Italy 6 Day Itinerary
Italy 6 Day Itinerary
The Jubilee Year declared by the Vatican for 2025 added several million extra pilgrims to Rome’s already stressed tourist infrastructure. The queues at the Sistine Chapel have not shortened since. This itinerary assumes you are visiting in 2025 or 2026 and takes seriously the booking requirements that now apply to almost every major site in Rome, Florence, and Venice. The practical rule is simple: book tickets for everything before you leave home. The person who shows up at the Colosseum without a reservation will wait an hour in the sun for a ticket, then enter the site next to eight hundred other people who had the same idea. Booking in advance costs a few euros in booking fees and saves your entire morning.
This six-day route covers Rome, Florence with a Pisa and Lucca day trip, and Venice. It is not the most adventurous itinerary possible for Italy, but it is the right one for a first visit if you want to understand why people keep coming back.
Practical Foundations
Visa: Citizens of EU countries, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and most South American countries do not require a visa for stays up to 90 days. Entry is through the Schengen zone; your passport must be valid for at least three months beyond your planned departure.
Currency: Euro (EUR). Cards are accepted almost everywhere, including on trains. However, some smaller trattorias and markets are cash-only; always carry 20 to 30 euros in cash.
Trains: High-speed Frecciarossa and Italo trains connect Rome, Florence, and Venice. Booking four to six weeks in advance on the official Trenitalia (trenitalia.com) or Italo (italotreno.it) websites can bring Rome-Florence fares down to 19 to 29 euros. On the day of travel, the same route costs 55 euros or more. Do not use third-party reseller sites. Validate your ticket in the machines at the station before boarding regional trains (the high-speed trains are electronic and self-validating).
Scams: At train stations, people in high-visibility vests offering to “help” you with tickets are almost never official staff and often charge commission or misdirect you. Restaurant menus in tourist-facing areas sometimes omit cover charges (coperto) that are legal but should be listed; a legitimate coperto is 1.50 to 3 euros per person, not 5 to 8 euros. If someone on the street bends down and finds a gold ring near your feet and offers to sell it to you, keep walking.
Day 1: Rome
Fly into Rome Fiumicino (Leonardo da Vinci Airport). The Leonardo Express train to Roma Termini runs every 30 minutes, takes 32 minutes, and costs 14 euros. Do not take the airport taxi touts; official taxis from the authorised rank charge a flat rate of 50 euros to destinations within the Aurelian walls.
Start your Rome days early and hard. The Colosseum, Roman Forum, and Palatine Hill are covered by a single combined ticket (18 euros standard admission for 2025, though prices are subject to revision; the combined ticket grants access to all three sites). Book through the official Colosseo website (colosseo.it) and select a specific entry time. The underground and arena floor tours cost extra and sell out weeks in advance, so book those immediately if you want them. Two hours is the minimum to see the Colosseum properly; allow another two for the Forum and Palatine Hill, which most people rush through and which are, honestly, more atmospheric than the Colosseum.
In the afternoon, walk north to the Pantheon. Since April 2023, entry requires a timed ticket (5 euros, free for EU residents under 18). Book online at pantheonroma.com. The Pantheon’s dome, unreinforced concrete poured around 125 AD and still the largest of its kind in the world, has an unglazed oculus 8.7 metres in diameter at its apex. When it rains, the rain falls straight in and drains through the floor. That detail is more interesting than the building’s famous Wikipedia statistics.
Walk from the Pantheon west toward the Trevi Fountain, via Piazza della Rotonda and through the Campo Marzio. The Trevi Fountain is always crowded but is best at around 7am or after 10pm when the daytime tour groups have gone. Throwing a coin over your left shoulder with your right hand is the traditional version of the ritual; the coins are collected by the city and donated to charity.
Dinner in Trastevere, on the west side of the Tiber. The neighbourhood’s main tourist street (Via della Scala and Via del Moro) is lined with decent restaurants and some mediocre ones. Da Enzo al 29 (Via dei Vascellari 29) is the local benchmark for Roman pasta: cacio e pepe and tonnarelli con coda alla vaccinara (oxtail pasta) are the dishes to order. Queues form by 7:30pm; arrive at 7pm or 8:30pm.
