--- title: "Top 10 Things To Do in Italy (City Guides) Wimup" description: "Browse Wimup's Top 10 guides across Italy, Rome, Florence, Venice and more cities, mapped and filmed. When to go, how to get around, and where to start." url: https://wimup.com/country/italy type: Country guide updated: 2026-10-06 publisher: Wimup (https://wimup.com) --- # Top 10s across Italy From **Rome and Florence** to **Venice, Naples and Palermo**, Italy city by city, each one distilled to ten things worth your time, mapped and filmed. ## Quick answer First-timers should pair **Rome and Florence** with two nights in **Venice**; repeat visitors trade up for **Naples, Bologna and the hill towns of Tuscany**. The best windows are **April–May** and **September–October**, warm, lighter crowds, and easier to book than the August peak. ## Quick facts - **Best months:** Apr · May · Sep - **Ideal length:** 8–12 days - **Budget per day:** $100–180 - **Language:** Italian - **Getting around:** Frecciarossa rail - **14** Cities - **20** Regions - **4** Video guides Top-10 travel guides across Italy. ## 14 Italian city guides 1. [Rome](https://wimup.com/city/rome.md): Italy · 10 picks, stay 3–4 days 2. [Florence](https://wimup.com/city/florence.md): Italy · 10 picks, stay 2–3 days 3. [Venice](https://wimup.com/city/venice.md): Italy · 10 picks, stay 2 days 4. [Milan](https://wimup.com/city/milan.md): Italy · 10 picks, stay 2 days 5. [Naples](https://wimup.com/city/naples.md): Italy · 10 picks, stay 2–3 days 6. [Bologna](https://wimup.com/city/bologna.md): Italy · 10 picks, stay 2 days 7. [Palermo](https://wimup.com/city/palermo.md): Italy · 10 picks, stay 2–3 days 8. [Verona](https://wimup.com/city/verona.md): Italy · 10 picks, stay 1–2 days 9. [Turin](https://wimup.com/city/turin.md): Italy · 10 picks, stay 2 days 10. [Genoa](https://wimup.com/city/genoa.md): Italy · 10 picks, stay 1–2 days 11. [Siena](https://wimup.com/city/siena.md): Italy · 10 picks, Day trip 12. [Lecce](https://wimup.com/city/lecce.md): Italy · 10 picks, stay 2 days 13. [Cagliari](https://wimup.com/city/cagliari.md): Italy · 10 picks 14. [Bari](https://wimup.com/city/bari.md): Italy · 10 picks ## Know before you go - **Population:** 58.9 million - **Area:** 302,073 km² - **Density:** 195.1 / km² - **Capital:** Rome - **Major cities:** Milan, Naples, Turin, Palermo - **Currency:** Euro (€) - **Language:** Italian English is common in cities and tourist areas. A few Italian pleasantries go a long way everywhere else. - **Calling code:** +39 - **Power:** 230V · Type C/F/L - **Emergency:** 112 - **Visa:** Schengen · 90 days Schengen visa-free short stays for most Western passports. Always confirm for your nationality. - **Tourism board:** Official site Italy's national tourism office: trip planning, regional guides and seasonal events. - **Getting around:** Frecciarossa rail High-speed trains link Rome, Florence, Bologna, Venice, Milan and Naples in a few hours each. Book early for the cheapest fares. - **Driving:** Mind the ZTL Historic centres are limited-traffic zones enforced by camera, and the fine arrives by post months later. Park outside the walls and walk in. - **Money:** € Euro Cards work almost everywhere, but keep some cash for espresso bars, markets and small trattorias. ## When to visit - **Jan** - **Feb** - **Mar** (good) - **Apr** (best) - **May** (best) - **Jun** (good) - **Jul** (peak) - **Aug** (peak) - **Sep** (best) - **Oct** (best) - **Nov** (good) - **Dec** ## Fun fact Italy has only been one country since 1861, and it still governs like twenty. Five of its 20 regions, Sicily and Sardinia among them, hold special autonomy under the 1948 constitution, with powers over language, schools and tax. Cross a regional line and the food, dialect and pace change. ## Stereotypes, sorted out - **Myth:** Italians eat pasta at every meal **Reality:** Pasta is usually the first course, not the whole plate. A full meal moves from antipasto to primo to secondo, and most people eat one course at lunch and go light at dinner. - **Myth:** There is one Italian cuisine **Reality:** There are twenty, and they do not blend. Butter and rice in the north, oil and tomato in the south, and a sauce named after a town is usually made only near it. - **Myth:** Ordering a cappuccino after lunch is banned **Reality:** Nobody will stop you. Milk after a meal is simply not the habit here, so if you want to order the way the room does, ask for an espresso or a macchiato. - **Myth:** Nothing runs on time **Reality:** The high-speed trains are