Travel Notes for our trip to Italy

I put together some notes about traveling in Italy. Originally, my Mom and sister signed up for a tour group that promised a 10 day vacation to Venice, Florence and Rome, with a possible side excursion to Pisa. Melanie and I decided to join them, but when we saw the expensive cost of the tour group we opted to plan our own vacation. We would visit Venice, Florence and Rome on the same days as the tour group, traveling in parellel with my Mom and sister. In each city, we would meet them to enjoy some sightseeing together.

Two months before we were scheduled to depart, the tour group cancelled the trip that my Mom and sister had signed up, only a total of four people had paid to join that tour. The tour group offered my Mom and sister to take the same tour on a different date, but since they were flying to Italy using frequent flyer miles, there was no way that they could change their dates. So they cancelled and got a full refund.

We decided to plan the whole trip entirely on our own. We made up the name Mel Art Tours, and designed an official-looking logo, but this was the first time Melanie or I had been overseas. Why do it ourselves? Reason one, it saves a lot of money! Reason two: it allows maximum flexibility. We went to the places we wanted to see, and stayed as long as we desired. Reason three: it really isn't that hard. These notes will hopefully help you plan your own trip to Italy. Skip the expensive guided tour and do it yourself!

Money

Bring a lot of cash. Many places do not take credit cards. All of the apartments we rented required a cash payment, though the deposit was on the credit card. Most of the attractions required cash for admissions. However, supermarkets and restaurants will allow you to use a credit card, and we used a credit card in the automated train ticket machines.

Expenses

Here is an itemized list of what we paid in Sept/Oct of 2008. I don't show our food or souvenir expenses.

Apartment rental

Why rent apartments? They are cheaper than hotels. Plus, you get a kitchen, so you can eat some meals at your room, rather than in restaurants. Food in Italy is very expensive. Restaurant meals are long, and we would rather spend time looking at the sights rather than chatting in a restaurant. Also, some apartments have washers (no one in Italy has dryers, so you have to hang your clothes to dry.) Using the washers allowed us travel much lighter, you may notice in the photographs that I seem to be wearing the same shirts and pants.

One important note: in Italy, the first floor is not the same as the ground floor. If an apartment (or hotel room) is on the first floor, that means it is up one flight of stairs. If an apartment does not mention an elevator (lift) in its description, then you will have to carry your bags up the stairs. Because we didn't want my mom to climb a lot of stairs, we restricted ourselves to apartments on the ground or first floor; however, there appeared to be a lot of nice apartments available if you are willing to climb some stairs.

We booked all of our apartments using the Sleep in Italy website. Melanie used email to contact them ahead of time about when we would meet to get the keys. We had phone numbers of the person who would show the apartment. Since we paid cash for each rental, we asked that they write us a receipt for the payment. We used credit cards ahead of time for paying the deposit. The people who met us to give us the apartment keys all spoke English, and were helpful and pleasant.

The location of each apartment was excellent. In Venice, we were less than a mile from Saint Mark's square, and only a few hundred yards from a vaporetto stop off of the Grand Canal. In Florence, we were about a mile from the train station, and just 3 blocks from the famous Ponte Vecchio bridge over the River Arno. In Rome, we were just 500 yards from the entrance to the Vatican, much to my Mom's delight! Here are the apartments we rented:

Click here for our Venice Apartments

Click here for our Florence Apartment

Click here for our Rome Apartment

Train Tickets

I was most concerned with buying and using train tickets in Italy. What exactly is this process of "validation" that all the websites mention? Is buying tickets confusing? Is finding the right train, or the proper seat difficult? It turns out buying tickets and riding trains is a straight forward task that you will quickly master.

Before we left on our trip, I went to the Train Italia website to figure out which trains traveled between the cities on the days that we wanted to depart. Click here for Train Italia website Since our entire trip was inside Italy, we did not get Eurorail passes. We bought point to point tickets, rather than getting multi-day passes. I did not buy the tickets until we got to Italy, but I used the website to tell me what trains were available, how much they cost, and when they departed and how long the trip was. For example, here was my chart for the available trains on the day we wanted to go from Venice (Venezia) to Florence (Firenze).

Departure	Arrival	Duration	Train number	Category	Adult Fare, 2nd Class
10:43 Venezia S. Lucia	13:22 Firenze S.M. Novella	02:39 Hours	9641	Alta Velocita	32.30 Euros
12:43 Venezia S. Lucia	15:22 Firenze S.M. Novella	02:39 Hours	9473	Eurostar	32.30 Euros
13:23 Venezia S. Lucia	16:25 Firenze S.M. Novella	03:02 Hours	9641	InterCity Plus	23.50 Euros

Alta Velocita and Eurostar are the high speed, new trains. They make the fewest stops. The Intercity and Intercity Plus trains make more stops but they seemed to be in pretty good shape. The Regional trains are the cheapest, slowest, most crowded and most graffiti covered. Regional trains do not have reserved seats. We rode a Regional train back from Pisa, and it had a window that would not close, but otherwise it got us back to Florence just fine.

