Italy Travel Guide (When to go, Where to Stay)

About every season has something to offer in Italy. A personal event, such as a Honeymoon may also be an excellent occasion to visit romantic Italian cities such as Venice and Florence.

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Traveling to Italy

Italy Travel Highlights
When to go
What to Visit
Where to Stay
Italian Festivals

Travel Highlights

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Italy > Traveling in Italy

Top 5 favorite and famous places in Italy

Rome, Florence, Capri, Venice, Amalfi coast. Read more >>

10 Most Famous Cities of Italy.
Read more >>

Other interesting destinations

- Vatican City (the independent city-state and seat of the Pope, head of the Roman Catholic Church)

- the Italian lakes, among which Lake Garda and Lake Como, beautiful lakes in Northern Italy

- one of the Italian islands and archipelagos

- Italian Alps and The Dolomites - some of the most beautiful mountains

General Travel Info

When to go to Italy
What to Visit in Italy
Where to Stay in Italy

- Cinque Terre: five tiny, scenic, towns strung along the steep vineyard-laced coast of Liguria)

- Umbria and its beautiful little hill towns.

- Ischia: together with Capri and Procida, a wonderful island in the Bay of Naples.

- Elba, the largest island of the Tuscan Archipelago, and the third largest island in Italy after Sicily and Sardinia

Italy
(Eyewitness Travel Guides)
by DK Publishing

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Superlative destinations

The 5 most romantic destinations in Italy: Venice, Rome, Capri, Verona, Positano

See also: Top 8 romantic destinations in Italy

5 most exclusive destinations in Italy:
The most exclusive (and expensive) destinations in Italy: Venice, Portofino, Praiano, Costa Smeralda, Capri.

If you plan to travel all over Italy, we recommend you alternate travel highlights such as the cities of Rome, Venice, Florence, Ravenna, Pisa, etc, with lesser known destinations in Italy. That is both more relaxing, as well as intellectually and culturally more gratifying than accomplishing a sightseeing-marathon through several sites, without even having the time to appreciate the local atmosphere, colors and tastes.

If you have just a couple of days to spend in Italy, the places that you should definitely not miss are the historical cities of Florence, Rome and Venice. Read more about our Top 5 favorite places in Italy and 10 most famous cities of Italy.

For those of you who have already been to Italy before and are now looking for something different, we have selected these guides that reveal hidden gems and secret places, small little towns, etruscan heritage, as well as travel guides for garden lovers and wine tasters.

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Rome is particularly beautiful at Christmas time, the combination of colored lightning and secular buildings and ruins, has something magic. Some consider the best time to go between April and June as the flood of school holidays hasn't yet hit the roads, the countryside is at its fullest bloom and the weather isn't uncomfortably hot yet.

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Others prefer the late season, especially if they are looking for a more relaxed beach vacation, which may be planned as late as October, for example in Sicily and Sardinia. See: Sicily off the beaten path.

You may also want to organize your stay in function of one of the many annual festivals, whether wine-tasting, gastronomic celebrations or musical events. (read more about festivals).

What to visit

Specialty travel

For those who like to travel off the beaten track and independently of larger organized group trips, we have selected these guides with cycling and walking tours through Italy.

Christmas at Saint-Peter's

Photo by My Walkabout Photography

Where to stay

Italy offers a very wide range of accommodation, from luxury hotels, with fabulous spa and golf facilities to B&B and self-catering types of accommodation, to be combined or not with an activity holiday.

Luxury hotels

Top luxury hotels in Italy: Six places that must be visited - if you can afford it. Old fashioned luxury in the style of yesteryear: exquisite places, uncompromising luxury. Italy is synonymous with style and any stay in Italy should be likewise.

Castle hotels

Top 10 Italian castles turned into hotels

Country relais and B&Bs

The term B&Bs in Italian is stricter than in English. Strictly speaking a B&B is a private home where rooms are offered for rent to guests. There is usually no possibility to dine on the premises. Here is a list of the best Bed and Breakfasts in Italy.

In the larger sense of the word, B&Bs include all types of family-owned and owner-managed structures with less than 10 rooms, including castle hotels and agriturismi. See our list of country B&Bs and relais in Umbria

Agritourism in Umbria, Italy

Photo: Daniele Morra

An alternative to the traditional hotels and hostels are the agriturismi (agritourism, comparable to the gîtes in France), a style of self-catering accommodation in which hospitality is offered on farms, wine producing properties and mountain chalets, but also in villas and ancient castles.

Photos of the YourGuidetoItaly.com banner (from left to right): (on campus) Sean Locke, (red deckchair) Valentina Jori, (chianti botlle) Donald Gruener, (Vitruvian man) Jodie Coston, (coliseum), Roberto A Sanchez, (Fiat 500) Luca di Filippo.

Living, Studying, and Working in Italy:
Everything You Need to Know to Live La Dolce Vita
by Monica Larner

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Special Guides

Moving to Italy

YourGuideToItaly.com
your guide to discovering Italy bit by bite

When to go

Read more about agritourism in Italy.

An other interesting alternative to get a "feel" for the places you visit and connect with a local family can be found in this article: Free accommodation in Italy. The article lists a bunch of travel alternatives which are not only budget-conscious, but also an environmentally friendly and sustainable modes of travel.

Italy: The Best Travel Writing
from the New York Times
by Umberto Eco (Foreword), Olivier Bernier (Author), Frank Bruni (Author), Shirley Hazzard (Author), Alison Lurie (Author), etc.
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Sightseeing & Going Out

Eating Out

Sleeping

Top luxury hotel in Italy
B&B in Italy
Agritourism in Italy

Travel Highlights
Famous Festivals in Italy
Casinos in Italy

Best gourmet restaurants of Italy