CrusinSusan

Hello folks! Been lurking the forum for several days and tryin to put together a trip for my family. We have a flight to Rome at the end of January and this would be our first international trip out of the US. My daughter just graduated high school and this is something we should have done long ago but time just slips by before you know it! After just checking on flights being curious from Rome to several surrounding destinations I was surprised how low the cost to get to other areas for under 50 bucks a person! Edinburgh, Dublin, Vienna, London, Athens, Barcelona, Stockholm, Berlin, Warsaw, Paris, Geneva, Prague! Feel like the world is at our fingertips lol! I literally have 50+ tabs open with this place vs that place and forum pages. I’m super overwhelmed lol. We fly in on the 25th of Jan and leave the 31st. Definitely short on time and want to maximize our experience especially for our daughters since they are both not little anymore. We like history and food lol! Not much into hiking but still love to see outdoor landscapes. Cold weather don’t bother us, much prefer it vs hot. Would Rome > Edinburgh > Dublin be too much for the time we have? Are they good destinations vs the other choices? Happy to answer any questions to help find an itinerary. Thank you so much! !

hetismij2

Stay in Rome. You have so little time. Besides why add to your carbon footprint by flying all over the place. If you want somewhere else look at where you can go in Italy by train.
Flying in on 25th - , fly out on 31st so you only have 5 days you can actually see things. If you immediately head off somewhere else and then again somewhere else before heading ack to Rome you have maybe a day in each place.

Sassafrass

Listen to this advice! 100%.

Your excitement is great, but with your time frame, unfortunately completely unrealistic. Sure the flights are cheap. It is off season. Because something is possible does not mean it is a good idea. Do you really want to spend all the money and time getting to Europe, then spend your time there in airports and planes, seeing and experiencing little to nothing of Europe?
Even short flights take a lot of time: getting to train from hotel, then to airport, or taxi (added cost) to airport, check in time, flight, taxi getting to next hotel, etc. Time and costs add up super quickly with nothing to show for them. Also, trains in Europe are great, relatively cheap and go city center to city center, saving lots of travel time you would spend getting to and from airports. They run frequently, making them ultra convenient.


You have made a rookie mistake if you wanted to visit other places. That is doing RT, instead of multi-city, because you need to be in your departure city the night before your departure flight. This means an extra hotel check in and the cost and time of another flight or train to backtrack (almost never a good plan) to your arrival city in time for another hotel night. Backtracking uses up precious time and money. Next time, have your itinerary fully planned before booking tickets. If you must do RT, generally go straight on to your next stop and put all time in the departure city at the end.


With that, however, TBH, in your case, with so little time, RT is just fine since you do not have time to fly around to other places. You will take another trip. Consider this your practice one. Keep it simple. Get the most out of it by not squandering time and money in a race from country to country, airport to airport. You have five (5) days on the ground. Every day of travel to another country is a day lost from sightseeing. Never count travel days as sightseeing days. I know, belaboring the point, but with your plan, you would use three extra days for travel, leaving only two full sight seeing days total for your whole trip! Think about that ratio of time.

Stay in Rome!!! There is enough to see and do in Rome to stay busy for weeks.
You may be too jet lagged to do much the first day except get to a hotel and take a walk.

Jan 25, arrive Rome, get to a hotel. Get acclimated to city, walk.
Jan 26, 27, 28, 29, 30: see Rome
Jan 31, depart Rome.

If you really want to visit another place, take a day trip on the train to the walled hill town of Orvieto, about an hour by train from Rome. You would see another place and some countryside. You can decide this last minute. You do not have to plan ahead. Just get up early to have daylight hours for your visit.

If Florence interests you, you could, on arrival, go straight on by train to Florence.
Stay the nights of Jan 25 & 26 in Florence. (1 full day)
Return to Rome on the 27th.
See Rome on Jan 28, 29, 30.

There are other easy, quick, sightseeing options from Florence (Pisa, etc) if you wanted another night there or wanted to arrive in Rome very late on the 27th.

Sassafrass

BTW, I remember seeing a blog by a Cruisin Susan and a cruise director, crusin Susan. Are you one of them? There are a couple of others with different spellings. One has a great blog with fantastic photos of flowers and family trips. My family loves cruises, so curious. Hope if you are, you post in the cruise Forum. It is slow lately because of Covid, but nice to get first hand opinions. Such a different experience from land travel.

janisj

Welcome to Fodors Ditto all of the above !!!!

You only have Jan 26 - 30 for sightseeing/seeing/doing. Don't plan on anything much on your arrival day and the 31st will be eaten up with packing, checking out, and getting to the airport 3 hours before your flight.

Then any time you move to a different country/city it will eat up almost another full day. Before you know it your 5 days would become visiting the airports of Europe and seeing nothing much. PLUS the days are very short and the weather in Scotland and Ireland could be awful (or not)

5 days is great for Rome -- maybe fit in a day trip to Florence by train . . . forget about anything else. (and this is from someone for whom Edinburgh is my favorite city on earth)

Seamus

Another strong recommendation to rethink this and stay in Rome, with maybe a day trip to Florence on the high speed train. Since it's your first international trip you are likely not familiar with things like the inevitable jet lag as well as the significant amount of time required to fly from one place to the next (Not just air time, but getting to/from airport, checking in, claiming checked bags, clearing security and immigration, etc.) plus those apparently rock bottom fares most likely will require additional payment for checked bags, maybe even seat assignment.
Rome offers plenty to keep you entertained for the entire duration of your visit - enjoy it!

CrusinSusan

Hi Sassa! Nope that is not me, a cruise will be on our next to do though hehe.

CrusinSusan

Thank you all very much, looks like all the posts agree and have saved us a lot of first timer woes. Definitely gonna heed the advice and stay in Rome, probably take a train to Florence as suggested. Thank you all for the help! I very much appreciate it.

jan47ete

Don't forget Orvieto! Benn to Italy/Rome what seems like a thousand times and only got to Orvieto in May. WOW! Wonderful, amazing, lovely, quaint. I'd even get up early one day to catch an early train to spend at least past of the day there. Enjoy.

CrusinSusan

Thanks I’ll check it out!

LinksLover22

I'd spend the time exploring Rome and its hinterlands, rather than being rushed trying to see other destinations. Also, the weather in Scotland and Ireland is appalling at this time of the year. It's wet, windy, and always about 37 degrees. It also gets dark at about 4PM in Scotland, and slightly later in Ireland. Both magical destinations, but save them for summer.

drrummer

I echo the idea that you should stay in Italy. Whilst the flights to EDI and DUB are short, you have to factor in travel to airport, advance time in airport, possible delays, travel from airport. So even a one hour flight is in reality a 4hour trip door-to-door.

Do the UK and Ireland another time.