Best of Italy: A whirlwind itinerary for one week in Italy

The Pantheon in Rome.Take a tour
If you prefer an expert guide for your sightseeing, here are some walking tours from our partners at Viator.com that cover many of the sights featured on this day:

• Best of Rome Afternoon Walking Tour
• Baroque Rome Small Group Day Tour
• Private Tour: Borghese Gallery and Baroque Rome Art History Walking Tour
• Skip the Line: Borghese Gallery and Gardens Walking Tour
• Skip the Line: Borghese Gallery Tickets
• Rome Photography Walking Tour: Learn How to Take Professional Photos
• Classical Rome Morning Tour
• Rome Angels and Demons Half-Day Tour
• Private Tour: Classical Rome Art History Walking Tour
• Ancient Rome Half-Day Walking Tour
• Rome Hop-on Hop-off Double Decker Bus Tour (no site entries)
MORNING: Most transatlantic flights land in Rome in the early morning (around 8am), and by the time you collect your bags, go through customs/immigration, get downtown, and check into your hotel, it'll by 11am—plenty of time to check in, splash your face, and head out for an afternoon of sightseeing.

Just don't give in to the urge to lie down and take a cat-nap. Trust me. Those first-day "catnaps "have a nasty habit of lasting until 7pm, at which point it takes supreme willpower to drag yourself out of bed to find dinner. Best just to stay moving and stay awake.

Now I know the first day can be rough, what with jet lag and the fact that you probably didn't sleep well on the plane, so today, though it seems packed with activity, is really not all that taxing. It's mostly just poking around the greatest churches of the Tiber Bend, the center of the old city (plus one small museum). Plan to spend only about 10–15 minutes inside each church—give yourself permission just to look at the highlights and not to try and appreciate every altarpiece and architectural element—and you will keep on schedule and not feel too overwhelmed.

AFTERNOON:
Piazza Navona.Sitting down to a leisurely lunch will only exacerbate the jet lag, so just grab a quick bite en route to Rome's prettiest square, the gracious, fountain-studded, cafe-lined Piazza Navona.

Pop out of the north end of the piazza to see the church of Sant'Agostino (works by Caravaggio and Raphael inside), then head south past San Luigi dei Francesi (more great Caravaggios) to the courtyard hiding the curly-cue dome atop Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza. Walk through the courtyard, past the church, and out the east side of the building to Piazza Sant'Eustachio, home to the most famous cappuccino in Rome at the Caffé Sant'Eustachio. Don’t linger too long, or the jet lag will start to catch up with you (an extra cappuccino or two helps).

Just a bit farther east is the noble Pantheon, the only ancient Roman temple to survive the millennia virtually intact and one of the best sights in all of Rome (if you skip everything else on this day, at least see the Pantheon).

The area around the Pantheon is the best spot in Rome for ice cream fans, so don't forget to try some gelato (Italian ice cream) in between the sights (gotta keep your strength up, after all).

Just south of the Pantheon, on the piazza with the Bernini statue of an elephant carrying a tiny obelisk on its back, rises Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, a gothic church with Michelangelo's Risen Christ statue and Filippo Lippi frescoes inside.

Head north, past the baroque optical illusions in the church of Sant'Ignazio and the ancient Roman Column of Marcus Aurelius on your way to grab the 116 minibus to the Porta Pinciana (you'll see a park across the street; it's called the Villa Borghese).

Enter the park and take the first path on your right (Viale di Museo Borghese) to get to the Galleria Borghese by 3pm (TIP: you will need to purchase tickets in advance for this, or sign up for a 3pm tour; see the "Before You Leave" sidebar at the end of this itinerary). Tour its collections of amazing early Bernini sculptures and Raphael and Caravaggio paintings until the museum closes at 5pm.

The evening passeggiata along Via del Corso.Make your way through the Villa Borghese park to the top of the lively Spanish Steps. Mingle for a while, then window shop down fashionable Via dei Condotti and the surrounding streets.

If you make it all the way north to Piazza del Popolo before the fabulous church of Santa Maria del Popolo at the far end of the square closes (works by Raphael, Caravaggio, and Bernini inside), so much the better.

By the time you get to the Corso, one of Rome's main drags, the evening passeggiata see-and-be-seen stroll will be in full swing and you can strut your stuff with the Romans until it's time for a hearty and well-deserved dinner in the Old City.

