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Positano at dusk, its houses stacked up the cliff above the beach with the lights coming on
Positano at dusk · the slope is steep enough that most of the streets are stairs
Country brief · 41.8719°N 12.5674°E · Updated

Italy

Everyone books the art cities. The Alps are the other half of the map.

How long
Ten days, one axisthe country runs about 1,200 km end to end
Getting around
Trains between the citiesa car for the Alps and the coast roads, never a city centre
When
April to June, September, OctoberAugust empties the cities and fills the coast
Language
ItalianEnglish sits in the lowest EU band, with France and Cyprus
Money
The euroevery business has had to take a card since 2026
Airports
Rome FCO, Milan MXPNaples NAP, Venice VCE, Catania CTA
How long

How many days do you need in Italy?

Ten days buys one region properly. The country runs about 1,200 kilometres end to end, and no single trip takes in all of it

Getting around

Do you need a car in Italy?

Trains between the cities. A car for the Alps and the coast roads, and never for a city centre, where the ZTL cameras fine every gate a driver crosses

When

When is the best time to visit Italy?

April to June, September and October. August empties the cities and fills the coast

Language

What language is spoken in Italy?

Italian. English is widely taught and unevenly spoken: Italy sits in the lowest EU band on the EF proficiency index, with France and Cyprus

Money

What money does Italy use?

The euro. Since 2026 every business has to accept a card, and refusing one is a fine

Airports

Where do you fly into Italy?

Rome Fiumicino FCO and Milan Malpensa MXP are the two intercontinental gateways. Naples NAP, Venice VCE and Catania CTA are the regional ways in

Why you should visit

Ninety seconds on the country

Italy holds sixty-one World Heritage sites, more than any other country. Most of that art never left the building it was made for. The Last Supper is still on the refectory wall, and the Pantheon has carried the same concrete dome since 126 AD.

The other half of the country is vertical, and it is the half nobody books. The northern border runs along Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn, and Etna and Stromboli are the two most active volcanoes in Europe. The Dolomites are where via ferrata was invented.

It is a long country and a slower one to cross than the map suggests. The high-speed spine from Turin down through Milan, Florence and Rome to Naples is genuinely quick, Rome to Milan in under three hours. Step off that line and the pace halves: Cortina has no railway station at all, and the nearest is a bus ride away at Calalzo di Cadore.

Which makes treating Italy as one trip the standard mistake. Ten days does one axis of the country properly and two of them badly, and the axes run on opposite calendars. The Ligurian and Amalfi coasts are warm enough to swim from May, when the Dolomite high routes are still under snow and the huts have not opened for the season.

August is the month to think hardest about. Italians take their own holiday then, so the cities empty and the coast and the mountains fill, and a good deal of urban Italy shuts for a fortnight around the fifteenth. April to June and September to October are the months that serve both halves of the country, and they are cheaper.

Almost everything worth seeing now has a gate on it, so Italy rewards deciding early. The Vatican Museums and the Uffizi sell out weeks ahead, and the Last Supper admits forty people every fifteen minutes. Venice charges day trippers on about sixty dates a year.

Six Ways to Travel It

Start with the best of the country, or pick how you want to travel. The towns, the things to do and the map all change with it.

The Colosseum in Rome at sunset, its arched outer wall framed by umbrella pines and trees in the foreground
The Colosseum at sunset. Entry is by a named ticket for a set time, on sale 30 days ahead, so book early and carry the ID it was issued under.

Best of Italy

The Best Places to Visit in Italy

Pick two cities on the fast line and give each three nights before you add anything else. Rome holds the Colosseum and the Vatican, Florence the Duomo and the Uffizi, and the train between them takes about an hour and a half. Book the timed entries for all four before the flights, because they will fix the order of your days.

From Florence, Siena and Pisa are each an easy day out, and Venice is just over two hours on by train. Pompeii is a day from Naples or Sorrento on the local Circumvesuviana line. With a second week, go north to Cortina, where Lago di Braies and the Tre Cime are each within an hour's drive in summer.

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