My husband and I are finally putting plans into motion for our long awaited European vacation in late June/early July. We’ve settled on two - three weeks in France and Italy. He’s left the glorious planning details in my hands.
I live near NYC.
Any suggestions about where to go and what to see in either place would be most appreciated. Right now I’m thinking Paris, Venice and Rome are a definite must. We haven’t been on a real vacation since a cruise in 1999. I am so excited! 
I can’t speak much to France, having never been there. But for Italy…rubs hands
Rome…I’d start with doing a search here on the board first, and reading through some old threads about Rome and Italy.
No matter how much time you have, it won’t seem like enough. There are a lot of things to do/see that make for great day trips from Rome. Pompeii, Pisa, even Florence can be gotten to from Rome easily. Venice is just different. We made Venice our ‘center’ stop during our first trip, and it was a great place to relax and take a breath during the trip. Not quite as much to see/do so it was easier to enjoy the things we did.
If your trip allows a visit to Sicily, there are a lot of things to see/do there. Although northern and southern Italy are very different. Sicily would be a good choice if you also wanted a semi ‘beachy’ vacation. Taromina is a great little seaside town…just beautiful.
If you could give some more specifics on your likes/dislikes, I might be able to narrow suggestions down a bit.
For places to see, I’m not going to tell you anything you won’t get out of a good guidebook, but I WOULD recommend *driving * from Paris to Italy (I assume you’d hit Paris if you went to France).
Stop wherever along the way.
Go through Switzerland.
Don’t plan it too rigidly.
I’ve found out that if you don’t have any interest in the Eiffel tower that Parisians are shocked and refuse to believe you.
You should add Florence to your list; it was the heart of the Italian Renaissance and still looks like it.
For Rome, if you are interested in the history surrounding specific sites, I strongly recommend that you read a book or two appropriate to your area of interest. I regret that I have read and learned a lot more about the ancient churches that were founded in the 300s and 400s and yet are still extant, than I knew when I was actually there to see them. Similarly with the Forum; without some prior preparation it’ll just be a random patch of ruins.
I always like to think of the apse mosaics in some of those old churches. You might see Christ and a couple of donors, or maybe the Apostles, all decked out in robes or togas. Then it hits you: when the mosaic was made, people still dressed like that, at least on special occasions. The picture you see wasn’t made by some artist trying to hark back to an earlier time; it was still “ancient times” when the mosaic was made!
Oh how I envy you. There’s no place like rome, anywhere.
Ooh. Thank you so much for the advice. This makes me think we should narrow down our trip and just do Italy – focusing on Florence, Rome and Venice. I could save Paris for another time. Thoughts?
I heard there was a place in France, where the ladies wear no pants.
You should check that out.
In my travels, I tried to go for a slower pace. I especially recommend this if you’re going to France or Italy.
You want to get some feel for the culture, and it would be a shame, IMHO, to pass up good, relaxing meals with French or Italian people in good yet cheap restaurants in favor of a quick sandwich and another tourist site.
You can probably guess what I’m going to say…smile. The trip I took with my wife had us flying into Rome, then to Venice, Florence, and back to Rome to fly out of. This gave us the advantage of making air reservations easier because it was the same airport, yet flexible enough to do what we wanted. But that’s where a lot of pre-planning came into play. We spent 3 days in Rome, then caught a very early morning train down to Pompeii…dropped out bags at the storage area in the train station, and spent the day walking around Pompeii. That evening we caught the train back up to Naples, and then continued on an overnight sleeper car to Venice. The downside of that was that we arrived in Venice very early in the morning, but couldn’t check into our hotel until later that afternoon. So we couldn’t really clean up or anything. We then spent 2 days in Venice (which in hindsight I would have made more) shopping and seeing the sights. Then another train to Florence. I wasn’t as taken with Florence. Mostly because I’m a huge architecture fan, and the buildings in Florence aren’t as interesting to me. The catherdral is nice, but we saw just about everything we wanted to see in 2 days. Then back down on the train to Rome for our final 2 days. It was nice to end in more “familiar” surroundings.
My biggest suggestion is to not try and cram as much in as we did. We were in Italy for 13 days that trip and did just way too much. But do try and at least plan out what you’d like to see. You can do a lot of backtracking without meaning to in all of those cities. Plus there’s a lot you might miss if you don’t read up a bit on the locations first.
I sort of agree with Mr. Moto. We usually ate in the hotel in the morning with the other guests, and had dinner at a nicer local place. But I admit that for lunch many days we sought out the local McD’s. With all the different food that you’ll be trying, I liked to have one meal a day that I knew was going to be semi-familiar. It’s very easy in Italy…especially Venice which has a lot of seafood…to order something that you may not like very much. So having that one meal in my stomach made it easier to be experimental for dinner.
But do try and plan for a nap during the day…or at least some down time…so that you can enjoy the evening hours. Meals tend to start a lot later in Italy…and the walks down the Via Corso tend to be fairly late in the evening. You’d hate to miss out on that little slice of life by being exhausted.
In a country like Italy there’s always the risk of trying to pack too much into one trip. You could spend two months there, and still have to leave out major world class monuments and other attractions from your itinerary.
You might want to check out the current Travel Channel series, “Italy From Top To Toe”. The presenter, a native of Venice, is working his way down the penninsula from north to south. Unfortunately it’s about half over and he’s already done Rome and Florence; but you can probably find a repeat somewhere.
1 Week Paris,
1 Week Florence,
1 Week Rome.
Barely scratch the surface, leaving you panting for more.