Planning for Italy
Alli and I have been researching planning for our trip to Italy this summer for our trip to Italy this summer for Alli’s 30th Birthday. We are so excited. I’ve never been to Italy and Alli’s never been outside the country save our honeymoon in St. Lucia and a trip to Grand Cayman when she was in college.
When I was a junior in college, my parents took my brother and me to Europe for a short 15-day trip. Alli and I will be in Italy for almost 3 weeks. When I went with my parents, we spent a couple days in Brussels (best Pommes Frites ANYWHERE), a couple days in Amsterdam (cool city, but I don’t think we were there nearly long enough to appreciate it), a few days in London (awesome…loved London), and several days in Paris and Le Mans in France (for the 24-hour race that a friend of my dad’s was participating in).
Anyway, our time in Paris seemed really rushed and I am really excited to spend some time there looking around the city. Alli and I are scheduled to go to the Louvre on the first of the month in July…the Louvre offers free admission on the first of the month. Very cool. That’s one thing that we didn’t get to see when we were in Paris the first time. I am kind of glad in a way because I’ll get to experience it for the first time with Alli who will help me with appreciating the vastness of the museum.
So we are flying in and out of Paris and in between, we are spending some time in Venice, Florence, Rome, and the Amalfi Coast. Everything I’ve heard about Amalfi is that we won’t regret being there.
Planning for a trip of this magnitude is stressful, though. Especially if you are like me and you lose your passport just as you are getting ready to book your tickets (no worries, I found it today…PHEW!).
I know that there are a couple people out there who’ve been to Italy…any suggestions or pointers on places to see?
4 Responses to “Planning for Italy”
Brian
- 5:50 am on 04/06/2007
Well, you can see what we did on our trip to Paris in February 2005 on my blog (except my archives seem to be borked; I will try to fix today, so bookmark that page for later reference). Summary: croissants and wine. Good.
As for Italy, we didn’t do anything particularly different from what a regular tourist would do. All the Roman attractions, plus a stop at Pompeii on the way down to Sorrento. Sorrento and Positano are beautiful, and you will eat well regardless of where you go. One night we found this tiny hole in the wall restaurant where the only people were us and this Japanese couple with a kid, who were trying to translate into English while the Italian owners tried to translate the broken English into Italian. They had some great risotto there. One thing would be to leave a lot of room for dinner. The risotto was a meal in itself, and it was only the first course.
Also, this may be just me, but I got NOTHING out of going to Capri. It’s a pretty island off the Amalfi coast, but if you’re not into high fashion shopping, it was pointless. The Blue Grotto was cool there, but it was a ripoff. Outrageous charge for the boat to take you out there, then another outrageous charge to get into a rowboat that would take you into the Grotto, then the hard sell for a substantial tip from the guy rowing the boat and singing “O Sole Mio.” Rip. Off. But pretty.
Not much else to share. Oh wait, one more thing: limoncello. Yummy lemon liqueur. You must have that as an after-dinner aperitif and, of course, an Italian espresso (it’s not Starbucks, so be fore-warned).
Three weeks still won’t be enough.
Brian
- 6:05 am on 04/06/2007
Not sure why my category archives are messed up, but you can see the entries in the date-based version for February and March.
Oh yeah, for pomme frites, you have to try Le Relais de L’entrecote. Good stuff.
Sidna
- 6:25 pm on 04/10/2007
SOOOOO excited for you!
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