Planning on a France + Italy trip in October

[phagocyte536]

Hi all,

My wife and I plan to take a 2 week trip to Paris + Italy in October.

We are loving the process of building the itenerary.

While YouTube and blogs have loads of information, I thought I should not miss the opportunity to take suggestions of this great community

Paris - 3 days
Milan - 2 ( includes a one day trip to lake como + St Moritz )
Venice - 2
Florence - 3 ( includes 2 one-day trips - one to cinque terre+ pisa, another to tuscany side - siena)
Pompei as the base for 2 days - includes a 1 day trip (on boat mostly) to amalfi coast
Rome - 3 days

Also, the accommodation will be sponsored by magnus-accor. Zeroed in the properties in all the locations

 

[ishanmontella]

Are you sure you want to go on a day trip to Amalfi coast from Pisa? Or did you mean day trip from Naples?

Hi all,

My wife and I plan to take a 2 week trip to Paris + Italy in October.

We are loving the process of building the itenerary.

While YouTube and blogs have loads of information, I thought I should not miss the opportunity to take suggestions of this great community

Paris - 3 days
Milan - 2 ( includes a one day trip to lake como + St Moritz )
Venice - 2
Florence - 3 ( includes 2 one-day trips - one to cinque terre+ pisa, another to tuscany side - siena)
Pisa as the base for 2 days - includes a 1 day trip (on boat mostly) to amalfi coast
Rome - 3 days

Also, the accommodation will be sponsored by magnus-accor. Zeroed in the properties in all the location

 

[phagocyte536]

Are you sure you want to go on a day trip to Amalfi coast from Pisa? Or did you mean day trip from Naples?

I meant pompei.. my bad. Editing

 

[ishanmontella]

Hi all,

My wife and I plan to take a 2 week trip to Paris + Italy in October.

We are loving the process of building the itenerary.

While YouTube and blogs have loads of information, I thought I should not miss the opportunity to take suggestions of this great community

Paris - 3 days
Milan - 2 ( includes a one day trip to lake como + St Moritz )
Venice - 2
Florence - 3 ( includes 2 one-day trips - one to cinque terre+ pisa, another to tuscany side - siena)
Pompei as the base for 2 days - includes a 1 day trip (on boat mostly) to amalfi coast
Rome - 3 days

Also, the accommodation will be sponsored by magnus-accor. Zeroed in the properties in all the locations

Your itinerary looks good. The only thing I would suggest strongly is to increase the total vacation to atleast 3 weeks. Right now, you have squeezed in 6 cities where you need to move with your luggage around (I'm sure you won't be packing light, when travelling with your wife ). 6 cities & various day trips in just 2 weeks is too much in my opinion:

1. Do take into account the time wasted during travelling, and time wasted at check-in/check-out.

2. Even if you start travelling early on the day you're changing the city, do keep in mind that hotels in Europe mostly offer check-in starting at 2PM. You will reach tired in a new city, and half of that day would already be wasted once you check-in. So, changing 6 cities in 2 weeks would cost you 3 days minimum.

3. There are long queues for entry into famous attractions in cities like Paris, Rome.

Let's try to break down your itinerary into 2 weeks:

Day 1: You reach Paris tired in the evening from India on a long flight. Entire day is wasted.
Day 2: Full day in Paris
Day 3: Full day in Paris

So, effectively you have only 2 full days in Paris. Keep in mind if you want to go to Disney Land, you need minimum one entire day to go on just 8-10 rides. There are long queues on the nice rides of about 1 hour each (like Space Mountain) . If you choose the fast track option by paying more, you still would have to wait 20 mins or so for every ride.

Same goes with other major attractions in Paris like the Louvre. You need an entire day there to just breeze through.
I would suggest you to make a list of things you would like to do in Paris, and then see if they can fit into just 2 days.

Day 4: You take a flight from Paris to Milan. Paris city center is 1 hour away from the airport, and you need to be at the airport around 2.5 hours before the flight (if you need to check-in luggage). Add another max 30 mins to check-out and redeeming your ALL points at the reception That means you need to be ready to leave for the airport 4 hours before the flight. Flight duration is 1.5 hours from Paris to Milan. Then 30 mins to receive your luggage, and another 1 hour to reach your hotel in Milan. That's 7 hours lost during the day. Again you would reach your hotel in Milan in the evening, tired from your long journey. Your entire day is almost shot.

Day 5: You leave for your day trip to Lake Como, and come back late.

So, effectively you had almost no time in Milan.

Day 6: You take the high speed Frecciarossa from Milan to Venice. Train would take around 2.5 hours to reach Venice. Here, I would advise you to not stay in Mestre part. As you have limited time in Venice, advise you to stay in proper Venice (San Paolo, San Marco, etc). Check-in around 2 PM, and enjoy half the day in Venice.