punctual and frequent, and they are the spine of any Italian trip. Museums and offices keep their own hours, which is a different problem: book ahead and check the closing day. - **Myth:** The south is best skipped **Reality:** Naples, Palermo, Bari and Lecce are where a lot of the best eating and the least queueing is. Watch your bag in crowds, as in any big city, and go. - Say buongiorno on the way into a shop or bar, and arrivederci on the way out. - Coffee is a standing drink. Order at the bar, drink it there, and expect table service to be billed differently. - The coperto on your bill is a per-person cover charge, not a tip and not a scam. - Lunch runs roughly 1 to 3 and dinner rarely starts before 8. Kitchens close in between. - Cover shoulders and knees for churches. The big basilicas turn people away at the door. - Ferragosto, 15 August, empties the cities. Family-run places close for the week around it. ## Famous Italian faces - **Leonardo da Vinci**: Painter, engineer and anatomist of the Renaissance - **Dante Alighieri**: Poet of the Divine Comedy, and of the Italian language itself - **Michelangelo**: Sculpted the David, painted the Sistine ceiling - **Galileo Galilei**: Astronomer who argued that the Earth moves - **Sophia Loren**: First actor to win an Oscar for a role in a foreign language - **Giuseppe Verdi**: Composer of Rigoletto, La traviata and Aida - **Enzo Ferrari**: Racing driver who founded the Scuderia and the marque - **Maria Montessori**: Physician whose classroom method spread worldwide - **Giuseppe Garibaldi**: General whose campaigns unified the peninsula - **Camillo Benso di Cavour**: Statesman behind unification and the kingdom's first prime minister - **Alcide De Gasperi**: Prime minister who rebuilt the republic after 1945 - **Sergio Mattarella**: President of the Republic, re-elected in 2022 - **Valentino Rossi**: Nine-time motorcycle world champion - **Gino Bartali**: Tour de France winner who carried false papers for the resistance - **Roberto Baggio**: Ballon d'Or winner in 1993, and the number 10 Italy still argues about - **Federica Pellegrini**: Olympic champion and long-reigning 200m freestyle world record holder - **Caravaggio**: Baroque painter who made light do the drama - **Gian Lorenzo Bernini**: Sculptor and architect who gave Rome its baroque face - **Sandro Botticelli**: Painted the Birth of Venus and the Primavera - **Federico Fellini**: Director of La Dolce Vita and 8½ - **Sergio Leone**: Invented the spaghetti western, and its silences - **Anna Magnani**: Face of neorealism in Rome, Open City, and an Oscar winner - **Luciano Pavarotti**: Tenor who took opera out of the opera house - **Ennio Morricone**: Film composer whose westerns defined how a genre sounds - **Antonio Vivaldi**: Venetian priest who wrote The Four Seasons - **Guglielmo Marconi**: Nobel laureate behind the first transatlantic radio signal - **Enrico Fermi**: Nobel physicist who built the first nuclear reactor - **Rita Levi-Montalcini**: Nobel laureate who discovered nerve growth factor - **Massimo Bottura**: Chef of Osteria Francescana in Modena - **Pellegrino Artusi**: His 1891 cookbook taught a new country to cook in one language - **Carlo Petrini**: Founded Slow Food in Bra, Piedmont, in 1986 ## Must-try Italian food - **Pasta al pomodoro**: Tomato, basil and good oil. The baseline everything else is judged against. - **Prosciutto crudo**: Air-cured ham, sliced to order, from Parma or San Daniele. - **Bruschetta**: Grilled bread, raw garlic, oil, and whatever is ripe. - **Tiramisù**: Coffee, mascarpone and cocoa. Veneto's gift to every dessert menu. - **Gelato**: Denser and served warmer than ice cream, so the flavour hits harder. - **Cacio e pepe**: Pecorino and black pepper emulsified with pasta water. Three ingredients, no hiding. - **Carbonara**: Guanciale, egg and pecorino. No cream, ever. - **Amatriciana**: Guanciale, tomato and pecorino, named for the town of Amatrice. - **Carciofi alla giudia**: Artichokes pressed flat and fried crisp, from the Roman Ghetto. - **Supplì**: Fried rice croquette with a molten mozzarella centre. - **Pizza napoletana**: Wet in the middle, blistered at the rim, about 90 seconds in the oven. - **Ragù napoletano**: Meat and tomato cooked down for most of a Sunday. - **Mozzarella di bufala**: Buffalo milk mozzarella from the Campanian plain, eaten the day it is made. - **Sfogliatella**: Shell-shaped pastry in a hundred leaves, filled with sweet ricotta. - **Babà**: Rum-soaked sponge, a Neapolitan institution. - **Orecchiette