Summary
Day 1: Landed in Venice - around 12 noon, stayed in Venice, saw around and stayed in Venice.
Day 2: Visited Venice, island hoping etc to Murano, Burano and Lido, stayed in Venice.
Day 3: We did the walking tour, took train to Florence in the evening and stayed in Florence.
Day 4: We did a walking tour in the morning, visited Davids statue, Duamo in Florence. We took train to Pisa. Then took train to Rome and stayed in Rome.
Day 5: We went to visit Spanish Steps, Pantheon etc. Stayed in Rome
Day 6: We did the walking tour in morning and visited Spanish steps and the area around, stayed in Rome.
Day 7: We saw the Roman Colosseum, Forum and Palantine Hill and other places and we stayed in Rome.
Day 8: We did the walking tour and went to Vatican City and visited St Peter's Basilica, stayed in Rome.
Day 9: We did the walking tour in the morning for Jewish Ghetto area and visited local streets at Trastevere, at night went to Piazza Navona, stayed in Rome.
Day 10: We had flight at 11am, flew back to Scotland.
Detailed Itinerary
Day#1
- We landed in Venice around noon, took the bus to Piazzale Roma and then walked till hotel. It's must to carry a map because it's so easy to get lost in Venice. Luckily we had right directions from our hotel.
- We then went out in town and explored it ourselves. San Marco square was the highlight.
- First we visited Basilica followed by Doges Palace. There is a secret itinerary tour in Doges Palace at 11:35 am; you have to pre book if you want to visit this.
- We hired a gondola for 40min, shared it with another couple and hence costed us £40. It was worth a while with our private chauffeur showing us world's most beautiful city around.
- After that we went to Rialto Bridge which is the famous bridge due to the story associated. It's a good place for shopping - definitely expensive.
- We had few Galetoes and pizza slices here and there before settling down near canal for few beers from supermarket.
Day#2
- Next day we bought the Veporetta pass for 24 hours, costed us £20 each. We decided to exploit it so started in morning, went to Murano island which is famous for glass work.
- We had our lunch there and from Murano we went to Burano island. Burano is famous for colorful houses and lace work. It's a great place to take pictures.
- From Burano we went to Torecello island which was recommended by our gondola chauffeur. It was OK-ish with little bit of history.
- After Torecello we went to Lido island which is famous for the sand beach. Lido has lagoon at one side and sea on another. It's quite a big island with lots of places to eat and drink.
- We headed straight to the beach and relaxed for couple of hours, saw the sunset there and started back towards San Marco. They are really just 10mins apart.
- We headed back to Lido after dinner as we wanted to attend the live music show at the beach. There were not many people, but the atmosphere was great. We came back to hotel around 2am.
Day#3
- We had a late break fast at the hotel and headed to attend the free walking tour at 11am around San Marco Square.
- After the walking tour, we headed to Piazza Roma and took a fast train to our next stop - Florence. It costed £45 each and took 1.5hours.
- We reached Florence around 4pm, checked in at the hostel just next to railway station.
- We explored Florence downtown ourselves visiting the Duamo and then walked along the river to see David’s (Michelangelo) statue at Michelangelo Square.
- We spent couple of hours there to witness the sun set, it was amazing - one of the most recommended things to do in Florence.
- At night we decided to treat ourselves with fancy dinner and bottle of wine. It was great theme restaurant in front of Duamo.
Day#4
- In the morning we had super heavy breakfast and started with the free walking tour organized by the hostel itself.
- It was 2 hour tour, we got to see and know about the highlights of the area including local markets and galeto recommendations.
- Around 12 noon, we took train to Pisa. Pisa was 1 hour journey, costed £7.5 each. From Pisa Centrale, we walked to Pisa Leaning Tower, took about 20mins.
- There stood the stunning Leaning Tower, the Cathedral and the Bapistry all nearby. We took pictures of all. We didn’t climb the top of tower as we had to pre book it.
- Around 5.30 pm we took the train to Rome (3.5 hours). Stayed in Rome close to Roma Termini station for that night.
Day#5
- In the morning we changed the hotel and moved closer to Spanish Steps. Our hotel was 5 mins walk from Piazza di Spagna.
- We did the walking tour in the evening around 5 pm starting from Spenish Steps covering Pantheon, Trevi Fountain and few other places, it lasted about 2 hours.
- We got the basic orientation of the area and explored it further by ourselves during night.
Day#6
- We bought the Roma pass for free transport and entry to first two places of interest for next three days. It costed us £34 each. By the end of day three, we thought we had complete value of the pass.
- We visited Colosseum, it's the single most attractive archaeological site in the whole world.
- After Colosseum, we went to Roman Forum and Palantine Hill. We had audio guides from Rick Steve with us which helped us a lot of understand the history of these sites.
- It was a hot day (38 degrees) and hence we took a break and came back to the hotel to relax for a while.
- We went out for dinner at Pantheon.
Day#7
- In the morning we went on another walking tour covering Colosseum, Capilotine Hill, Emmanuel Monument and Piazza Navona etc.
- We went to Galleria Borghese at 1pm, you'll have to make a prior reservation for that. They only allow 350 people inside at a time for a span of 2 hours. The gallery has great art work from different periods.
- We visited Villa Borghese which is a mythological theme park, it was OK-ish.
- We went around these places again listening the audio guide. We went out to Vatican city at night.
Day#8
- In the morning we went on to do walking tour from Spanish Steps to Vatican city covering all the places on the way.
- Immediately after the tour we queued up for entering St Peter Basilica - The most powerful and biggest church in the world. After about 1 hour queue, we finally entered to this magnificent building.
- We listened our audio guide and spent some quite time inside. We came out around 3 pm and headed back to hotel as it was too hot.
- We had an early dinner and then went to explore the streets of Trevistere.
- From there we went to Piazza Navona and sat there for a while having beer.
Day#9
- We did another walking tour with couchsurfers. It started from Circo Massimo.
- It was about the rather less known places and more interesting. We went to Jewish Ghetto and the streets around, Knights of Malta and the orange gardens.
- We started around at 10 am and ended at 2 pm near one of the local weekend markets for locals. We had our lunch there itself.
- We hang around in the street of Trevestere after that and changed the hotel back to Termini for the next day early morning flight.
Day#10
- We took the Teta Vision bus for £4 from Termini to Campiano Airport for flight at 11am. These buses go every 30mins from Termini to airports non stop.
- We took the flight for home with heavy heart !!
