Twelve days · Two travellers · Four beds
At a glance
Trip
12 days
14–25 September
Four beds, three coastlines
Booked
12 of 19
Flights, hotels, Vatican, Colosseum,
Pompeii, all trains, one transfer
Still open
7 items
The Praiano hop, the Capri ferry
and a handful of dinner tables
Places to eat
62
Mapped from each hotel door
Rome, Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast
Day by day
The rail down the left is coloured by where you sleep that night. A diamond marks a day you change base. Dinner reservations show up on the day they belong to, and each day carries its own weather, kept up to date on its own.
Download the day-by-day guide (PDF)
Five pages: what is booked each day, what to do with the hours around it, and the tickets that need buying before you fly.
Checking the weather…
Mon
14
Sep
An overnight crossing. Eat before you board, sleep after.
Tue
15
Sep
On the ground at 7:40 with the whole day ahead. Taxi to Via delle Convertite, leave the bags, and do the centre on foot — you are a few minutes from most of it. Dinner across the river in Trastevere.
Wed
16
Sep
A guided tour at 11:15 through the Museums, the Sistine Chapel and St Peter's. It is a long morning on your feet, so keep the afternoon loose and finish somewhere with a view and a glass of something.
Thu
17
Sep
The Colosseum is held for 15:45, so the day runs backwards from it — Forum and Palatine in the morning on the same ticket, San Clemente after lunch, then the amphitheatre in the late light. Evening is open — this is the night for a long dinner in the centre.
Fri
18
Sep
Morning train to Naples, then local rail out along the peninsula. Afternoon belongs to Sorrento — the old town, Marina Grande, the waterfront, the lemon groves.
Sat
19
Sep
Ferry across for the day. Capri Town for the morning, the chairlift up Monte Solaro from Anacapri, then the Gardens of Augustus for the view down the coast. Back to Sorrento for dinner.
Sun
20
Sep
A full day: the buried city in the morning, the Gran Cono crater in the afternoon. Long, hot and worth it — proper shoes, a hat, more water than you think.
Mon
21
Sep
Deliberately open, sitting between two heavy days. Either take the boat to Ischia for the thermal spas, or stay put and do Sant'Agnello slowly — swim, shop, eat, sit.
Tue
22
Sep
Move to Maresca Hotel in Praiano — quieter than Positano and better placed than Amalfi. Whatever time is left before dinner goes to the coast towns.
Wed
23
Sep
No plan on purpose. Swim off the rocks, walk the coast road, pick a long dinner with a view. Anything you missed yesterday, do today.
Thu
24
Sep
Private car down the coast to Naples, then high-speed north. Last evening in Monti, a few streets from Santa Maria Maggiore.
Fri
25
Sep
An early car, a short run to Fiumicino, and home by mid-afternoon Toronto time.
Where we sleep · All four booked
You land at 7:40 on the morning of the 15th, and the Rome room is booked from that night — so you can go straight there, drop the bags and start the day.
First stop
15 → 18 Sep · 3 nights
Antica Residenza del Corso
Via delle Convertite 5
00187 Roma, Italy
Sorrento Coast
18 → 22 Sep · 4 nights
Iommella Luxury Rooms
Via Iommella Piccola 59
80065 Sant'Agnello (NA), Italy
Amalfi Coast
22 → 24 Sep · 2 nights
Maresca Hotel Praiano
Via Roma 61
84010 Praiano (SA), Italy
Last night
24 → 25 Sep · 1 night
Relais Santa Maria Maggiore
Via di Santa Prassede 8
00184 Roma, Italy
Flights · Booked
Both legs are direct. Times below are local. Schedules move — check the ITA Airways app before you leave for either airport.
YYZ
Toronto Pearson · Terminal 1
17:00
Depart
FCO
Rome Fiumicino
07:40+1
Arrive Tue 15 Sep
FCO
Rome Fiumicino
10:15
Depart
YYZ
Toronto Pearson
14:05
Arrive same day
Check-in & airports
Two long-haul flights, two airports, one border you have never crossed under the new EU rules. Everything below is the practical version — where to stand, when to be there, and what has changed since the last trip.
Check in online — the ITA Airways app
Opens about 48 hours before departure. Do it the day before, pick the seats, and save both boarding passes to your phone wallet so a dead signal at the airport doesn't matter.