Stay in Rome. Hotels in the Trastevere neighbourhood itself are limited; the Prati neighbourhood (west of the Vatican) and the Testaccio neighbourhood (south of Aventine Hill) are both well-connected and slightly cheaper than the historic centre.
Day 2: Vatican City and Central Rome
Book Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel tickets in advance at tickets.museivaticani.va. The standard ticket costs 20 euros plus a 5 euro online booking fee, giving you access to the museums and the Sistine Chapel. Entry to St. Peter’s Basilica itself is free and does not require advance booking, though queues form quickly after 9am.
Allow three hours minimum for the Vatican Museums, which are enormous and contain far more than the Sistine Chapel. The Gallery of Maps (a painted corridor showing 16th-century cartographic views of the Italian peninsula), the Raphael Rooms, and the courtyard sculpture collections are all worth serious time. The Sistine Chapel, at the end of the museum circuit, has had noise reduction measures introduced in recent years; it is still overwhelmingly crowded but slightly less chaotic than it was five years ago.
St. Peter’s Basilica is free to enter and contains Michelangelo’s Pieta (now behind glass following an attack in 1972) and the spectacular baldachin over the high altar. Climbing the dome costs 6 to 8 euros (depending on whether you take the stairs all the way or use the elevator to the first level). The view from the top is outstanding.
Afternoon: choose between the Spanish Steps (monumental staircase of 135 steps built in 1725, no entry fee, usually packed), Piazza Navona (a baroque square on the footprint of a Roman stadium, lined with restaurants that are mostly overpriced but pleasant to walk through), and Campo de’ Fiori (a market in the morning, a bar district in the evening, site of the burning of Giordano Bruno in 1600, whose statue stands in the centre looking appropriately grim).
Day 3: Florence
Take the Frecciarossa from Roma Termini to Firenze Santa Maria Novella. Journey time is about 1 hour 30 minutes. Book in advance: economy fares start from around 19 euros.
Florence’s single most important attraction is the Uffizi Gallery (uffizi.it, 20 euros admission), which holds the largest collection of Renaissance paintings in the world. Book a specific entry time; the museum allows timed entry and the crowds, while still substantial, are manageable if you arrive at the time on your ticket. The paintings you specifically cannot miss: Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Primavera (both in Room 10-14), Leonardo’s Adoration of the Magi, Caravaggio’s Sacrifice of Isaac. Give yourself three hours.
After the Uffizi, walk north over the Ponte Vecchio, the medieval bridge lined with jewellers’ shops since the 16th century (it was the only Florence bridge the Germans did not destroy in 1944, reportedly on the personal orders of Hitler). Cross to the Oltrarno neighbourhood, which is cheaper for lunch and more residential than the north bank. Trattoria dell’Orto (Via dell’Orto) and several small osterie in the streets around Piazza Santo Spirito are worth finding.
In the afternoon, consider climbing Brunelleschi’s Dome (cupola.duomo.firenze.it). Tickets cover the dome, the cathedral, Giotto’s Campanile, the Baptistery, and the museum, bundled for around 18 to 20 euros. You need to book a specific timed entry for the dome climb, which is the main draw: 463 steps in a double-shell structure with no lifts and narrow passages between the inner and outer domes. The view at the top, looking out over Florence’s terracotta roofscape, repays every step. The climb takes about 45 minutes each way.
Dinner: the Florence food to eat is bistecca alla Fiorentina (T-bone steak grilled over charcoal, sold by the kilogram, minimum 1 kg for two people, around 50 to 70 euros at a good restaurant). Buca Mario (Piazza degli Ottaviani 16) has been serving this dish since 1886 and is not a tourist trap in the pejorative sense: the room is old and the steak is good.
Day 4: Pisa and Lucca
Both Pisa and Lucca are reachable by regional train from Florence in under an hour. Buy tickets on the day from the Trenitalia machines or app.