Note: Florence has 3 train stations. Be sure you get a ticket to the main station in Florence, Santa Maria Novella. In Venice, you want tickets to the station Santa Lucia (not Mestre, which is on the mainland). Rome's train station is Roma Termini. Pisa's station is Pisa Centrale. Naples station is Napoli Centrale.

We bought all of our tickets using the grey & yellow automatic ticketing machines in the train stations. It has a touch screen which easily walks you through the necessary steps. We bought our tickets a day or two before each of our rides, and we had no trouble getting reserved seats. It was not necessary to buy tickets before arriving in Italy. Using the automatic ticket machines is a GREAT time saver because the lines at the train ticketing windows were quite long! Plus, the ticket machines work 24 hours a day.

How easy is it to use the automated machines? Simple, once you know what train you want to ride. This was where my table of available trains came in handy, but it turns out the same information is printed on train schedules in each station. I have highlighted your responses.

Select Language: English

Issue Ticket? Yes (I didn't understand this question, why would you buy a ticket but not have it issued? Just to make a reservation??

Select Destination: Firenze (You spell out the destination on a keyboard, but after the first few letters, it becomes clear where you want to go and it fills in the rest of the city name.)

Date: 23/9/2008 (In Italy, they list the Day, then the Month, then the Year).

Time: 10 - 12 (This is asking for an approximate starting time. Italy uses the 24 hour clock, what we call military time)

The machine will now display all available trains leaving between 10 and 12 going to your selected destination

Select correct train time and train number: 9641 (See table above)

Issue Ticket? Yes

Class? Standard (not any kind of discounted fare for students, military or whatever)

Number Adults? 4

The machine now displays a summary of the train ticket you have selected so far.

Select seats. The machine shows an arrangement of seats, sort of like an airline seat selection guide. Note: you only get what is available, you don't always get the window seats that you select! But they will be close to each other.

Ticket? 2nd class

How will you pay? Credit Card (You can pay using cash at these machines, but we find it a good idea to perserve our cash for all the many places that didn't take credit cards.)

Fidelity Card Name?

The machine will now ask you to slide in your credit card. It will print only one ticket for all the members in your party. Don't forget to retrieve your credit card!

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Baggage

We went to Italy with only one carry on bag each. Carry on rules specify you are allowed one carry on bag with maximum dimensions of 21 inches by 15 inches by 9 inches. Melanie used her new Rick Steve's carry on bag, she got the blue one. Click to see Melanie's carry on. I used a pack from High Sierra. Click to see my pack. I liked the High Sierra pack, because the day pack detached from the main bag, so we could use it around the city. Unfortunately, the zipper that attaches the day pack to the main bag broke the second time we unzipped it. However, when we got home, High Sierra replaced the defective bag with a brand new one.

We carefully weighed our bags before leaving. I carried the guide books the pockets of my jacket so they would not count as part of the weight of our bags. We flew on Lufthstansa on the way to Europe, and on Scandinavian Airlines on the way back. But at neither gate did anyone weigh our bags to check against the 8 kilogram (17 pounds) carry on limit.

Be sure that the shoes you wear are comfortable. We were on our feet all day long. The surface we walked upon was pavement, marble or stone. For the first few days of the trip, my legs and hips ached by the end of the day, until I got used to being on my feet for so long.

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Maps and Guide Books

Originally, we bought the Let's Go Guide to Italy, and Rick Steves' Italy 2007 guide. But then we found in the library Rick Steves' guides for Venice, Florence and Rome. These are terrific guides. Rick Steves' gives excellent descriptions on what to see, how and when to get there, how long to expect to stay in each site, how to buy passes for discounts, strategies for avoiding long lines, what to pack, etc. I can HIGHLY recommend these guide books if you are visiting Venice, Florence, and Rome (these books also include useful information about day trips - for example, the Florence book has a chapter on visiting Pisa, and the Rome book has chapters on Tivoli and Pompeii.)

We bought the Rough Guide maps to Venice, Florence and Rome. These are excellent maps. It is important to bring your own maps. The Tourist Information centers offer free maps but they are much harder to read and lacking in the necessary detail. Rough Guide Maps: HIGHLY recommended!

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Photography

Bring more batteries and memory cards than you ever expect to use. Batteries are very expensive, and some of the packs of rechargable batteries that we bought over there did not come charged! So we ended up buying a battery charger too.

Try to make a habit of taking a picture of signs. If you are in a museum that allows photography, take a picture of the sign after each sculpture. While walking through the cities, take pictures of the church names or fountain signs - this is very helpful when you get home and discover you have 500 pictures of churches, but no idea which they are called. The sign pictures will be discarded after you have put together you scrapbook, slide show, or webpage, but they are very helpful.

Take some pictures of closeups to show details - I am especially pleased with how closeup photos of some mosaics or carvings turned out. Also, try using flash outdoors to illuminate people in the foreground who otherwise maybe backlight by a bright sunny day. Or try taking interior shots with the flash off, some times the interior illumination is sufficient. I often tried both flash and non-flash photographs indoors, and then adjusted some of the results in Photoshop.

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