A 7-day honeymoon route in Italy

Most Italy honeymoons fail in the same way: too much itinerary, not enough sitting still. The couples that come back saying "best trip of our lives" almost always built their week around just two stops — one city, one coast — with proper time in each. Here's the route we keep recommending.

Nights 1-3: Florence

Land in Florence (or Rome and take the high-speed train — 90 minutes, end-to-end city centres). A small palazzo hotel south of the Arno gives you a quieter street than the museum side without sacrificing walking distance to anything that matters.

Day one is for jet-lag recovery. Walk to a glass of wine on a rooftop, sleep early. Day two: the Uffizi or the Accademia, depending on which line you're willing to stand in (book online either way), then nothing scheduled for the evening. Day three: Boboli Gardens, lunch at a trattoria nobody booked, the afternoon free. Save Michelangelo's David for an early morning slot — first hour after opening.

Travel day to the Amalfi coast

Florence to Naples is 3 hours by train. Naples to your hotel on the coast is another 90 minutes by private transfer (we book this — the public bus is a misery on the cliff road with bags). You'll arrive in time for late lunch and a long swim.

Nights 4-7: Amalfi or Positano

This is the centre of the trip. We split the field roughly: Positano if you want the postcard view and you don't mind stairs; Amalfi (the town) if you want a flatter walk to restaurants. Either way, a cliffside hotel with breakfast on the terrace earns every euro.

The routine that works: one boat day to Capri (book a private skipper for the morning, beat the day-trippers, lunch on the boat), one slow town day where you don't leave the hotel until sundown, one Ravello day for the gardens and the quieter side of the coast. The fourth day is yours — by then you'll have a favourite restaurant to go back to.

The mistakes we see couples make

• Adding Rome. Don't. Rome deserves its own trip. Trying to do three cities in seven nights means you spend two of them on trains.
• Trying to drive the Amalfi coast. Don't. Hire a transfer. The coast road is narrow, parking is a nightmare, and the views are wasted from the driver's seat.
• Booking the cheapest hotel on the coast. The Amalfi coast is the one place where the hotel is the trip. Half the experience is the terrace at breakfast. This is not the segment to save on.
• Eating dinner before 8pm. No Italian does. You'll feel like you're in a tourist canteen if you go at 7.

If you have an extra night

Add it to the coast, not to Florence. The marginal value of a fifth night sitting on a cliff with a book vastly exceeds a fourth night in the city.