Day 7: Full day in Venice

Day 8: Leave from Florence for Venice. 2.5 hours journey. and check-in around 2 PM. You just have half a day in Florence to explore, which is too less in my opinion. The Uffizi itself requires a minimum of 2-3 hours to explore.

Day 9: Day trip to Pisa. Please note it would be extremely tough and not advisable to do both Pisa & Cinque Terre on the same day. People normally do Lucca along with Pisa on the same day. But Cinque Terre is further away. If you decide on doing both, you would end up enjoying neither.

Day 10: Day trip to Siena

Day 11: Florence to Pompei by Train. The journey would be approximately 4 hours. Here, I advise you to leave early from Florence, store your luggage at the hotel in Pompei, and start exploring the ruins of Pompei as soon as you reach. People normally spend 2 days exploring, but since you have limited time, you must use this day to the maximum.

Day 12: Day trip to Amalfi coast & back

Day 13: Arrive in Rome from Pompei. Explore half a day in Rome.

Day 14: Full day in Rome

Day 15: Full day in Rome

Please note that just like Paris, you need a lot of time to cover Rome's main attractions like the Colosseum or the Vatican. The Vatican in itself is one full day in my opinion.

Day 16: Flight back to India from Rome. Arrive in India late at night on the 16th day. You can start going to office from the 17th day

So, even with your itinerary, you require minimum 16 days (not 14).

I suggest you strongly to consider increasing the vacation to 3 weeks, so that you're not tired the entire time moving and travelling around, and you can truly enjoy La Dolce Vita

Or just eliminate one destination all together (I would eliminate Milan, and go straight to Venice from Paris, but it totally depends on what your interests are).

Cheers

 

[phagocyte536]

@ishanmontella

Thanks for taking your time out and suggesting things at this micro level.

There is no way we can increase the number of days of the trip considering constraints at work places for both of us..

Our initial itenerary was even more ambitious than this to start with 😅 we are slowly coming to what is realistically possible and trimming down things

We will sit down once again and make the itenerary more practical based on your suggestions.

There are some places where we are optimising time
1. Blore to Paris : direct flight that that wastes only our night time
2. Limiting to very few places of interest in each city rather than trying to cover as many
3. planning to reach each city after checkin time (paris we will reach early and accor has option for availing early checkin)
4. Prebook skip the line tickets whether possible
5. Have beeakfast at hotel
6. Museums : Both of us are not super literate on the art part of things.. barring the obviously famous artists. So we might limit art museum time in most cities.
7. Pay upfront with ALL points to save that time
8. Extremely detailed itenerary (I will share once done) to minimise decision making during the trip
9. Hopeful of lesser tourists in general as october is slightly low season compared to the summer

Also I feel one thing we overestimate is the energy we will have. 😂

I will definitely think over once again and see what can be trimmed down to make this plan more doable. Thanks again!

 

[anirban.choudhury]

Hi all,

My wife and I plan to take a 2 week trip to Paris + Italy in October.

We are loving the process of building the itenerary.

While YouTube and blogs have loads of information, I thought I should not miss the opportunity to take suggestions of this great community

Paris - 3 days
Milan - 2 ( includes a one day trip to lake como + St Moritz )
Venice - 2
Florence - 3 ( includes 2 one-day trips - one to cinque terre+ pisa, another to tuscany side - siena)
Pompei as the base for 2 days - includes a 1 day trip (on boat mostly) to amalfi coast
Rome - 3 days

Also, the accommodation will be sponsored by magnus-accor. Zeroed in the properties in all the locations

Your schedule is too tight bro , looks like the tour package kind , I would highly suggest to travel across France including but not limited to Nice , Annecy , just explore French Alps.
Your covering too many places in short duration , just a personal opinion .

 

[phagocyte536]

Your schedule is too tight bro , looks like the tour package kind , I would highly suggest to travel across France including but not limited to Nice , Annecy , just explore French Alps.
Your covering too many places in short duration , just a personal opinion .

Italy has somehow been a dream for me. Not so much reg France. Paris got added largely to have a different airport for entry and exit..

Will research more on france and maybe sometime in future.

Looks like i need to make the schedule less hectic as per your and ishan. Thanks for the inputs ☺️

 

[sahilgulati5]

IF possible Try to Visit Nice. And in rome Don't Forget to have Ice cream from Gelateria LA Romana.

 

[magscas]

Hi all,

My wife and I plan to take a 2 week trip to Paris + Italy in October.

We are loving the process of building the itenerary.

