OK, it's not all of Italy since we only went to Venice (Venezia), Florence (Firenze), and Rome (Roma). But I am hoping with this blog that I will secure a multi-million dollar writing deal with Fodors, Lonely Planet or some travel rag. (I need to give credit where credit is due and Clara Lum tipped us off on much of this info. Thanks, Clara!) At the very least, if you plan to go to Italy, save and/or print this guide as it will update whatever travel planners you have. I will do this in 4 parts, starting with a general overview and then followed by one part for each city we visited. Also, Will posted a blog on his experience. I read it and it is good. So if you want some more info plus get his views, there is a link to his blog on this home page.



Overview

If you are into anthropology, archaeology, or geology, Greece is the place for you. For culture, Paris is probably the hub (though I have yet to go). But if you are looking for cultural anthropology, Italy has it over all of them! Whereas Greece is the birthplace of western civilization, Italy is the cornerstone to modern man. All the rubble in Greece is 2,000 years old. In Italy, it is only 500 years old. So everything is preserved and in much better shape. As a result, there is a better 'connection' with what you are viewing.

Travel -- The train system is efficient and (usually) on time, an anomaly for most of Europe! We booked the EurRail pass for 4 days of travel and that went quite well. We were late in booking it, and used regular delivery (rather than pay for express delivery), and the EurRail pass arrived quickly and where we expected it to. You cannot book any reservations on trains without the pass. So once we got the pass, we had to go to the Brindisi rail station and we booked all of our reservations. In Italy, there is a 3 euro surcharge for each regular train and a 10 euro surcharge for the Eurostar high-speed trains. I am not sure how you can reserve trains online. The only way we figured was by physically going to a train station.


Also, on an overnighter, you need to book a sleeper or reclining chair. We were told to travel 1st class, and we did so on all of our rides, and were glad for it. We booked a reclining chair for our one overnight train and we had a tough time getting any sleep. We arrived in Venezia very, very tired. If I had to do it over again, I would try the sleeper. The trains are generally clean with smoking and non-smoking cars. They occasionally serve juice and cookies, and some even have diner cars. But generally you are on your own for food and drink. Trains on the longer trips will take breaks at some stations to allow time for passengers to avail themselves of resources.

Which reminds me of one funny story. I decided to use the bathroom and flipped open the lid of the toilet and that particular bathroom had what I would call "a straight flush" as I watched the ground beneath pass by at 120 kmh!!

I will address travel within each city later. But in the train stations they have tourist information offices that can book hotel accommodations for you. They don't have lower-end hotels (hostels and one and two-star hotels), but their bookings were pretty reliable. We did not make any reservations in advance (except for the hostel in Venezia), but booked on the spot when we arrived at the city of our destination. It is a very trick system. Maybe during really high season (July-Aug.) they fill up, I don't know. But we found the system to be really excellent. The hotels were near the train station.

In Roma and Firenze at least, expect beggars and aggressive street vendors selling everything from tour rides to clothing to you-name-it. They were particularly aggressive (annoying) in Roma.

Food - Expect to gain a few pounds in Italy. Between the pasta and gelatos, it is pretty difficult to avoid weight gain. After a few days of gorging ourselves on some really good and sometimes cheap food, we found ourselves looking for vegetables and fruit. They are there - just hard to find amongst all the pizzas, pasta, gnoccis, bruschettas, and the like. But the food is really, really yummy. The pastries are light... the pasta fresh...the gelatos refreshing. We didn't try the granitas, but it is on the list!

The restaurant staff will stand out on the sidewalk trying to hustle you in. Menus are usually available for viewing, and don't feel bad once you've been seated of getting up and going somewhere else if you don't like the fare or prices. And don't eat the bread they put on the tables unless you are prepared to pay for it! At one restaurant in Roma they put out the bread and then tried to charge us 6 euro. It is possible that the bread and 'service charge' (tip, etc.) are rolled into one. I did not ask. Some restaurants also charge a service charge to cover the tip. Otherwise we tipped 10% and left it at that.

On Friday and Saturday nights some of the restaurants will have musicians that provide a beautiful 'European' flair to the whole scene. All (or most) eating is done at tables on the sidewalk. Space is at a premium. So the cooking is usually done in the building and the serving done outside, often under an awning.

From what I can gather, there is no potable water in Europe! At least, it seems like everyone drinks bottled water. What we often will do is order an entrée each, one salad for the three of us, and a large (liter or liter and a half) bottle of water. You have to decide if you want the water 'naturale' or with gas (carbonated). We didn't have any 'birra' (beer) and only tried one white wine (which was excellent). I am planning to load up on Italian wines here at the boat, so passed paying for them in the restaurants. As for the water, when you can find springs in or around piazzas or squares, the water is drinkable. (That leads me to think the city water is drinkable, too. But we didn't try it.) So we ended up buying bottled water in restaurants and supermarkets, and filling up our canteen at public springs when we saw them.

