Hi, planning on going to Rome, Italy in early November 2016. Any recommendations on places to stay? Any other advice on visiting Italy for the first time would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

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Florence and Naples are about an hour and a 1/2 away by train so you can do day trips to them quite easily. When you see a church, go into it, there is amazing art work in most of them and they are free

check out this ladies blog, alot of informative stuff http://www.elizabethminchilliinrome.com/
ELIZABETHMINCHILLIINROME.COM
Elizabeth Minchilli in Rome

I loved Florence great restaurants

We stayed Seven Suites Roma great place with breakfast! I highly recommend.

Florence was fantastic, definitely enjoyed it more than Rome personally. Try to spend some time there. Statue of David is incredible and worth the trip.

We went in November last year and it was a great time to go! Not nearly as packed with tourists. Stayed at Suite Dreams, they were very helpful and it was a great location, we walked everywhere!
Would highly recommend doing a bike tour through Top Bike - we did the Ancient Appian Way tour and it was amazing. Also did a walking food tour through the Jewish ghetto and it was delicious.
Like everyone else above, definitely recommend Florence - amazing food and while you're there check out Cinque Terre

Jump on the fast train to Florence then jump on another to Pisa

Best maps of Rome are at the main train station

I'd recommend a transit map, comes in a booklet form, you can look at where you want to go and it will tell you which bus or metro to take - found the book much easier to use then a map - if I remember rightly, it cost about $7

I found Pompeii to be way more worth it than Naples. Also be careful on the night trains keep your personal and valuable items in your bunk sometimes they take stuff from your room without you knowing

Herculaneum, just before you get to Pompeii is even better than Pompeii, less commercialized and you really can see how deep the region got burried

We used rentals in Rome and rented a flat a block away from the coliseum. It was cheaper for the rental than any hotel we could find and the location was fantastic! We then also had our own kitchen and picked up some amazing food to cook from a nearby grocery store. We even had a private terrace that we could sit out on ... go early for the Vatican as the line up gets huge! Locals will stand in line and you can pay them for their spot . If you go early you should be fine ! Bring comfortable shoes as you will do a lot of walking !

eat everything!

We just came from Italy and we stayed in Florence for 4 days (1 day trip to cinque terre, 1 day trip to Sienna, San Gimignano and Pisa) make sure you go to Piazzale Michaelangelo to watch sunset and view of florence. 2 days in Venice. 4 days in Rome (Colosseum, vatican, piazza navona, of course trevi fountain and pantheon, Spanish steps and Gianicolo-view of rome). Naples is gorgeous as well but didn't have time to go there. We used airbnb the whole time. DM if u want me to forward the places we have rented on airbnb, they were all awesome.

Take trains when transferring city to city cuz it's way easier to get around and it stops right at the center. Italians appreciate it if you speak some words like thank you, please, good morning but most tourist areas speak English anyway. U don't have to dress down so u won't be a target for pickpocketer, just don't wear jewelleries and be aware of your purse (all our cash and passport was in my handbag throughout and we were fine) u wanna look good when taking pictures. Restaurant cafes that are in tourist areas are higher priced.

cruise are having huge sell offs. thats your best bang and much safer. go to smartcruiser.com

www.airbnb.com

Train to Cinque Terre, hiking between the villages, stay in Vernazza.