While YouTube and blogs have loads of information, I thought I should not miss the opportunity to take suggestions of this great community

Paris - 3 days
Milan - 2 ( includes a one day trip to lake como + St Moritz )
Venice - 2
Florence - 3 ( includes 2 one-day trips - one to cinque terre+ pisa, another to tuscany side - siena)
Pompei as the base for 2 days - includes a 1 day trip (on boat mostly) to amalfi coast
Rome - 3 days

Also, the accommodation will be sponsored by magnus-accor. Zeroed in the properties in all the locations

You should try to include 1 more day in France and visit the Normandy coast which is a 4 hour drive from Paris. You should visit Mont Saint Michel there. You can reach by Public transport or Private bus as well.

 

[Cardmarvel]

Italy has somehow been a dream for me. Not so much reg France. Paris got added largely to have a different airport for entry and exit..

Will research more on france and maybe sometime in future.

Looks like i need to make the schedule less hectic as per your and ishan. Thanks for the inputs ☺️

I think you will be fine.. we toured Paris, Switzerland and Italy in 2 weeks with young kids, using public transports.. We didn’t cover as much as you want to, but traveling with young kids slowed us down (we also have dietary constraints which means cooking at various places)

Travel light, that’s the key 😄

 

[grshnehete]

Based on the conditions in Paris/France, it would be better to avoid.

 

[CyRialKiLLa]

Just a suggestion, If you're booking your flights via points then i suggest seeing Rome to Mumbai (If you're from this city) via Etihad on Aeroplan. Business Class is only 45K points per person one way as their chart is distance based and nears the end of the 4k miles zone. For example if you try from Milan then it will cost you 60k points for the same. Currently no flights from India are showing on Aeroplan, so you will have to call and check for availability. Etihad's product is exceptional.

 

[phagocyte536]

Just a suggestion, If you're booking your flights via points then i suggest seeing Rome to Mumbai (If you're from this city) via Etihad on Aeroplan. Business Class is only 45K points per person one way as their chart is distance based and nears the end of the 4k miles zone. For example if you try from Milan then it will cost you 60k points for the same. Currently no flights from India are showing on Aeroplan, so you will have to call and check for availability. Etihad's product is exceptional.

Thanks for the suggestions, but i Have enough points only for Accor hotels.. (that too expected credit of points 😅) new magnus user here

 

[phagocyte536]

You should try to include 1 more day in France and visit the Normandy coast which is a 4 hour drive from Paris. You should visit Mont Saint Michel there. You can reach by Public transport or Private bus as well.

Wanted to focus on italy this time, will do a comprehensive France trip in future.. we feel it's better to focus on one country at a time

 

[akf]

I think you will be fine.. we toured Paris, Switzerland and Italy in 2 weeks with young kids, using public transports.. We didn’t cover as much as you want to, but traveling with young kids slowed us down (we also have dietary constraints which means cooking at various places)

Travel light, that’s the key 😄

Hey, would love to get your itinerary

 

[akf]

Thanks for the suggestions, but i Have enough points only for Accor hotels.. (that too expected credit of points 😅) new magnus user here

You must have done some research on Accor properties in Italy. Mind sharing it ? Have you seen prices fluctuating a lot for date change ?
I got confused with so many options in Paris and very limited options in Venice

 

[akf]

Just a suggestion, If you're booking your flights via points then i suggest seeing Rome to Mumbai (If you're from this city) via Etihad on Aeroplan. Business Class is only 45K points per person one way as their chart is distance based and nears the end of the 4k miles zone. For example if you try from Milan then it will cost you 60k points for the same. Currently no flights from India are showing on Aeroplan, so you will have to call and check for availability. Etihad's product is exceptional.

Indeed, this is not available on the website.
On a separate note, which airmile redemption will be most useful to travel within Europe to maximize value?

 

[phagocyte536]

You must have done some research on Accor properties in Italy. Mind sharing it ? Have you seen prices fluctuating a lot for date change ?
I got confused with so many options in Paris and very limited options in Venice

I haven't been tracking, but finalised things based in each place. Will share in DM

 

[phagocyte536]

Hey, would love to get your itinerary

Me too.

 

[R!ppEr]

Hi all,

My wife and I plan to take a 2 week trip to Paris + Italy in October.

We are loving the process of building the itenerary.

While YouTube and blogs have loads of information, I thought I should not miss the opportunity to take suggestions of this great community

Paris - 3 days
Milan - 2 ( includes a one day trip to lake como + St Moritz )
Venice - 2
Florence - 3 ( includes 2 one-day trips - one to cinque terre+ pisa, another to tuscany side - siena)
Pompei as the base for 2 days - includes a 1 day trip (on boat mostly) to amalfi coast
Rome - 3 days

Also, the accommodation will be sponsored by magnus-accor. Zeroed in the properties in all the locations

the best part of a vacation is indeed building the itinerary and selecting locations!!

not to put a dampener here, but just last month my cousin and his family lost a major portion of cash and their passports in a theft on the train journey from venice to florence. So pls be mindful of your luggage when travelling.