con cime di rapa**: Puglia's ear-shaped pasta with turnip tops, chilli and anchovy. - **Bistecca alla fiorentina**: Thick T-bone, rare, salt and oil and nothing else. - **Ribollita**: Bread and bean soup, reboiled the next day and better for it. - **Pappa al pomodoro**: Tomato and stale bread cooked to a purée. Peasant food, still on every menu. - **Panzanella**: Summer bread salad with tomato, onion and basil. - **Tagliatelle al ragù**: Bologna's slow meat sauce, on ribbons of egg pasta and never on spaghetti. - **Tortellini in brodo**: Filled pasta in clear capon broth. The Sunday version, not the cream one. - **Parmigiano Reggiano**: Aged cow's milk cheese, made only around Parma, Reggio and Modena. - **Aceto balsamico tradizionale**: Modena vinegar aged through a series of casks for years. - **Piadina**: Romagna's flatbread, folded hot around squacquerone and rocket. - **Risotto alla milanese**: Saffron rice finished with butter and marrow. - **Cotoletta alla milanese**: Bone-in veal, breaded and fried in butter. - **Vitello tonnato**: Cold sliced veal under a tuna and caper sauce. Piedmont's summer starter. - **Pesto alla genovese**: Basil, pine nuts, garlic and cheese pounded raw. Liguria's whole argument. - **Focaccia genovese**: Dimpled, salty and oily, best warm from the bakery. - **Polenta**: Cornmeal, soft or grilled, the staple of the Alps and the Veneto. - **Arancini**: Fried rice balls, ragù in the east of Sicily and butter in the west. - **Pasta alla Norma**: Aubergine, tomato and salted ricotta, from Catania. - **Cannoli**: Shells fried in advance, filled with sheep's ricotta to order. - **Caponata**: Sweet and sour aubergine, served at room temperature. - **Pane carasau**: Sardinia's paper-thin flatbread, baked to keep for months. - **Culurgiones**: Sardinian parcels of potato, pecorino and mint, pleated by hand. - **Espresso**: Ordered at the bar, drunk standing, done in under a minute. - **Aperol Spritz**: Prosecco, bitter aperitivo and soda. Invented in the Veneto, drunk everywhere. - **Negroni**: Gin, vermouth and Campari in equal parts, first mixed in Florence. - **Chianti Classico**: Sangiovese grown between Florence and Siena, marked with a black rooster. - **Barolo**: Nebbiolo from the Langhe hills of Piedmont. Patient wine. - **Limoncello**: Amalfi lemon liqueur, served cold at the end of dinner. ## By theme - [Hidden gems in Italy](https://wimup.com/hidden-gems.md) - [Michelin tables in Italy](https://wimup.com/michelin-cities.md) - [Ancient Rome & ruins](https://wimup.com/world-wonders.md) - [Amalfi & lakes for two](https://wimup.com/honeymoon.md) - [Hike the Cinque Terre](https://wimup.com/hiking.md) - [Wine country drives](https://wimup.com/themes.md) ## Films - [Rome in a Day, Top 10](https://wimup.com/watch/rome.md), 3:50:43 - [Florence & Tuscany](https://wimup.com/watch/florence.md), 4:58:09 - [Venice Without Crowds](https://wimup.com/watch/venice.md), 3:20:53 - [Naples Street Food](https://wimup.com/watch/naples.md), 5:45:54 ## FAQs ### How many days do you need in Italy? Eight to twelve days for a first trip: three or four in Rome, then two cities reached by high-speed train. Two weeks lets you add the south or Sicily without spending the trip in transit. ### When is the best time to visit Italy? April, May, September and October. Warm days, long light, open kitchens and far fewer people than July and August, when the heat sits heavy and the coast fills up. ### Is Italy expensive to visit? Less than its reputation, outside the famous three. Budget around $100 to $180 per person per day mid-range, and noticeably less in Puglia, Sicily and Sardinia than in Venice or Florence. ### Do you need to speak Italian? No. English is common in cities and tourist areas. A few words still change the temperature of an exchange, and outside the big cities they do real work. ### Should you start with Rome, Florence and Venice? For a first trip, yes, and they earn their days. On a second, trade one of them for Naples, Bologna or Palermo: same depth, better eating, a fraction of the queue. ## Related countries - [France](https://wimup.com/country/france.md) - [Spain](https://wimup.com/country/spain.md) - [All of Europe →](https://wimup.com/europe) Part of [Europe](https://wimup.com/europe.md) ## Sources - [Tourism board](https://www.italia.it/en?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - Rankings are Wimup editorial picks. Prices, durations and budgets are editorial estimates, not live quotes; check the official site before you go.