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If you’ve ever taken a trip with me you know that I’m a planning whore. I enjoy nothing more than spending hours reading through guide books and websites and other travel resources to find the perfect hotels, cafes, hidden corners and “can’t miss” sights. And going to Italy is not different. Right now I’m working from two Rough Guides, a Frommer’s Italy, Rick Steve’s website, TripAdvisor.com and many Italian tourism sites.
Mike has decided not to go as he really doesn’t like to fly and isn’t a big fan of cities. So instead I invited my mom to go with me (hi mom!). She’s going to fly in at the end of the work portion of my trip and we’ll go from there. It turns out I’m going to London for 2 days before I head to Milan, poor me.
So far, I’ve picked a route through Northeastern Italy and made us hotel arrangements in each town. We’re going low budget, but not cheap. I absolutely refuse, no matter how little I want to spend, to stay somewhere that isn’t recommended by at least 2 and preferably 3 sources. It’s taken a few hours of research and emails back and forth to Italy, but we’ve now got a room with 2 twin beds in 5 different cities, all of them for less than $150 per night and all highly recommended. Yay! Turns out that I think we even have our own bath everywhere – this defintely wasn’t a requirement but as it’s the very tail end of the high season, it turned out that the only twin rooms I could find came with a private bath. Not that I’m complaining…
So where are we going? Here’s the plan so far.
Milan: We’re starting and ending in Milan as I need to be there for work and then will be leaving my laptop and work clothes at the office or hotel while we set out with light packs.
Genoa / Genova: We’ll be here for 2 nights – just long enough to explore the highly recommended old city and historic churches. Neither of us are museum people, but man do we love old cathedrals and churches.
Cinque Terre: we’ll be staying in the second village from the west, Vernazza, and wandering from village to village for a couple of days.
Siena: We’ll stop in Pisa just long enough for a photo op of the leaning tower and then onto Siena for 2 nights.
Florence / Firenze: Finally we’ll end up in Florence where we hope to hook up with someone that my mom knows through connections. Hopefully with her help we’ll be able to tour the countryside. Then back to Milan for our flights home.
We’re taking the train everywhere and carrying only backpacks. Such a nice way to plan a trip, altho right now I’m struggling to find a pair of comfortable, yet attractive, black mary janes to take as my main shoes. I ordered a pair of Born’s off of e-bay, but they’re the smallest size 39/8 that I’ve put on in a while so I’ll have to turn around and sell them again.
Anyhoo, now we just have to plan out our list of have to see’s, want to see’s and nice to see’s for each city and area so that we don’t miss anything. If you’ve got any favorites to recommend, please feel free to let me know. We’re collecting advice and recommendations from everyone we know and people we don’t. Wow – I leave 1 month from tomorrow – can’t wait!
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How exciting! I can’t wait to hear about your trip.
Hi Laura,
I am extremely jealous of your upcoming trip to Italy, it’s one of my favorite places in the world, Vernazza especially! We were there in late November, and it was perfect – not too busy, but still warm. We still dream about the foccacia that we got at the bakery every morning, as well as the lovely dinner we had at Trattoria del Capitano (pasta with clams and a wonderful tiramisu). This was 12 years ago, mind you, but I doubt things have changed very much.
Have a great time!
I can’t wait to write about it!
Cheryl, that’s what everyone says about Vernazza and the Cinqueterre. We’re skipping Venice just to go because of all the great things we’re hearing about the area.
We’ll have to look for the bakery and the Trattoria.
Thanks!