Re: need advice on florence - rome trip

would be ideal to fly out on a friday and come back following fri or
sat. middle of may, june if you think the weather in florence is do
able that time of year? i assume rome is rather warm in june tho?

May might not only be less hot but also less crowded (for crowds, you might
also want to avoid the time around Pentecost, which is June 4,2006;
Ascension Sunday is May 28, 2006--this time brings both religious pilgrims
as well holidaymakers from other European countries that have a week of
holiday about then). Mid-June has fewer European holidays, but Americans
(and we Martians, who like to go to Venice for the canals) are all over
Italy in mid-June. Here are average high temperatures for Rome:
http://weather.yahoo.com/climo/ITXX0067_f.html

I do think you could easily fly into one city and back from another. If you
are going to park your bags in one place, you may as well fly close to there
if you get convenient flights, and you may as well fly back from where you
and your bags are at the end, instead of doubling back. But as Barbara
mentions Florence and Rome are only 90 minutes apart by train (and you might
find the best flights for you go into and out of Rome). But what makes
most sense is to look at all possible flight schedules and piece together
what is reasonable, breaking it down closely by departure times (I avoid any
flight that departs Europe before 11am--afternoon is even better, which
might make flying back from Rome the best bet). You could easily fly into
Florence or Pisa depending on where you want to start out.

For flights, starting with the meta-search engines like www.kayak.com and
www.sidestep.com and then comparing with more conventional retailers like
www.orbitz.com www.expedia.com and www.travelocity.com will be good for
prices, but then is something sounds good going directly to the airline
websites might give you more connection options than the other sites give
you. For example, if you need to connect somewhere, instead of taking a
fast connection you can extend connections within Europe for up to 24 hours,
so it's possible to get 8 or 10 hours in London, Paris, Amsterdam, or Milan
in the bargain (which is probably too much to attempt on a one-week trip,
but I've done that before too)--but you kind of have to be comfortable with
lockers, public transportation, and jet lage to do this
productively--connections like that often need to be hammered out directly
at the airline website--along with other connections that might not be the
tightest, but might give you more ease and less hustle (say, a 3-hour
connection instead of a 1-hour connection just to let you freshen up, have a
coffee, and be more casual at the airport).

For hotels, I used to use guidebooks (and it might be worth spending a
couple hours sipping cappucio at a large chain bookstore while reading
through all the guides, especially the more boutiquey ones for your small
town plans) but now I tend to book all my Italy hotels at www.venere.com
where the reviews from customers, listing of facilities, maps, and easy
terms tend to make booking a breeze (a lot easier than sending faxes used to
be).


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