And in the summer you will drink lots of water cuz it is hot, hot, hot. I brought a coat and long pants, but never wore them. Shirts and shorts are all you need. I wasn't able to go into a couple of churches because I had shorts on, but it didn't keep me from what I really wanted to see. But you will need a new pair of shoes because you will be putting in the miles walking all that pasta off! So get some new tennies.

OK. That's about it on the generalities. Let's get down to specifics.


Venezia - This was the first stop on our 3-city tour. We only budgeted one full day there and we were satisfied with that. The whole thing about Venice, in my opinion, is the canals and the feel of the city. Museums (which consume a lot of time) weren't a real draw for us. So we were able to get a good feel for the romantic city of Venezia in one full day just by walking around the streets and over the bridges of the canals. Try not to go with your roommate, if you can help it! It is a very romantic town. (So romantic, in fact, that we saw a condom vending machine built right into one of the walls along the sidewalk!)

The vaporetto, or city bus, was a lot of fun. It gets you down on the canal. We took it several times, one time just staying on and not getting off till it had completed a full loop. The architecture of Venice is so unique, and the vaporetto caught it all. We didn't ride the private gondola cuz it was too pricey (100 euro). It looked like a lot of fun, but we were on a budget.

We were able to see all the "must see" sights. Piazza San Marco is the big draw and has to be one of the largest piazzas we have ever seen. The church there, Basilica di San Marco, is simply over the top in its ornate decorations outside. I liked what Lonely Planet said about it - "an architectural salad of spangled spires, Byzantine domes, mosaics and marble...". The Rialto Bridge is a beautiful bridge -- wide enough to be its own little shopping district.

Our best meal of the trip was in Venice. Too bad Will missed it. We had spent the night on the train not getting any sleep, so Will decided to catch up on his sleep right through lunch. I'm sure glad he didn't order the soup!

Our biggest bummer of the trip was not staying a bit longer so our friend, Michel, that we met in Marmaris could show us the canals from his own private boat. It had engine problems the day we were there so we were relegated to a very fun and enjoyable evening out with him as his guest. He gave us a nice tour of the area surrounding Venice including a very large hotel with a small boat harbor in between the two towers!

Funny footnote: Venice is putting together a bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics. We are not sure where they will put all the people on top of the regular tourists. Hotels are at such a premium. We stayed in a hostel partly for the price and partly to fulfill an unrealized desire I had from my 20s. But the Olympics? In Venice? I fear it may ruin the feel of the city. That is one good reason to go visit the city now before they are awarded those monstrous games.

I mean, we can see the 100m freestyle swimming competition going something like this: "swim down Via Colcetto canal and hang a left at Via di Bendetto to the finish". Or the dive platform competition going something like this: "the divers will be leaping from a 4th floor balcony off the Hotel Venezia. Let's just hope they remembered to dredge the canal!"

Florence - Firenze is one very, very cool place. I really fell in love with this city. Aside from the uniqueness of Venice, Florence has to rank up there as one of my favorite cities. It is not as large as Roma, so has a much more friendly feel to it. Everything is within walking distance, so there is no bother with the buses.

We booked a hotel at the train station and found Hotel Alamanni to be one of the best 3-star hotels we have ever found. The lobby was on the 2nd floor of a commercial building, so that was kinda funky. But the room and service were above our expectations. Nearly all the hotels in Firenze and Roma come with breakfast, and theirs was most enjoyable and nourishing - including the fresh made cappuccino. (We aren't coffee drinkers so we can't comment on the rest of Italian coffee. But I wonder if it would be all that impressive to you hard-core Seattle coffee drinkers!!)

We hiked up to the Piazzale Michelangelo and got a beautiful view of the entire city above the River Arno. The Duomo is the mother of all domes and is one huge mother! Hard to miss. The Galleria dell' Academia has Michelangelo's 'David' in it. There was more in the Academie, but it wasn't all that impressive and really you were buying a ticket to see the David. The really pleasant surprise was the Galleria degli Uffizi. This gallery is a huge architectural wonder. But the real prize is inside. The Medici (Me-di-chi) family collection is housed here. The Medici's got in early on the whole idea of banking and apparently made really good on it. So good they collected one of the most impressive art and sculpture collections I have ever seen during the most frenetic art period of mankind! (Again, I haven't been to Paris yet.) The Medici's bequeathed their collection to the city on the condition it never leave the city. So if you wanna see the good stuff, you are going to have to travel there.