(I know you're exhausted, but Italians eat late, so try to hold out until at least 6:30 or 7pm before heading to a restaurant).

» Stay: Rome

The Roman Forum in Rome.Take a tour
If you prefer an expert guide for your sightseeing, here are some walking tours from our partners at Viator.com that cover many of the sights featured on this day:

• Skip the Line: Ancient Rome and Colosseum Half-Day Walking Tour
• Private Tour: Ancient Rome and Colosseum Art History Walking Tour
• Ancient Rome Half-Day Walking Tour
• Imperial Rome Afternoon Tour
• Private Tour: Imperial Rome Art History Walking Tour
• Private Tour: Ancient Roman Art History Walking Tour
• Capitoline Museums and Origins of Rome Walking TourMORNING: Rome's all about Caesars, right? Start off day two in Rome by crawling around the ruins of the Roman Forum, where, two millennia ago, great orators held forth, senators debated, and Julius Caesar strode the streets.

Unfortunately, little is left to see in this dusty jumble of foundations, arches, and standing columns—and much left to the imagination. But so much the better, as this way you can be out by 11:30 and on your way to see Michelangelo's Moses in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli before it closes at 12:30pm.

AFTERNOON: After lunch (the old-school wine bar Cavour 313 is conveniently located nearby), pay a visit to the Colosseum. Take 45 minutes to wander around inside this amazing ancient amphitheater (save time in the often long lines by booking your entry ahead).

Now walk several long blocks farther south to tour the church of San Clemente, with medieval mosaics glittering in the apse, Renaissance frescoes in the chapels, and a door off the gift shop leading down to the first of several basements that provide an unparalleled tour through Rome's layer cake of history: below the current, medieval church is a 4th century church, and below that is a pagan temple to Mithras and the remains of several ancient Roman buildings, streets, and the splashing waters of a still-functioning aqueduct (go ahead and fill your water bottle; the water is clean, cold, and delicious).

Catch a bus to head back north to Piazza Venezia, at the north end of the Forum. Nearby is the elevated square Piazza del Campidoglio, where the Capitoline Museums will entertain you with ancient sculpture and Renaissance and baroque painting until 7pm.

Make sure that before sunset you nip around the back of the right side of the central building on Piazza del Campidoglio where you're treated to a surprise panorama of the Forum from above, with the Palatine Hill and the Colosseum as a backdrop. Have dinner in the Old City tonight.

» Stay: Rome

The Sistine Chapel ceiling in Rome.Take a tour
If you prefer an expert guide for your sightseeing, here are some walking tours from our partners at Viator.com that cover many of the sights featured on this day:

• Skip the Line: Vatican in One Day
• Private Tour: Vatican Museums and St Peter's Art History Walking Tour
• Skip the Line: Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel and St Peter's Basilica Half-Day Walking Tour
• Skip the Line: Vatican Museums Walking Tour including Sistine Chapel, Raphael's Rooms and St Peter's
• Skip the Line: Vatican Museums Tickets
• Private Viewing of the Sistine Chapel and Vatican Museums
• Private Tour: Vatican Museums Walking Tour
• Skip the Line: Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel Tour
• Rome Angels and Demons Half-Day Tour
Today we spend on the other side of the river from the bulk of old Rome. Be up bright and early (I know, you never seem to get to sleep in) so that you beat the legions of tour buses to the Vatican Museums, which open at 9am.

Spend all morning in there, drinking in such artistic wonders as Raphael's Transfiguration, Caravaggio's Deposition, the Raphael Rooms, and Michelangelo's incomparable Sistine Chapel ceiling.

tip
Early risers who want to cram more in can visit St. Peter's first—it opens at 7am—spend 90 min. there, then walk around the Vatican walls to tour the Vatican Museums when they open at 9am. This'll free up more time later for Castel Sant'Angelo and some sights in Trastevere.They shoo you out in early afternoon, so grab a snack on your way around the Vatican walls to visit the grandiose church of St. Peter's.

See Michelangelo's Pietà and tour the tombs of popes under the basilica before climbing its dome for a panoramic sweep of the city across the river.

