What to do with 8 days in Italy

Here’s an overview in a table of how to spend 8 days in Italy! It will be described in further detail below the table.

Day 1: Land in Rome

We used this day to eat amazing food and have our first gelato as we walked around and looked at some of the top sites in Rome while wandering the beautiful streets. We had lunch at Le Bistro Roma which was downstairs from the Airbnb that we stayed at and I had the BEST pumpkin ravioli with burrata while everyone else got some amazing pizza, it was the best way to start off a trip in Italy.

We didn’t have much booked for this day just in case of flight delays. So we spent the day walking to see some of the top spots in Rome: Trevi Fountain, the outside of the Pantheon, going to the Altar of the Fatherland (which doesn’t require tickets) as the sun was setting, and then walking outside of the Colosseum at night to see it all lit up.

Day 2: Rome

The night before we booked all our tickets in advance for the sites that we wanted to see. In Italy, you should really book your tickets in advance for the sites so that you can skip the lines and save time.

You can easily start your morning by touring the Pantheon. Then you can head to the Colosseum. When touring the Colosseum, book your ticket to visit both the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. This will take up quite a bit of time walking around and touring this historic area.

In the evening, head across the bridge to the Trastevere neighborhood if you would like a more local experience. We headed over here and it is a nice change of pace from all the tourist spots. We grabbed a charcuterie board from La Proscuitteria and I HIGHLY recommend it. This was one of my favorite memories from Rome.

Day 3: Day trip to Pompeii and Amalfi Coast from Rome

We booked a guided tour from Rome to Pompeii including the Amalfi Coast on Airbnb experiences. We booked with a guide named Adrian and it included all the activities for the day for a day trip from 7 AM - 9 PM. Early in the morning, you get picked up from wherever you are staying in Rome. Our guide took us to get breakfast and coffee in Rome after picking up the additional person that was joining our trip.

After breakfast, we started the drive to Pompeii. The ticket to get into Pompeii Archeological Park was not included in our day trip, but they were easy to buy at the park before entering. park We were given a couple of hours to walk through Pompeii on our own.

There is an option to buy a guided tour ticket and there are several guides available to do that with at the gate, however, we just wanted to enjoy it on our own.

After Pompeii, we started the drive towards Amalfi Coast and we stopped for pizza just outside of Sorrento called Pizza a metro da Gigino L’Universita Della Pizza, which is one of the Pizza Universities in Italy, where we had pretty much the biggest pizza I think I will ever have in my life. The pizza is a whole meter.

After lunch, we finished our drive to the Amalfi Coast, stopping at several lookout spots along the way for pictures. Then made our way to the Limoncello factory in Amalfi for a tour.

Unfortunately, the Limoncello factory was closed due to it being off-season for the Amalfi Coast (we went in winter, and February) and COVID-19 restrictions.

So we headed to Amalfi and spent a couple of hours walking through the city, visiting the Duomo di Amalfi, and watching a beautiful sunset before getting back in the van to start to long journey back to Rome.

Day 4: Travel from Rome to Florence, day in Florence

We woke up in the morning and headed to Roma Termini (train station) to catch a train from Rome to Florence. I did book these tickets ahead of time and you can book there here. The train ride is about 1.5 hours from Rome to Florence.

When we got to Florence, we grabbed sandwiches from one of the highly talked about sandwich shops in Florence, All’Antico Vinaio. This sandwich shop is easily one of the most talked-about sandwiches in Florence and for good reason, it has reasonably priced, delicious sandwiches that are grab and go. You can grab a sandwich from here and walk to the nearby Piazza Della Signoria to enjoy your sandwich around some of the amazing Italian sculptures.

After lunch, we headed to grab a bottle of wine to enjoy on the Plaza de Michelangelo. This has a beautiful lookout of Florence up on the hillside. However, it is quite the walk up a steep hill so prepare yourself for that. I still highly recommend doing this, it was beautiful and so relaxing.

Walking back from the Plaza de Michelangelo, you can walk along the water and head to cross the Ponte Vecchio. This is a bridge that has shopping on it. They even have some high-end shopping like Rolex on this bridge.

Then you can head to climb to the top of the Duomo at the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. We booked tickets in advance to this earlier in the day at the ticket office across from the cathedral. We got to climb up it at night which was a really awesome experience because we had the whole cathedral to ourselves while climbing up.

After, a couple I traveled with had dinner at an amazing Michelin Star restaurant that they said was quite the dining experience with several different dishes. My boyfriend and I explored the streets and found Trattoria Dall’Oste for dinner and then went to a little bar the block nearby. We were the only Americans there so it was a really amazing experience to step back from all the tourist hot spots we had been hitting.

Day 5: Travel from Florence to the countryside of Tuscany

You can pick up a rental car from the company Sixt at the Firenze Santa Maria Novella train station. You’ll drive out to the Chianti region. We stayed at the best hotel in Radda in Chianti. It was called Palazzo Leopoldo Dimora Storica & Spa. I cannot get over how beautiful and historic this hotel was. We had countryside view rooms and due to visiting Chianti in winter, we almost had this entire hotel to ourselves.

We booked a cooking class in our hotel for the night. I HIGHLY recommend doing this. We all agreed that the meal that we cooked was in all of our top 3 meals for our entire trip through Italy, and Italy has some pretty amazing food. You get to cook a 4-course meal (appetizer, meat and salad, pasta, and dessert) while enjoying a bottle of wine.

Keep in mind this is a long activity, so block off your night. Our chef was able to recommend some great wineries for us to visit the next day too! She also sent us the recipes so that we can remake our dishes at home!

Day 6: Tuscany (Radda in Chianti)

Spend the day hopping around to different wineries in the area. We visited: Castello di Albola, Podere Val delle Corti, and then we had a final wine tasting at our hotel, Palazzo Leopoldo Dimora Storica & Spa.

The wine tasting at Castello di Albola has the option to be paired with lunch. This lunch we fantastic and high-end but without the price tag. We paid about 50 USD for the lunch along with the wine tasting pairing. We were able to tour the wine cellar briefly afterward.

Day 7: Travel back to Rome, night in Rome

We visited one last winery, Caparsa. This easily ended up being all of our favorite experiences in Chianti and maybe even Italy entirely. We did visit the Italy vineyards in winter, so it’s a much more intimate experience than visiting in summer. The wine here was amazing. We were able to do the wine tasting with the son of the winemaker and the winemaker himself visited us for a brief time as well. We learned so much from this tasting.

Then we headed back to Florence to drop off the rental car and hop on a train back to Rome. Spend the night have a delicious final dinner in Rome paired with Italian wine.

Day 8: Breakfast in Rome and travel back

While Italy certainly does not do breakfast like a westerner, wake up and walk to grab a croissant and a coffee. So you can take in the last bit of the beautiful, historic streets of Rome. Then head to the airport to end your time in Italy.