Italy for Honeymoon? Anyone done it?

YoungBaker

Hey
Just a quick thread to see if anyone has done / is going to Italy for their honeymoon?

We have been considering a few different places (originally somewhere like Mexico, Mauritius etc) but alot of the places end up having dodgy whether when we would be going (tail end of June next year), and also price wise are looking at £2k+ per person...

We both would love the idea of going to Italy and maybe going to a few different places? Can get cheap flights and have looked trains between destinations are pretty cheap as well.

Considering something like starting off in Naples, up to Rome, then heading further north up to Venice and maybe Milan...

It's all just chatting just now as a lot of 2013 flights and hotels aren't released yet to price it properly.

Has anyone done anything similair though? Any suggestions where to go / what to do / what not to do etc?

Cheers

wannabemrs

We hope to do this as well, aiming to go to sorrento, so will be interested to see responses!

mildred1978

Yep, did it. Wouldn't bother with Milan - horrible city. Florence, Rome, Siena, Sorrento all worth doing though.

We did 3 places over 2 weeks, no car, and it cost £3k ish for 2 of us (plus about £1200 spends). That was 8 years ago though when the euro wasn't so expensive!!

johannalf88

Not for honeymoon, but we spent 10 days in Italy a couple of years ago. We did the whole thing for £1500.

We stayed 3 nights in a fab hotel in Venice, that was recommended to us by in laws 2b. Then got the train to Florence, spent 1 night there, then to Pisa for a night, then train down to Rome where we stayed for 4 nights.

Loved every minute of it! Wish I could do it again.

You don't need to spend a lot of time in Pisa/ Florence, Pisa is pretty empty apart from the tower, and there is not much to do in Florence if u don't like paintings (I don't!) - but the architecture is gorgeous. I kind of wish we had an extra half day there just to take our time. But wouldn't need much more. The time we spent in Rome and Venice was about right.

If you go to the Vatican wait until the afternoon, we queued all morning, but when we left (about 2) there was no queue at all!

Only recommendation would be to get central hotels, the inner city transport is awful!!

YoungBaker

Thanks everyone - johannalf which hotel was it if you dont mind me asking?

It seems you guys all went from north down southwards... Wasn't too sure what would be best. Also wasnt sure whether hiring a car may be worth it compared to trains?

Has anyone stopped off at Lake Gardaa at all? Is it worth doing on this sort of trip?

mildred1978

We did Rome first and then went up from there. Spent nearly a week in Florence though - love love loved it.

mummybearx

We were in Italy for 9 days last October. We flew into Milan Malpensa, got a bus to Station Centrale costing about 8 euro each. We booked Hotel New York, just around the corner from the train station. We chose to stay about 4 metro stops from the Duomo, purely because we couldn't budget for the really central hotels. The train was really cheap into the centre.

I didn't really like Milan, it has a really 'uneasy' feeling about it. Lots of foreign men grabbing your wrists to put stupid bracelets on you then trying to charge you 3euros for it. And the guys feeling the pigeons outside the duomo, grab your hands and put bird food into it and charge you 3euros.. You get the idea.

After 2 nights in Milan, we got the train to Stresa, a little village on Lake Maggiore. Beautiful little place, nice and relaxed, great food, lovely people. We stayed there for 6 nights, took boat trips out onto the lake, got the mountain train to Locarno in Switzerland, and got the ferry back the same night.

Hopi g to go back next year, maybe fly into Nice in France first, spend a few days there and go to Monaco, before getting the train to Lak Como. Como is next on the list as we want to visit the 3big lakes, and we were at Lake Garda in May last year :-)

johannalf88

We stayed here:

http://www.hotelgiorgione.com/

Was very luxerious!

In Pisa we stayed in a converted monastery! It was very bare, but actually really cool. we enjoyed it anyway! Not too far away, but very quite. Cheap too!
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g187899-d277084-Reviews-Hotel_Santa_Croce_in_Fossabanda-Pisa_Province_of_Pisa_Tuscany.html

In Florence we stayed at Hotel Johanna (yeah wonder why!)

I wouldn't recommended our Rome hotel, as it is too far fom city centre.

YoungBaker

Quite interesting two of you have said to stay clear of Milan! Will need to look into this more as OH definitely put this down as one of the more 'must go' places... Funnily enough we didn't actually think of Sorrento which most of you have mentioned... we are planning on being done Naples way anyway to either start or finish (really want to go to Pompeii)... What is there good to do in Sorrento and again any decent hotels?

Also we were considering maybe trying to finish somewhere more... typical relaxing / beachish? Any suggestions?

schofield8883

been to italy a few times and thinking of doing it for our honeymoon next june!! I have always drive to italy and find the car invaluable (might be worth a hire car) such a nice drive though through the alps and the different countries.
Places to go are rome! really hard to do in a day i have done it but being a honeymoon might want to take it a little easier, venice is so pretty you can drive straight into it theres a carpark which is just as you get into it but pletty on trains going in and out you can take the boat buses everywhere which you can get a day ticket for about a tenner if that. Go on a gondala! so nice can also ask for singing ones! warning dont haggle on them tho they will bring the price down but your half hour ride will actually be shorter.
the place i would recommend above all others is a little village saturnia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturnia there is a some hot springs (37 degrees c) there with a waterfall which you can bath in its so nice google pictures and best of all its free went with the family last year. unsure if public trasport would get you there as its in the sticks a bit.
Then there is verona where you can go to juliets house which is a museum they also have an arena like the coliseum in rome which is less busy than the one in rome and just as nice they also do conserts there. Which id love to go to as such a place!

hope this helps and its so worth going to a few places rather than one.

YoungBaker

Thanks so much schofield some really great info there...

Yeh we are definitely looking to get a few different places and see as much of Italy as we can. Based on the advice from in here and the travel forum as well, our original trip has changed a lot. Thinking we might miss out Milan now, stay in Florence instead of Pisa itself and just go there for a daytrip to see the tower, and stay in Sorrento instead of Naples and do the Pompeii, Mt Vesuvius trips etc. from there instead.

At the moment our trip is looking something like... Venice > Verona > Florence (Trips to Pisa) > Rome > Sorrento (Trips to Pompeii)

We've been checking out the public transport and it all seems quite good - some really cheap direct trains between all the places, but also considering whether car hire would be better overall?

Thanks again