must be flying or taking a train to get to the ferry? Naples also has a large airport and is a bit closer, in case your route isn’t yet set in stone. I only spent and night in Naples and it was ok, but we heard really lovely things about nearby Sorrento.

Rome is one of the most amazing places I’ve ever been (I’m a bit of a history buff!). We stayed in an AirBnB in Trastevere which was a brilliant location - walking distance to pretty much everywhere, loads and loads of restaurants and a really great atmosphere. Plus good public transport if we’d walked far enough and didn’t want to walk home! A colleague of mine stayed in Testacchio which was just over the river from Trastevere and loved that too. If you plan on going to the Vatican, book as soon as possible; for the Colosseum, get your tickets at the Palatine Hill entrance as it’s all one ticket and that entrance has far smaller queues. You still have to go through security at the Colosseum but it’s much faster to not get tickets there.

I think my favourite day in Rome was actually the day we did a day trip out to Tivoli - there are two World Heritage Sites there, Hadrian’s Villa and the Villa d’Este. We just took local buses which turned out to be easy - had a bit of a walk to Hadrian’s Villa from the main road but it wasn’t far. Both sites are incredible places (if very different) and we had a great day.

If you’re planning on taking the ferry from Naples to Palermo, just catch the train from Rome to Naples - book in advance, the high speed Frecciarossa trains are frequent and comfortable - from memory it was only about 90 minutes. Or are you going to catch the ferry from Rome? (Had to look to see if that existed but it does!). I’d personally take the train to Naples and ferry from there - Naples is also worth exploring if you have time, it’s an interesting place.

View Quoted Comment We weren't sure about the process of ferrying from Rome to Palermo if too long, we did think about taking the train to Naples too! Plus another place to see like you stated! I found more info and from both of you have said it sounds like a much better plan!!! Thank you for all the tips! Definitely going to take it into consideration. Very helpful! ❤️😊😊

View Quoted Comment Awesome!!! Thank you so much! We're really excited! These are great tips! It helps so much to talk about it and hesr about others experiences!

We went about 4 yrs ago and I did want to plan excursions on my own and finding hotels so I went with an all inclusive trip.. we did Gate1travel and it was the best experience ever!! VIP treatment!!! Check their website out they have diff deals and lengths...

Dont have any tips, but we plan on going to Europe in a few years and Italy is definitely on the list, so commenting to come back to this!!

I've been to London and Rome - great choices. Rome is just so breathtakingly beautiful. The architecture and feel of the city is beautiful.
I stayed at airbnbs at both places. You can find whole apartments for cheap.

I've never been, so I have zero advice for you. But that sounds like a dream and I just know you're going to have such a great trip!

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Thank you Jenni!! I think we have decided to actually almost play it by ear. We've talked to quite a few people now who've went and they said some of the best times they had were because they had to go to a hotel one town over due to the popular hotel being booked, and they found many things to do and we're able to go wherever the wind took them! It looks like we'll be booking our tickets to fly there, and a hotel for the first few days. From there, it's all in the air! I'm so excited, it puts less pressure on us now. & My FH has family in england (where we're flying into) so worst case scenario, we have someone who can take us in!