Passport must be good until at least 25 December 2026
The Schengen rule is three months' validity beyond the day you leave Europe. Canadians travel visa-free for 90 days — no visa, and ETIAS is still not running, so there is nothing to apply for.
3 months
Bags — one checked, one cabin
ITA economy fares above Light carry one 23 kg checked bag (max 158 cm total) plus an 8 kg cabin bag and a personal item. Economy Light has no checked bag — worth confirming on the booking before you get to the desk.
23 kg
Print nothing, but photograph everything
Passports, the hotel confirmations, the Vatican and Pompeii vouchers, both train tickets. One offline album on each phone.
Offline
Terminal 1 — ITA Airways check-in
Departures level, international check-in hall. Leave the parking lot by 14:00: shuttle, bag drop and security on a 17:00 international departure will use every minute of it.
T1
Bag drop closes an hour before departure
60 minutes for an intercontinental flight — so 16:00 at the very latest, and the desk queue is long before that.
16:00
The gate may not be in the terminal
ITA often boards from Pearson's Infield Concourse — a separate satellite building reached by a shuttle bus from T1 after security, about 10 minutes each way. Check the gate on the board as soon as you are airside and add the extra time.
+10 min
Live departure board
Gate and delay information on the day, no account needed.
Passport control now takes your fingerprints
The EU Entry/Exit System has been fully live since April 2026 and there are no more passport stamps. On your first entry you give a face photo and four fingerprints at the border — it is registered for three years. Expect the queue to move slower than you remember.
EES
Follow the non-Schengen arrivals signs
Long-haul arrivals clear border control before baggage reclaim. Passports out, both of you in the same queue, phones away — photography is not allowed at the control booths.
Arrivals
Official white taxi — flat €55 to the centre
The rank is outside the arrivals hall. €55 is the fixed airport fare to any address inside the Aurelian Walls, up to four people, luggage included, no surcharges. Look for the "Comune di Roma" sticker and the taxi meter, and ignore anyone who offers you a ride inside the terminal.
€55
If the taxi queue is absurd
The Leonardo Express runs non-stop to Roma Termini in about 32 minutes, then it is a short taxi or a 20-minute walk to Via delle Convertite. Only worth it if the rank has collapsed.
Train
Car at 06:00, at the airport by about 06:45
That is roughly three and a half hours before departure — right for a long-haul morning at FCO. Bag drop closes 60 minutes out, at 09:15, and you want to be through security well before that.
06:00
ITA Airways checks in at Terminal 1
Intercontinental flights then board from the non-Schengen area, which is a walk beyond passport control — allow 15 to 20 minutes to get from security to the gate. Confirm the terminal on the ADR board the night before; Fiumicino does move flights.
T1
Exit through the Entry/Exit System again
Leaving is a second EES check — face scan against the record made on the 15th. Quick, but it is one more queue between you and the gate.
EES
Duty free and the 100 ml rule
Liquids bought airside at Fiumicino are fine all the way to Toronto on a direct flight — keep the sealed bag and the receipt. Limoncello in the checked bag, wrapped; power banks in the cabin, never in the hold.
Direct
Live departure board
Terminal, gate and status for AZ650 on the morning.
Getting around
Every movement between beds, in order. Flights, all three trains and the Praiano car are held; what's left is the Sorrento–Praiano hop and the two airport runs.
Toronto → Rome
ITA Airways AZ651 · 14 Sep · 17:00 → 07:40+1
Fiumicino → Rome hotel
Official white taxi, flat €55 to the centre. Look for the "Comune di Roma" sticker on the door and refuse anyone touting inside the terminal.
Sant'Agnello → Praiano
Undecided — ferry, the same company doing the Naples run, or a taxi over the pass.
Praiano → Napoli Centrale
Private car with Amalfi Coast Transfers
Rome hotel → Fiumicino
Ask Relais Santa Maria Maggiore to hold a car for 06:00 — direct to FCO, there by 06:45–07:00.
Rome → Toronto
ITA Airways AZ650 · 25 Sep · 10:15 → 14:05
Where to eat
Family-run, neighbourhood and food-led places, plotted from the front door of the hotel you're sleeping in. Picture menus and hard-sell tourist rooms were screened out. Book ahead where you can — and check the day, because plenty close one night a week.
Each price is dinner for two in euros: two starters, two mains, two desserts and roughly four moderate drinks between you. It is not a set menu — wine by the bottle, cocktails, fish sold by weight and tasting menus all push it higher, and most places add a small coperto cover charge per person.
