Sometime during the summer my husband and I started
researching places to visit for our first European holiday. The more time we
spent reading blogs and on Pinterest, the more fascinated we became with Italy.
It seemed that every town was worth exploring and we
couldn’t wait to see it all. When we finally started planning our holiday we
knew that realistically we could only spare around 9 days including travel
time. Never ones to be deterred by practicalities, we decided to make the most
of our limited time, ignore everything we read online and plan to go everywhere
we realistically could in that span of time.
My husband and I are what
you would call ambitious travelers. As young professionals with limited time
and resources to travel our goal is always to see as much as we can. Rome, Florence, Cinque Terre, Venice, and Burano in 9 days may seem like a lot but here's how we were able to cover them all:
Days 1 - 3: Rome
We booked an overnight flight from Dubai to Rome and landed
in the Eternal City bright and early at 7:30am. The lines in immigration were
insane and it took us around 2 hours to actually leave the airport. Once we
were out we took a taxi and headed straight to our hotel which was around a 10
minute walk from the Coliseum. We stayed at the Hotel Infinito and I couldn't recommend it highly enough! It was affordable, quaint, and very centrally located! We got to our room, freshened up and headed out
straight away. Having slept most of the flight we weren’t tired at all (one of
the reasons I love overnight flights!).
Our first stop of the day was of
course, the Coliseum for which we had pre-booked tickets online.
*I would strongly recommend that anyone who goes to Italy
books all of their passes and tickets online. Otherwise you will spend at least
2 – 3 hours of your valuable time in lines.*
After the Coliseum we headed to the Roman Forum and from
there we kept walking and ended up at the Trevi Fountain. We had had around 3
gelatos already by this point. Honestly, there are no words to describe how
amazing Italian gelato truly is and I say this as someone who’s not a huge fan
of ice cream or sweets in general! Also, if there's a panna cotta flavor then try it and thank me later!
After exploring the rest of the area around the Trevi
Fountain we had dinner and headed back to our hotel to rest up for the next
day.
Day 2 was our most ambitious day of the trip by far. We
decided to wake up early and head to Trastevere as we had heard so much about
this quaint village tucked into the middle of the city. And of course sometimes
when you travel, things don’t always go as planned which is exactly what
happened with us.
We decided to take the metro to Trestavere but when we got
off at the stop we discovered that the Trastevere on the metro route was a completely different place than the Trestavere we had wanted to visit! By this point
we were running late for our 12:30 ticket at the Vatican so we rushed back and
decided to try and go back later in the day.
Luckily we got to the Vatican in time and spent around 2
hours there. From there we gave Trastevere another try and luckily we were
successful this time! As a side note I would say Trastevere was one of my
absolute favorite places in Rome and I couldn’t recommend it highly enough to
anyone who visits.
From Trastavere we crossed over one of the bridges on the
Tiberius and headed to the Piazza Navona and from there to the Pantheon. From
the Pantheon we decided to take a longgg walk back over to Trestavere for
dinner as it has some of the best restaurants in the city.
By this point we were exhausted. We had walked over 28,000
steps by this point and after dinner we took a taxi and headed back to our
hotel. The funny thing was we thought the train we had booked to Florence was
the next day so we had tried to cover as much as possible but when we got back
to our hotel and looked at our bookings we realized we still had one more day
in Rome!
On day three in the city we decided to take a more relaxed
approach seeing as we had already checked most of the major tourist sights off
our list. We slept in and then headed to the Spanish steps where we sat and
people watched. From there we headed back to the Trevi Fountain and spent the
rest of the day aimlessly wandering throughout what became one of our all time favorite cities!
Days 4 – 5: Florence/Cinque Terre
On day 4 we checked out of Rome and boarded an early morning
train for Florence. We had mapped out the places we had wanted to see
beforehand so that we didn’t waste any time when we arrived. Florence is small
and incredibly easy to cover on foot. Our first stop was the Duomo and then the
Pointo Vecchio which didn’t take more than a few hours.
On day 5 of our trip we got on the train again bright and
early at 7:30 in the morning and headed to La Spezia which would connect us to another
train that would take us to the five villages that make up Cinque Terre. Cinque
Terre was the part of the trip I was looking most forward to and even though I
was severely under the weather by this point I decided to make the most of the
day and explore as much as I could.
The train rides altogether took around 2.5 hours and our
first stop when we arrived to Cinque Terre was the village of Riomaggiore. It’s
always such a surreal feeling when you a place that you’ve dreamed about seeing
for such a long time. From Riomaggiore we headed to Monarola and then Vernazza.
We traveled to all of the towns by train which was included in our Cinque
Terre day pass. I would have loved to go on the walking on the trails that
connected the villages but we simply didn’t have enough time. From our
experience, 1 day is definitely enough to cover most of what there is to see in
Cinque Terre. The towns are very small and unless you sit down to eat or go swimming
you’ll be able to see each one in around an hour.
Days 6 – 8: Venice and Burano
On Day 6 we packed our bags once again and headed to Venice.
While it might seem like most of our time was spent in trains this certainly
wasn’t the case. Italian trains are quick and efficient and unlike airports you
don’t need to arrive hours in advance of your booking.
When we arrived to Venice we dropped our suitcase at our
hotel which was only 5 minutes away from the train station and started
exploring right away. On the first day we let ourselves wander and get lost in
the city as we had a packed itinerary for the next day. Venice is one of those
cities where you will get lost so be prepared!
The next day we headed to Saint Marc’s Square early in the
morning and from there took an aperetto to Burano. After exploring the
colorful, fairy-tale like island for a few hours we headed back to Venice and
spent the rest of the day wandering. If you’re going to Venice I would highly
recommend buying a 24 hour aperetto pass which allows unlimited use of the public
water buses.
Day 9: Venice to Rome
We were unable to buy open jaw tickets that would have
allowed us to fly back to Dubai from Venice so we had to go back to Rome. The
train from Venice to Rome took a little over three hours and by the time we
reached our hotel we decided to stay in as it ended up being much farther from
the city center than we had expected. The next day we headed to the airport and
flew back home concluding our trip.
While there’s still so much left we want to see we were grateful that we
could cover as much as we did in a span of just 9 days.
