Our Trip to Italy

This is a description of our vacation to Italy in 2008. I generated this web page for a variety of reasons. First, I wanted to create a record of this enjoyable trip for my own memories, and to share these record with friends.

Second, I tried to document our trip on a day by day basis, telling any reader of this page what we saw. We did this trip entirely on our own, without an organized tour guide, this saved us lots of money, and also allowed us to spend time visiting the places we most wanted to see, for as long as we desired at each place. If you are thinking of visiting Italy, I encourage you to go! It takes a bit of planning, but the rewards are great. I have included some material here that will hopefully make planning your trip easier, please check out my travel notes webpage. Or you can send me an email if you have questions that I may be able to answer about how to visit Italy (I am not a professional travel guide.)

Finally, I put together this webpage with all my photos as a reference for anyone who has visited these same places and would like to identify various buildings or objects of art. I have tried hard to accurately identify what is in my photographs. If have pictures from your own trip that you can not name, perhaps you could compare them to my pictures and get a proper identification. My favorite pictures are shown in the Best Italy Photos webpage. The other web pages, along with many more photos, include the day to day descriptions of where we went and what we saw. Hopefully this website will inspire you take a trip to Italy, or you will remember a visit to Italy that you may have already enjoyed. We had a wonderful time and would like very much to make a return visit.

Below is a schedule showing what Melanie and I saw each day. We followed our original plan closely. Melanie had devised an itinerary that maximized our sightseeing and minimized our traveling between points of interest. We spent zero time shopping and almost no time in restaurants. Instead, we bought pizza and gelato and found a nice piazza to enjoy it, or else we shopped at the local market and put together our own Italian dinner back at the apartment. Our interest was in seeing the wonders of Italy; instead of shopping or eating, we would rather visit the unique Italian buildings. Our planning and the focus on sightseeing is how we managed to get to such an extensive number of places.

Mon, Sept 15	Tue, Sept 16	Wed, Sept 17	Thu, Sept 18	Fri, Sept 19 Art & Mel depart Seattle Mom & Rose depart Cleveland	Sat, Sept 20 Mom & Rose arrive in Venice Art & Mel arrive in Venice Night walk to San Marco Square	Sun, Sept 21 Campanile Saint Mark's Basilica Doge's Palace Bridge of Sighs + Prison Scala Contarini de Bovolo Rialto Bridge Venice City Walks
Mon, Sept 22 Grand Canal Vaporetto Ride St. Mark's Basilica & Museum Correr Museum San Giorgio Maggiore Arsenale Venice City Walk and Vaporetto Ride	Tue, Sept 23 Train to Florence Uffizi Gallery	Wed, Sept 24 Duomo Dome Climb Duomo Ponte Vecchio Boboli Gardens Climb Giotto's Bell Tower Accademia (Statue of David)	Thu, Sept 25 Daytrip to Siena (Bus) Church San Domenico Climb Siena City Tower Il Campo Duomo + Piccolomini Library Fort Medicea Siena City Walk	Fri, Sept 26 Daytrip to Pisa (train) Climb the Leaning Tower Duomo Baptistry Ancient Ships Archeological Site Pisa City Walk	Sat, Sept 27 Bargello Piazzale Michelangelo Church San Miniato al Monte Duomo Museum (parade outside) Medici Chapel	Sun, Sept 28 Train to Rome St Peter's Square St Peter's Dome Climb Castel Sant'Angelo
Mon, Sept 29 Train to Pompeii Tour of Pompeii Ruins Night walk to Piazza Navona	Tue, Sept 30 Colosseum Arch of Constantine Roman Forum Palatine Hill Pantheon Obelisk & Fountain walk across city	Wed, Oct 1 Piazza del Popolo Spanish Steps Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel St Peter's Basilica Baths of Carcalla Pyramid of Gaius Cestius Aventine Hill	Thu, Oct 2 Appian Way Catacombs San Callisto + Circus of Maxentius + Tomb Cecilia Metella Aqueduct Park Church St John Lateran Borghese Gardens	Fri, Oct 3 Daytrip to Tivoli (bus) Hadrian's Villa Villa d'Este	Sat, Oct 4 Train to Ostia Antica Tour Ruins of Ostia Antica Temple of Vesta Trastevere + Janiculum (Fontana Paola + Garibaldi Monument)	Sun, Oct 5 Art & Mel fly to Seattle Mom & Rose fly to Cleveland

This map shows our route. The number inside the city circle indicates how many nights we spent in each city. We followed the classic Venice-Florence-Rome itinerary. With the exception of the buses we took to Tivoli and Siena, all other intercity journeys were on trains.