Holidays to Italy​ 2026/2027

Best Places to Visit in Italy

The range of italy holiday destinations is wider than most people realise — and choosing the right one for your group makes an enormous difference to the trip.

• Rome: Two thousand years of history within walking distance of each other — the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the Vatican, and the Pantheon all sit within a compact centre. A Rome holiday of four nights covers the essentials without feeling rushed; longer stays reward those who venture into Trastevere and Testaccio.

• Lake Garda: Italy's largest lake runs 52 km north to south, with southern shores calm and family-friendly and the northern end reliably popular with windsurfers and kite sailors. Lake Garda holidays suit a wide range of travellers, from families based in Sirmione to active couples using Riva del Garda for cycling and hiking.

• Sicily: The island is larger than most first-time visitors expect — roughly 300 km across — and rewards a longer stay. Greek temples at Agrigento, Baroque towns around the Val di Noto, and the active slopes of Mount Etna sit within reach of the eastern coast. A Sicily holiday of ten nights gives a proper introduction.

• Lake Como: Consistently among Italy's most requested destinations, Como combines genuine Alpine scenery with some of the country's most elegant waterfront properties. Lake Como holidays work best from late April to October; the lake itself never loses its appeal, though July and August are the busiest.

• Venice: The crowds concentrate on a small area around San Marco and the Rialto — and the quieter sestieri of Cannaregio and Dorsoduro offer the same architecture with a fraction of the foot traffic. Venice holidays of three to four nights hit the sweet spot, particularly in shoulder season.

• Sorrento sits on a clifftop above the Bay of Naples and divides opinion — it is genuinely lovely and genuinely busy in August. The honest advice on Sorrento holidays is to treat it as an access base: the Amalfi Coast, Pompeii, and the island of Ischia are all within an hour, making it one of the most practically useful bases in southern Italy.

• Naples is the city most first-time visitors underestimate. The historic centre is UNESCO-listed, the National Archaeological Museum holds the finest collection of Roman artefacts outside Rome, and the street food — particularly the fried pizza and sfogliatella — is worth the trip independently. Naples holidays suit travellers who are comfortable with a city that is unpolished and entirely itself.

• Genoa is Italy's largest port city and one of its least-visited by international tourists. The caruggi — the medieval alleyways of the old port — run for kilometres and contain some of the finest Renaissance palazzi in northern Italy. Genoa holidays work well as a base for the Ligurian Riviera, with Portofino 35 km east and the Cinque Terre an hour by train