If you finish with St. Peter's quickly, you may want to head to the pope's nearby Renaissance fortress, the Castle Sant'Angelo on the river, which has a nifty museum of arms and armor.

Either way, spend the evening in the medieval neighborhood of Trastevere, where you can find lots of excellent Roman restaurants.

Afterwards make your way back across the Tiber River to the famous Trevi Fountain, into which it's tradition to toss a few coins in order to ensure that, one day, you'll return to the Eternal City.

» Stay: Rome

Piazza del Campo in Siena. (Photo by Zyance)Take a tour
If you prefer an expert guide for your sightseeing and don't want to fiddle with renting a car, you can take the train straight up to Florence and use it as a homebase to tour Tuscany on guided day tours from our partners at Viator.com. (Since such tours leave early in the morning, you'll have to swap Days 4 and 5, taking the train straight to Florence on Day 4 and doing the Duomo/Uffizi stuff, then doing the Siena day trip on Day 5.) Here are a few tours that cover both Siena and San Gimignano (a medieval hilltown bristling with towers):

• Tuscany in One Day Sightseeing Tour (Siena, Monteriggioni, Chianti, San Gimignano, Pisa; 12 hrs)
• Siena and San Gimignano Small Group Day Trip from Florence (8 hrs)
• Private Tour: Siena and San Gimignano (8.5 hrs)
• Siena and San Gimignano Day Trip from Florence (8.5 hrs)
• 5-Day Best of Italy Trip (5 days/4 nights)
Grab an early train (might I suggest the 7:52am train from Rome's Tiburtina station?) so you can be in the hilltown of Siena by 10:30am or so. That'll give you time to wander through the wondrously frescoed rooms of the Palazzo Pubblico town hall on the main square, the gorgeous sloping scallop-shell of Il Campo.

After lunch, walk through the medieval streets to the zebra-striped 12th century Duomo (cathedral), with its medieval carved pulpit inside and a library frescoed in bright, Fujifilm colors by Umbrian master Pinturicchio (helped by his young apprentice Raphael).

As huge as it is, Siena's Duomo was actually meant to be much larger (turning the present church into merely the transept of what would have been the largest church in the world). The Black Death of 1348 put an end to those plans, but two mighty walls of the would-be expanded cathedral survive, and are now installed with the Museo del Opera Metropolitana, a magnificent collections of art from Duccio's seminal Maestà to sculpture by Donatello and Jacopo della Quercia (and a great city panorama from the top of the wall).

Take the rest of the afternoon off to wander the nearly-car-free streets, pop into the shops (Siena does good ceramics) and cafes (mmm, cappuccino), and join the locals in their passeggiata evening stroll along Via Banchi di Sopra and Via di Città.

» Stay: Siena

The Duomo.Take a tour
If you prefer an expert guide for your sightseeing, here are some walking tours from our partners at Viator.com that cover many of the sights featured on this day (as a bonus, many include the Accademia, which would free up tomorrow morning):

All sights:
• Florence Half-Day or Full-Day Sightseeing Tour
• Private Tour: Florence Sightseeing Tour

Duomo:
• Skip The Line: Best of Florence Walking Tour including Accademia Gallery and Duomo
• Skip the Line: Florence Renaissance Walking Tour with Accademia Gallery
• Private Tour: Florence Walking Tour
• Florence Walking Tour

Uffizi:
 • Skip the Line: Florence Uffizi Gallery Tickets
• Skip the Line: Florence Uffizi Gallery Tour
• Skip the Line: Uffizi Gallery and Vasari Corridor Walking Tour
• Skip the Line: Small Group Florence Uffizi Gallery Walking Tour
• Skip the Line: Florence Accademia and Uffizi Gallery Tour
MORNING: Take the earliest morning bus you can manage (between Siena and Florence, buses are faster and easier than trains, arriving in about 75 minutes) to Florence and drop your bags by the hotel.

Head directly to the Duomo (cathedral) to climb Brunelleschi's ingenious and noble dome for a panorama across the city, then duck into the adjacent baptistery to marvel at the mosaics inside and the massive bronze doors outside—the ones facing the Duomo are so beautiful they became known as the Gates of Paradise.