Pisa: The Piazza dei Miracoli (Campo Santo, Baptistery, Cathedral, and Leaning Tower) is a genuine marvel. The tower’s lean, approximately 3.9 degrees after stabilisation work in the 1990s, resulted from the unstable subsoil on the south side settling during construction in the 12th century. It took nearly 200 years to build because they kept pausing to let the soil stabilise. Climbing the tower (30 euros, book at opapisa.it) requires a specific entry time and involves 294 steps spiralling around the exterior. The tilt is noticeable and physically disorienting. Worth doing once.
Pisa beyond the Piazza dei Miracoli is a functioning university town with a pleasant riverside and considerably less tourist pressure than the field next to the tower. Walk along the Arno, have lunch near the university buildings, and spend an hour there before continuing to Lucca.
Lucca: A walled Renaissance city of 30,000 people that is almost entirely enclosed within its 16th-century brick ramparts. The walls are wide enough to walk or cycle on (bike rental is widely available; 3 to 5 euros per hour). The town inside is largely car-free and remarkably well-preserved. Lucca does not have a single defining attraction; the point is the town itself. It is the kind of place that makes you wish you had planned to stay the night. If you can, do.
Return to Florence for dinner.
Day 5: Venice
Frecciarossa from Florence to Venice Santa Lucia, approximately 2 hours. Book in advance: economy fares from around 20 euros.
Venice is not like any other city and the first afternoon should be spent getting lost rather than pursuing a checklist. The boat (vaporetto) network is the public transport system; the day ticket costs 25 euros and gives unlimited travel. Line 1 runs the length of the Grand Canal and is the most scenic route. Line 2 is faster but less spectacular. Traghetti (gondola ferries) cross the Grand Canal at several points for 2 euros; use them instead of waiting for a vaporetto.
St. Mark’s Basilica (Piazza San Marco) is free to enter. As of 2024, a timed-entry system for the most visited periods requires advance booking (3 euros) at venetoinside.com. The mosaics covering the interior ceiling, totalling around 8,000 square metres of gold-backed glass tile, are the most important thing inside. The Pala d’Oro altar screen (2 euros extra) is a 10th-century Byzantine goldwork piece covered in enamel medallions that most visitors walk past.
Gondola rides cost a fixed 90 euros for 30 minutes for up to 6 people during the day, 120 euros in the evening. This is not a scam; it is the official price set by the gondoliers’ association. It is expensive and worth doing once if you can split the cost among a group. The smaller canals away from the Grand Canal are more interesting than the main waterway.
The restaurant situation in Venice is complicated. The city is small, intensely visited, and supply constraints push prices up. Dinner for two at a mid-range sit-down restaurant typically costs 60 to 100 euros. The counterintuitive option: eat at a cicchetti bar (cicchetti are small Venetian bar snacks, similar to tapas), standing at the bar with a glass of wine for 3 to 5 euros per piece. The neighbourhood of Cannaregio has the best concentration of bacari (traditional cicchetti bars) and the lowest tourist prices in Venice.
Day 6: Venice Islands and Departure
Murano and Burano are both reachable on the ACTV public vaporetto network. A day vaporetto pass (25 euros) covers all journeys including to the islands. Murano is 20 minutes from the Fondamente Nove stop; Burano is about 40 minutes.
Both islands are worth seeing. The honest order of priority: Burano first, which is the more photogenic and the less commercialised, with its brightly painted fishermen’s houses and a long tradition of lacemaking that dates to the 16th century. Murano’s glassmaking is famous, but the island now has so many showroom-style shops pushing sales of mass-produced pieces that the genuinely skilled artisan workshops can be hard to identify. If you want to see glass being blown, go early in the morning; working furnaces typically run between 8am and noon.
Departure from Venice Marco Polo Airport. Water taxis to the airport take 30 minutes and cost around 120 euros for a private boat; the public ACTV bus (line 5 from Piazzale Roma) costs 8 euros and takes 20 minutes. Alilaguna water bus services also connect central Venice to the airport in about 70 minutes for 15 euros. Allow at least two hours before your flight from the time you leave your hotel.