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Italy is best done in the off-season IMO. We did Cinque Terre this past January and it was fairly quiet, not many people around. We got a fantastic Airbnb on the clifftops at Manarola for basically 1/3rd of the summertime price, though you just have to deal with there only being one restaurant open in town. This is the video I took there, it was a little more crowded than it looks in the video since I'm a pro at cropping folks out, but you get the idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdHxGDETuqM Honestly the only place in Italy I've really been disappointed by is Milan as there's just not that much there. The Duomo, the plaza and the Galeria nearby, the castle, the monastery with Leonardo's Last Supper (which you need to book months in advance for), and that's about it. Otherwise it's just a fairly boring modern city and without a lot of that Italian flair and character you get elsewhere. I didn't mind Florence, but for some reason when we were there it was absolutely flooded with hordes of American college students. Everyone wearing their UNIVERSITY OF FIRENZE college sweatshirts, babbling on at full volume about Becky's latest snapchat in that horrendous Valley Girl accent. Ugh. Aside from that it was fine 
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Apr 27, 2018 18:54
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 16:37 |
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Yeah seriously, do Intrepid, or G Adventures. Or go with Contiki if you want to party with 18 year olds. I can't think of anything worse than spending two weeks on a bus with 30+ baby boomers
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May 3, 2018 19:51
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Saladman posted:Flipping from the directionality of the flight (i.e. round trip from Italy to Madison) is consistently like half the price, so I don't know what's going on. Like mid-October it's $900 from Rome to Madison and back, but $1600 for the same dates in the opposite direction? This is consistent for everywhere I check, like Zurich is $1800 for single-layovers from Madison in mid-June, but it's $1000 in the opposite direction. It's the same thing for Australian airfares and I don't know why either. Sydney -> London return is usually way more expensive than London -> Sydney return, even controlling for other factors like season/holidays/layovers etc. Maybe they have to keep prices lower heading out of Europe since that's the only way Europeans will holiday overseas?
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May 3, 2018 22:57
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Yeah I agree with Saladman, I wouldn't do two separate day-trips to Pompeii and Naples. Do a day-trip to Pompeii, stay overnight in Naples and then head back to Rome the following afternoon. One spot to consider is Ostia Antica, Rome's old harbour about 40 minutes on the train west of the city. It's not as large or well preserved as Pompeii, but there's maybe 10% of the tourists there so it's quite a nice spot. Spend a whole day at the Vatican, enjoy the museum and the basilica itself. Your Colosseum day, spend the rest of it at the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill area. Don't forget the Piazza Navona! It's probably my favourite square in Rome. I personally wouldn't bother with the Spanish Steps but I guess if it's your first time in Rome you might as well. I don't have specific food recommendations, but try and eat Roman-style food. One of the biggest joys of "Italian" food is discovering that Tuscan food is completely different to Neapolitan food to Latin food to Sicilian food and so on. In Rome their specialities are things like artichokes, bruschetta, scaloppini, saltimbocca, and tripe as well. Pasta carbonara is a Roman dish as well but it's probably different to what you've had before, ie no cream. Just avoid places with spaghetti bolognaise, pictures on the menus, lots of tourists or anywhere within about 500m of a big tourist attraction.
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Jun 21, 2018 21:22
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PT6A posted:Cream? Putting cream in carbonara basically makes you Hitler, who would do such a thing? It's stupidly common in Australia for some reason, despite the enormous expat Italian population
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Jun 21, 2018 22:50
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twoday posted:Are there any really cool cities between Milan and the Alps that might be interesting to spend a day or two in? Lake Como is pretty nice, though like everywhere in Italy it gets very crowded in summer. The town of Como itself isn't that interesting, but the little towns dotted around the lake are great. In Milan, I'd strongly recommend going to see the Last Supper. It's at the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie and you need to book tickets a couple of months in advance. They only let in about 25 people at a time in 15-minute blocks, so it's the absolute polar opposite experience of viewing the Mona Lisa. Buy your tickets from the official site here: https://cenacolovinciano.vivaticket.it/ Everywhere else is just selling them at a markup.
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Jul 6, 2018 07:12
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Yep, Bologna is fantastic for that. We spent I think 2 or 3 nights there earlier this year and that's basically what you do. Walk around, sheltered from the sun or rain underneath the porticoes, and eat all the fantastic food. Lasagne is a local speciality here, as is tagliatelle al ragu - the precursor dish to spaghetti bolognaise, with a much heartier and meatier sauce. Also recommend tortellini in brodo (aka broth), which is almost like a dumpling soup. Some incredible wines from the Emilia-Romagna region too, like Lambrusco and Sangiovese. And make sure you get in on the aperitivo thing - have a pre-dinner drink like aperol spritz or G&T sitting out on the terrace, and picking at a plate of snacks. Usually charcuterie and local cheeses, it's great. The Italian nickname for Bologna translates as "the Fat One" and when you eat there for a few days you figure out why
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Jul 16, 2018 19:20
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 16:37 |
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Actually if you have time I'd recommend a day-trip out to Ravenna, where you'll find incredible Byzantine-era Christian mosaics inside a bunch of different churches. I'm a huge fan of mosaic art so YMMV, but our mental imagery of Christian icons and scenes is so dominated by the Renaissance, it's incredible to see stuff from long before that, with a totally different style.
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Jul 16, 2018 20:45
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