1st time to italy

[stars78]

going for the first time in sept, any advice on how to save money, time etc... trains, museums, admissions... have rented all apartments already but no train tickets. will be in venice, florence and rome. with a cruise with stops in athens, corfu, crete and ephesus. any advice appreciated for italy or the ports of call

[Pete_Coach]

If you have your accomodations booked already then you have half the problems covered. I travel to Italy several times a year for quite a few years and I can recommend that you book your train ahead of time. September is still tourist time. On the train, go first class, better seats, more room, nicer table trays (be sure to buy wine, cheese and bread for the trips.) and only a few Euros extra. There is luggage storage in first class and you can select your seats (when booking on http://www.trenitalia.com/en/index.html, you get a car number and seat number). If there are more than just you, take along one of those byccle locks that are a wire or cable. You can secure your luggage together and feel a bit safer.
Go to http://www.virtualtourist.com or www.tripadvisor.com, sign up and use the forums for the respective cities you wish information on. It is an extremley helpful site. I recommend you stay in Mestre vice Venice. It is a town just on the mainland and 1/2 the price for hotels. Oh, I forgot, you have your accomodation booked.
As far as the sites, you can pre book the museums, Palaces, exibits all on line. It saves the waits for tickets, if you can get them. Venice is a place to walk, make no itinerary and just go for walks. Depending how long you are there, buy a three or 5 day bus pass (water busses), that way you can get from one spot to another while resting on the boat. It is an easy place to get around. You can wait to get good maps etc at the St Lucia train station. The selection is good and it is not a rip off.
Florence museums and sites are notorious for lineups. When in Florence go for a day trip into Chianti and a winery tour. There are inexpensive ones and there are personal giuded tours. I like the bus tour with 20 or so other folks from all over the world, it makes the expereience worthwhile. Watch out for pickpockets in Florence. Buy gold at Ponte Veccio, good deals and almost all is 18 carat vice 12 we get here.
I have tons of websites and info and you can PM me if you would like some. Italy is one of the most spectacular countries to visit and you will have a great time.

[Talamasca]

One museum I'd highly recommend you pre-book is the Uffizi in Florence. MASSIVE lineups, even in September when I was there. I got there at 9am and the lineups were all around the courtyard already. It was so cool to go straight to the front and give my name to the admissions person and just walk right in.

September is a beautiful time to be in Italy. Not too hot but still warm enough to be comfortable. Food tip - eat lots of gelato. It's amazing!

[CoolEddie]

Definitely pre-book your tickets especially for the Uffizi. I found out about pre-booking after standing in line for almost 4hrs. Then the museum closed in 1hr after I got in so it was basically a run through.

[HighFlyer]

Would also recommend that you make reservations for the Accademia (David). When I got there, the lineup was a couple blocks. Fortunately I had an advance booking.

www.slowtrav.com has a good Italy forum.

If you haven't booked your airfare yet, AC currently has some good tourist class fares on certain days in the fall. $820 all in for YYZ-FCO. No advance seat selection, changes/refunds, or aeroplan miles though.

[rockster]

going for the first time in sept, any advice on how to save money, time etc... trains, museums, admissions... have rented all apartments already but no train tickets. will be in venice, florence and rome. with a cruise with stops in athens, corfu, crete and ephesus. any advice appreciated for italy or the ports of call

Sounds like a fantastic trip you have coming up very soon! I've only been to Italy once and I was only there a little over a week so I only had time to go to the touristy obvious places like Coliseum, Vatican, Trevi fountain. I remember the museum lineups were really long. So we would go 30 minutes before opening. If you are driving, I liked the Autogrill restaurants along the highways/autostrade. I found people are dressed very well there, and felt really out of place in a few of my outfits. You can find a lot of the souvenir stuff they sell in the museums a lot cheaper elsewhere, but I guess that's pretty obvious..

-hard to find public restrooms, so if you see one, make sure to go, cause the next one might be awhile. and have some change for tips for bathroom attendant
-be aware of your valuables. We didn't have any problems but some people we met had stuff stolen or were ripped off
-in some restaurants we would get charged for stuff we thought were free, like charges for stuff on the table like oil and vinegar for the bread
-bring advil
-expensive, but check out Harry's bar in Venice, s/b dressed business casual
-go on a gondola ride in Venice. really loved every moment of it.

[Goldilocks]

Just came back from Venice, make sure you carry cash with you, we had a very difficult time using our Credit cards (Visa, Amex) since most restaurants and tourist attractions refused them and wanted cash only. The hotel we stayed at also offered us a 5% discount if we paid cash.