In the Uffizi we were seeing pieces by Rafael, Michelangelo, da Vinci, Botticelli, Lippi and a host of other artists whose names I recognized at the time but now are kinda just smeared in with all the pastas!! But Uffizi was very impressive to us and I would put it high on a visit to Firenze.

Roma -- It would be a tough act to follow Firenze, and Roma was just that -- a tough act. I am not a "big city" kind of guy (despite the fact I have miraculously survived 20 years in Seattle), so stepping out of the Rome train station into the dirt of downtown wasn't all that impressive. Our hotel - Giglio dell' Opera - was a real bust. We were paying 90 euros a night for a building that probably was very nice in its hey-day.

But years of "bleeding" the property has left her a shabby little girl. From what I can tell, this is not uncommon for hotels in Rome. So be careful. You will likely end up paying 140 euro/night to find something that has a decent breakfast and where the staff cares enough to respond to your pleas to fix, for instance, the air conditioning! In addition, restaurants downtown are high-priced and poor quality. We finally caught on and chose to eat somewhere else before returning to our hotel room.

The bus system is on the honor system, as far as we can tell. You buy a bus ticket that allows you to travel anywhere on the city bus system for a specified amount of time. But no one is there checking tickets so it all ends up being on your honor.

The sights in Rome are pretty impressive. The Coliseum, the Forum and Palatine hill are all in one area and one ticket gets you into all of them. The ticket is good for 2 days so don't do what I did and throw your ticket away after the first day cuz you are going to have to repurchase another one the next day! We visited the Colossi in the afternoon, when the crowds were down (but the heat is up). I am glad we did it that way - there is enough shade to make it comfortable. We toured the Forum and Palatine hill the following morning. This worked out better cuz it is such a large place that you are out in the sun quite a bit and in the afternoon it would be quite hot. The Forum was the religious, political and economic center of Rome. Julius Caesar is buried here, and there are a number of shrines in varying degrees of condition. Palatine hill is supposedly where Rome got started and it was neat to walk around the ruins and see 2,000 year old frescos, for instance. All very impressive and worth the visit.

We also took in the Pantheon - an architectural contradiction with a hole at the top of the dome. I mean, how do they keep the roof from just caving in? There were the Spanish Steps where the "cool people" used to go to be seen. I went, hoping the next Frederico Fellini would finally discover my hidden talents. But for now it seems my acting career is on hold.

Right across from the steps is a small street with all the "names" in high end fashion - Gucci, Ferragamo, Bulgari, Mont Blanc, Burberry, Armani, and the list goes on. I wondered what it would be like to be so rich as to walk in to the Mont Blanc store (we actually got the nerve to go inside) and buy an 8,000 euro watch without blinking an eye. Of course, with the euro down to a measly $1.20, its a steal at 'only' $10,000 USD!!!

We had a wonderful lunch at Campo di Fiori and numerous gelatos too numerous to remember. A nice surprise was the Piazza del Popolo with its three churches (two of which are identical) and also the northern gate to the old city of Rome. By the way, you can't believe these churches. Each one is incredible beyond belief, and they are scattered all over the towns of Italy. You haven't seen anything like it. Their thick, masonry walls keep them cool and their pews make for a nice respite from all the walking on a hot afternoon.

Our big deal was bellying up to the bar for a guided our of the Vatican museums, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica. It was a four hour tour, and if the guide didn't whisk us through all of it in 4 hours we might still be there! The Vatican museums have sooooo much! One minute you are walking past Rodin's "The Thinker" (it may have been a copy), and the next moment you are in a small room of frescos painted by Rafaelo including "The School of Athens". After one intensive week of touring, I was starting to get cultured out! My eyes were starting to roll into the back of my head and get glazed over. But it was all for the good, and I never tired of the infusion I was receiving.

But the guide pointed out several interesting items we still remember, and that made it worthwhile. The Sistine Chapel was impressive as much because of what Michelangelo went through to complete it - standing for 4 years painting it while going nearly blind from the paint falling in his eyes. And St. Peter's Basilica - the largest Catholic church in the world - was again over the top. It is really too much to imagine all that went into building the structure. Besides housing the tomb of St. Peter, it is also home to something like 14 popes (many with their own funerary monument inside the Basilica) and four queens.


In the end, we had 1 full day in Venice, 2.5 days in Florence, and 2.5 days in Rome. We felt we covered everything we wanted to see. You could certainly draw it out. But we are quite satisfied with the time we allotted. Another 1/2 day in Rome and another 1/2 day in Florence could easily be filled. But all in all, we were pretty cultured out by the end of the week with what we did see, and we are happy to be back home.


Next up: Sicily!