Distances are straight-line from the hotel, so real walking is longer once you account for streets, stairs and hills. Walk times assume roughly 14 minutes per kilometre on that basis. Ratings and opening days move — worth a quick check before you set out.
One gap: nothing here covers Praiano or the Amalfi Coast for the 22nd and 23rd. That guide still needs putting together.
Photos
Add pictures and video clips from a laptop or straight off a phone. Each one is read for the date and time it was taken and filed under the right day of the trip, so the gallery builds itself as you go.
Where, and what were we doing?
Both optional, and both are applied to everything in this upload — so do one batch per place. They show under the picture in the gallery, and you can change them before each new batch.
Or pick them from this device — no passcode needed. On an iPhone, "Choose photos or video" opens your library and you can select as many as you like. Large pictures are resized before they upload, so a full camera roll won't take all day.
Videos go up as they are, so keep them under 100 MB — about a minute and a half off a phone. Trim a long one in Photos before you send it. The browser grabs a still from each clip to stand as its tile.
Journal
One box per day of the trip, next to what you had planned for it. Anyone can write in it, no passcode — add as much or as little as you like, and it saves on its own a moment after you stop typing.
Messages
Italy runs six hours ahead of Toronto, so nothing here happens live. Leave a message whenever you like — we'll read it when we get back to the room, and our replies will be waiting for you in the morning. Type it, press Voice and say it out loud, or press Video and film yourself — voice notes run up to a minute and a half, video up to a minute.
Just so we know who wrote what. It's remembered on this device — no password needed.
If you need us
Phones die and roaming drops out. If you can't get hold of us, this page tells you where we're sleeping tonight and who to call instead.
One number covers police, ambulance and fire anywhere in Italy and the rest of Europe. It works from any phone, including a locked one with no SIM, and operators speak English.
Phone numbers get filled in from the booking confirmations before we fly. Addresses are already correct — tap any hotel to open it in Maps.
Out · ITA Airways AZ651
Mon 14 Sep · Toronto Pearson T1 17:00 → Rome Fiumicino 07:40 next morning
AZ651
Home · ITA Airways AZ650
Fri 25 Sep · Rome Fiumicino 10:15 → Toronto Pearson 14:05 the same day
AZ650
Track either flight live
Works without an account — search the flight number on the day
Before you go
Short documentaries and travel films, grouped by the day of the trip they set up, so that the Colosseum, the Sistine ceiling and the crater on Vesuvius arrive already meaning something. Nothing here is behind a paywall. Where a day has both a short film and a long one, the short one is the version for the night before — the long one is for a rainy evening at home.
Every link was checked live on 27 August 2026 — title, channel and running time all confirmed against YouTube rather than taken from a search result. The publishers are the reason to trust the list: Smarthistory, Timeline, Odyssey, Invicta, the New York Times, Eater, Vatican News and eight episodes from Rick Steves.
One gap: Ischia, the Option A for the 21st, has nothing decent made about it — everything findable is vlog-grade rather than educational. That day gets the limoncello film instead, which does the coast generally.
One a day · for Benny
Twelve challenges, one for each day we are away, each tied to wherever we happen to be standing that morning. Some are guesses. Some are questions with a real answer hidden underneath — write your guess down before you press the button. And some are yours to decide: if you pick the gelato or the dinner, that is what we order. Answers go on the message board, and we read it every night.
Everything in one place
The four printable documents, every address, every time that is already fixed, and the handful of things still to book. If you only open one tab before you fly, or one tab standing in an airport with no signal, make it this one — the PDFs work offline once they are on the phone.
Start here
Every hotel address, both flights, all the fixed times, the emergency numbers and all twelve days as a single table. The one to print and fold into a passport.
Download PDF1 page · 290 KB
Day by day
What is booked each day, what to do with the hours around it, and the tickets that need buying before you fly. Morning, afternoon and evening for all twelve days.
Download PDF5 pages · 468 KB
On foot
The best twenty things within reach of the four beds, measured straight-line from each hotel’s own front door. Eight in Rome, six on the Sorrento coast, six on the Amalfi coast.
Download PDF2 pages · 264 KB
Before you go
Twenty-four short documentaries and travel films, grouped by the day of the trip they set up, so the Colosseum and the Sistine ceiling arrive already meaning something.
Download PDF1 page · 199 KB
Tap any hotel name to open it in Maps. Phone numbers are filled in from the booking confirmations on the If you need us page.