AFTERNOON: Be sure you extricate yourself from the cathedral group by 1pm so that you can wander a few blocks south for a lunch on-the-go at I Fratellini, a traditional fiaschetteria, a hole-in-the-wall joint with no seats, just a counter selling wine by the glass and scrumptious sandwiches to patrons who stand in a crowd on the flagstones of the sidewalk and pedestrianized street.

Then continue a few more blocks to the stage set of Piazza della Signoria, filled with statues and lined by buildings the Medici would still recognize.

Opening off the south side of the square is world's premier gallery of the Renaissance, the Uffizi (TIP: another museums for which you'll want to purchase tickets before leaving home). Spend the rest of the afternoon communing with Giotto, Botticelli, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Caravaggio, and Titian until they boot you out the doors at 7:30pm. Have a Tuscan feast at Il Latini before bed.

» Stay: Florence

Michelangelo's David in the Accademia.Take a tour
If you prefer an expert guide for your sightseeing, here are some walking tours from our partners at Viator.com that cover many of the sights featured on Day 10:

• Skip the Line: Accademia Gallery Tickets
• Skip the Line: Accademia Gallery Tour
• Skip the Line: Accademia and Uffizi Tour
• Skip The Line: Best of Florence Walking Tour, incl Accademia Gallery and Duomo
• Skip the Line: Florence Renaissance Walking Tour with Accademia Gallery
• Florence Half-Day or Full-Day Sightseeing Tour
• Private Tour: Florence Sightseeing Tour
MORNING: Florence rule #1: Be in line at the Accademia when it opens to see Michelangelo's David before the crowds arrive. (Avoid the hour-long wait altogether by reserving your tickets.)

Don't linger since before lunch you need to swing by Santa Maria Novella church for a look at the first Renaissance painting to use perfect perspective and a Ghirlandaio fresco cycle on which a young apprentice named Michelangelo helped out.

AFTERNOON: After a quick lunch, and while the city is shut down for the mid-day riposo, make your way over to the Giotto frescoes in Santa Croce church (it stays open all day), Florence's version of Westminster Abbey and the final resting place of Michelangelo, Galileo, Rossini, and Machiavelli with an excellent leather school in the back.

On your way back over to the heart of town, stop by Vivoli for the best gelato (ice cream) the world has ever known. Licking your cone, head back toward the center of town to cross the jewelry shop–lined medieval bridge Ponte Vecchio over to the artisans' quarter known as the Oltrarno.

Here you'll find the Medici's grand Pitti Palace, whose painting galleries will keep you occupied until closing time at 7pm. The Oltrarno is full of good, homey restaurants where you can kick back, toast your 36 hours in Florence, and avow a return.

» Stay: Florence

The Grand Canal.Take a tour
Though no tours of the Accademia are offered, you can get book a gondola ride with our partners at Viator.com:

• Venice Gondola Ride and Serenade
• Venice Gondola Ride and Serenade with Dinner
• Venice Walking Tour and Gondola Ride
MORNING: There's an 8:37am train from Florence that pulls into Venice around 11:30am so you can dive into the city of canals (not literally).

AFTERNOON: Have a snack on your way to check into your hotel in the early afternoon, then spend the mid-afternoon perusing the Renaissance masterpieces in Venice's Accademia Gallery (yes, it has same name as a museum in Florence; this is because both are part of their city's "Academy" of Fine Arts).

If you have time (and for a chance of pace), also try to fit in an hour or so admiring the modern art—yes! Italy has modern art, too!—at the lovely Peggy Guggenheim museum nearby.

Take a gondola ride before dinner (yeah, it's a bit cheesy—and expensive—but you wouldn't want to have come all this way and not done it, either), and wander the quiet, romantic streets a while after your meal.

» Stay: Venice

The mosaics of San Marco.Take a tour
If you prefer an expert guide for your sightseeing in Venice, here are some walking tours from our partners at Viator.com that cover many of the sights featured on this day:

San Marco:
• Skip the Line: Venice Walking Tour with St Mark's Basilica
• Skip the Line: St Mark's Square Highlights Tour
• Skip the Line: Venice in One Day

Palazzo Ducale:
• Skip the Line: Venice Walking Tour with Doges Palace

Outlying islands:
• Murano, Burano and Torcello Half-Day Sightseeing Tour
• Private Tour: Murano, Burano and Torcello Half-Day Tour
MORNING: In the morning, head straight to one of Europe's prettiest squares, the canalside Piazza San Marco. Wander the glittering mosaicked wonderland of its Byzantine San Marco cathedral and ride the elevator up the bell tower for a sweeping view across the city and its canals.

Take the "Secret Itineraries" tour of the Doge's Palace at 10:45am for a behind-the-scenes look at Venetian history and intrigue from its Renaissance days as the world's trading and shipping powerhouse.

(It’s wisest to book this tour ahead of time, but not necessarily from home before you leave. Dropping by the afternoon before or even first thing in the morning before touring San Marco, should be sufficient. Still, just in case you want to be sure you get a ticket by booking in advance, I've spelled out the process here.)

AFTERNOON: Option 1 (if you are flying home from Venice) - Spend the afternoon however you’d like: shopping for Venice's famous glass trinkets, popping into more museums (my votes: the Peggy Guggenheim of 20th century art and the Ca' d'Oro, the grandest of the Renaissance palazzi along the Grand Canal) and churches, or simply have fun getting lost in the twisting, confounding, unspeakably beautiful back streets of Venice.

tip
If any of your days in Venice happens to be a Sunday, do not miss the 6:345pm mass in the Cathedral of St. Mark's—the only time they throw on all the light switches to illuminate all of those amazing gold mosaics.Another option (and a personal favorite): take off on a ferry for the outlying islands of Murano, where the glass industry started and a bit like a Venice in miniature, and Burano, a fishing village of riotously colored houses along miniature canals. It’s about an hour's ride out and back, and you should spend about an hour on each island.

If you time things just right, you should be motoring back to downtown Venice (and a celebratory canal-side final dinner) right as the setting sun sends sparkling streamers across the waters of the lagoon with the bell towers of Venice as a backdrop. Perfect.

Milan tours
If you prefer an expert guide for your sightseeing in Milan, here are some walking tours from our partners at Viator.com that cover many of the sights featured on this day:

• Milan Half-Day Sightseeing Tour with da Vinci's 'The Last Supper'
• Skip the Line: Small-Group Milan Walking Tour with da Vinci's 'The Last Supper' Tickets
• Leonardo da Vinci Half-Day Walking Tour including 'The Last Supper'
• Private Tour: Milan Walking TourAFTERNOON: Option 2 (if you are flying home from Milan) - If you are flying home from Milan instead of Venice, you might want to go ahead and take the train to Milan this afernoon and spend the night there.

Because so few flights are scheduled late in the afternoon (most are midday or late morning), were you to wait to go to the Milan airport until tomorrow you would have to catch a 6am train from Venice just to get to the Milan airport in time—and even that would be cutting it a bit too close for my comfort.

Not that this has to be a bad thing. I say: plan to leave for Milan after your tour the Doge's Palace so that you will get there early enough to see Leonardo's Last Supper, wander through the magnificent Duomo, and then have dinner in the trendy Navilgi district.)

» Stay: Venice or Milan

ALL DAY: Most flights back to the U.S. leave either in the morning or early afternoon. Either way, the day's largely a wash. You'll spend all morning getting to the airport and the rest of the day in the air.

(Remember: if you have a 3pm flight, you have to check in by 1pm, which means you have to head to the airport by noon, which means you have to leave your hotel by 10:30... The day's pretty much shot by the time you wake up.)

Hopefully, you are able to book a flight home leaving from the Venice-Marco Polo airport, which does have a few direct flights to JFK, though most will stop/change in some other big city first.

If not, you will have to fly home from Milan, so be sure build in 3 hours for the train ride there from Venice (the ride actually only takes 2:35–2:45, but it's always wise to build in an extra cushion of time). Sadly, this means catching a ridiculously early train—like 6:20am.

As I outlined in the scheudle for Day 8, if you are flying home from Milan you might seriosuly consider heading to Milan on Day 8 and spending the night there instead. (Bonus: you can even get in a bit of Milan sightseeing, adding yet one more city to your itinerary)

Details on airport transfers:

• How to get to the Venice airport
• How to get to the Milan airport

That's it! I hope you had a great trip. Try to catch up on your trip journal on the plane—oh, and be sure to grab some good plane snacks before you head to the airport (foccaccia's my favorite)—Italian food beats airline food any day of the week.