Out · ITA Airways AZ651
Mon 14 Sep · Toronto Pearson Terminal 1 17:00 → Rome Fiumicino 07:40 next morning · 8 h 40, direct
Leave the parking lot by 14:00 — bag drop closes 16:00
AZ651
Home · ITA Airways AZ650
Fri 25 Sep · Rome Fiumicino 10:15 → Toronto Pearson 14:05 the same day · 9 h 50, direct
Bag drop closes 09:15 — car from the hotel at 06:00
AZ650
Check in online
Opens about 48 hours ahead in the ITA Airways app. Save both passes to the phone wallet.
Roma Termini → Napoli Centrale
Fri 18 Sep · train 9967 · 09:41 → 10:53 · be at Termini thirty minutes early
Booked
Napoli Centrale → Sant’Agnello
Fri 18 Sep · local rail down the peninsula from the lower level, about an hour
Booked
Praiano → Napoli Centrale
Thu 24 Sep · private car with Amalfi Coast Transfers
Booked
Napoli Centrale → Roma Termini
Thu 24 Sep · Italo high-speed · 13:18, into Rome around a quarter past two
Booked
Fiumicino → Rome hotel
Tue 15 Sep · official white taxi, flat €55 to any address inside the Aurelian Walls, up to four people, no surcharges. Look for the “Comune di Roma” sticker and ignore anyone touting inside the terminal.
On arrival
Rome hotel → Fiumicino
Fri 25 Sep · ask Relais Santa Maria Maggiore to hold a car for 06:00 — at the airport by 06:45–07:00
Ask the hotel
Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, St Peter’s · Wed 16 Sep
Guided tour at 11:15 · be at the meeting point twenty minutes early, shoulders and knees covered or you are turned away at the basilica door
11:15
Colosseum, Forum and Palatine · Thu 17 Sep
Colosseum entry at 15:45, timed — be in the security line by 15:15. The one ticket also covers the Roman Forum and the Palatine, which close earlier in the day: walk those in the morning and come back for the slot.
15:45
Capri ferry · Sat 19 Sep
Sorrento to Marina Grande is 20–25 minutes on the fast boat. Take an early sailing, and check the last one back when you buy the outbound.
Open
Sant’Agnello → Praiano · Tue 22 Sep
The one leg with nothing held. Private car over the pass is about an hour and a quarter and the simplest with luggage; the ferry by way of Positano has the better views and the worse luggage handling.
Open
Passport validity
Must be good until at least 25 December 2026 — the Schengen rule is three months beyond the day you leave Europe. Canadians travel visa-free for 90 days, and ETIAS is still not running, so there is nothing to apply for.
3 months
The border is biometric now
The EU Entry/Exit System has been fully live since April 2026 and there are no more passport stamps. First entry takes a face photo and four fingerprints, registered for three years. Leaving is a second face check. Expect both queues to move slower than you remember.
EES
Photograph everything
Passports, all four hotel confirmations, the Vatican and Pompeii vouchers, and both train tickets — one offline album on each phone. Download offline maps for Rome, the Sorrento peninsula and the Amalfi coast; the coast road has no signal.
Offline
Bags
ITA economy fares above Light carry one 23 kg checked bag plus an 8 kg cabin bag and a personal item. Limoncello goes in the hold, wrapped; power banks stay in the cabin, never in the hold.
23 kg
Emergencies
One number covers police, ambulance and fire anywhere in Italy and the rest of Europe, from any phone including a locked one with no SIM. Operators speak English. Everything else is on the If you need us page.
Trevi Fountain
The inner terrace by the water now costs €2 and caps at 400 people at a time, in force since February 2026. The piazza above it is still free, and is the better photograph.
€2
Pantheon
Went to €7 on 1 July 2026 and is a timed ticket. Book a slot rather than joining the door queue — it is a ten-minute building once you are inside.
€7
The Vatican dress code is enforced
Shoulders and knees covered, both of you, or you are turned away at the basilica door. The Museums are four hours on marble with no seats — eat properly beforehand and carry water.
Wed 16
Everything on this page is in the one-page PDF at the top, which needs no signal once it is downloaded. Print it as well — paper does not run out of battery in a taxi rank at Fiumicino at seven in the morning.
The four hotels all hold the booking under the name on the passport. If a confirmation cannot be found, the hotel can look it up from the name and the dates.