Trip Info for Italy

It's hard to see it all and we had just 9 days so we chose our personal top favorite cities to see. On the list for next time: Florence, Cinque Terre, and Lake Como.

There was not a direct flight from Chicago to Venice. We stopped in Philadelphia- American Airlines. I've heard there are some direct flights in the summer. I would avoid summer because it was pretty hot when we were there in May (unusually hot though, they said) and also pretty crowded. It's hard to know when to go then if you are planning to take your kids. 

We left on a Thursday afternoon and arrived on a Friday morning. We rented the following Air BnB:

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/43667092?guests=1&adults=1&s=67&unique_share_id=a2572855-fece-416a-b95b-95a1fae95b64

I wanted a canal view and I couldn't find a hotel room available on a canal (we were planning a bit last minute). This was a nice, spacious Air bnb on a canal (I just didn't like the shower- really hot then really cold, very small). The host helped arrange for us a private transfer/boat from the airport. Pricey (150 euro one way) but we were confused on how the boats worked and how to get into our air bnb from the canal and we were traveling all night so we chose to do it this way for our sanity. Also keep in mind rolling your suitcases across cobble stone. If you are not going straight to your hotel/air bnb via a boat then you might have to be lugging those suitcases on foot A LONG WAY. And ours were BIG. I've heard bad stories in my travel groups. You can take a boat yourself all the way from the airport if you want to save money, it's inexpensive, but could be rough (seasick), takes longer (maybe 45 mins to 1 hr) and then you have to get to your location in Venice from the ferry dock (ok if you pack light and you are savvy with the boats and lugging your bags). I also recently read that the area of Venice where you get off the airport boat shuttle is a hot bed for pickpockets so watch out. 

Venice is confusing to navigate and it took us a day or two to get the data working on our phone (change the settings to ROAM and have the international plan). It's actually a lot bigger island/s than I thought. People say to "get lost in Venice." We did and it was interesting, we found the slummy areas of Venice and discovered where real Venetians lived, but after awhile you just want to get home. There are no cabs, bikes, or anything to get you to your home. Just your feet or a boat. Also keep in mind that there are only 4 bridges across the Grand Canal so you may have to go a bit out of your way to go home. Or there are boats that will take you across the grand canal for 2 euros (but only at certain spots and not later at night). We had to go over the Rialto bridge a lot and it is very crowded. I think this is why Venice gets a bad reputation 1) the beaten path is very beaten 2) It's easy to get lost 3) Crowded 4) Most people don't want to walk 11 miles in one day. Maybe we would've done better if we figured out the boat service on the Grand Canal but we were more trying to go across the canal vs up and down it. I read the Rick Steves guide book and then bought a detailed map on his advice. That was not a good idea. In the words of our tour guide each little island has similar sounding street names since they all have a church. Plus the names on the map were so small you couldn't read them anyway. There is one big main pedestrian path called the ACV or something (similar to the boat system) so once you figure that path out, then use your phone to get to your location off the main path. Once I had the directions on my phone it would feed to my apple watch where to turn which was cool. Then I pulled my phone out only in case more details are needed. Sometimes there were mouse maze like areas and it was best just to follow the crowd, even if it seemed like a small little alley, otherwise you are probably going down a dead end! Here's a helpful blog explaining how to figure Venice out if you are interested in all the little details. One street name means dead end, I wish we had known!  Becoming Italian Word by Word: Walking Venice in the Italian Language (typepad.com).

Once we got the hang of things we enjoyed very nice inexpensive meals and were able to get home stress-free and relaxed. The streets off the main path are breath taking and it is fun to soak it all in. The off the beaten path tours were helpful to see the quaint areas you might miss.

In the afternoon we did a gondola ride and toured the Doge's Palace. Our first evening we did an air bnb experience of bacari tastings https://www.airbnb.com/experiences/208326?guests=1&adults=1&s=67&unique_share_id=39d5ef8e-ebd1-4ee6-b91b-b2861d9e74d9

Saturday morning we did a photo tour of beautiful spots around Venice: https://www.airbnb.com/experiences/763713?guests=1&adults=1&s=67&unique_share_id=3a70966b-9411-489a-9fb0-8655b5a75e8d

We just got our photos back, this was fun. I wish we had waited to do our gondola ride for this photography tour, which is what he suggested, but I missed that. Gondola rides are expensive 80 euro - 120 euro so you only want to do it once. Over by the Bridge of Sighs/San Marco square the rides are 120 euro during the day to see the main sights/40 minute tour (this was not exlained to us and we thought we were getting ripped off). Otherwise they are 80 euro during the day from other spots and 120 euro in the evening. By San Marco square you get to see the most touristy bridges but the gondoliers are a bit jaded there. Our photographer (Devin) recommended a great gondolier with an awesome tweaked out boat, maybe we should've done that instead but I was excited to see the bridge of sighs on a gondola!! I've heard it's more romantic to do your gondola ride in the evening. Too many choices!

In the afternoon we did a history tour off the beaten track with Riccardo. He was very good and explained things thoroughly, with pictures. 

https://www.airbnb.com/experiences/244737?guests=1&adults=1&s=67&unique_share_id=16662f0b-19a2-4429-808c-f974f6e696a7

He can be found on IG @shooting_different and does photography tours as well. More than a few of the tour guides were depressed from the loss of income due to Covid lockdowns. I think it hit them pretty bad and they said that the Italian government did not give them any funds to help them through. [EDITED: I met a man that worked as a chef in Venice and he assured me that the government must've given them some funds during covid- not their full salary, but maybe 75-85% of their salary.] A lot of our guides had master degrees and were well educated.

Our guide from the bacari/chichetti tour booked us a meal at Osteria Mocenigo for Saturday night and we thought we got a good value, lots of wine for cheap (side story below), and the food was really good. Plus they gave us 10% off since our guide booked it for us. Dinner bookings don't start until 7 pm. It's less crowded in the evening in Venice.

Side story on the wine at Oseteria Mocenigo. We asked the waiter how much is .25 l?? He showed us an amount which was about 10% of our wine glass. So we ordered the .5 l and then out comes two carafes, one for John, one for me! Wow, for 8 euros. We were over served here! It was funny trying to walk home after that. We came across a big party/gathering in a courtyard. We didn't stay. I read that you get the best deal with the house wine and it's usually very good, this was true for us.

On Sunday we had a wonderful tour to the islands of Torcello, Burano (lace), and Murano (glass). The ferry boat left close by to our air bnb. We were debating doing this and I'm so glad we did! I think it's a must when visiting Venice.

https://www.airbnb.com/experiences/507349?guests=1&adults=1&s=67&unique_share_id=4e1626ab-ee88-4c52-877e-bbaeb29550cd
Torcello was the first island and we saw the Michelin star restaurant on the Stanley Tucci CNN show. The restaurant on the show is Venissa, on the island of Mazzorba (they are all right next to each other). For the foodies, there is a hotel there if you want to stay on this island. Torcello only has 20 people living there. These islands were inhabited before the main island of Venice with a lot of historical artifacts on Torcello (5th century stuff)- a church, a tower, our guide said something about invasions by famous conquerors. I'm going to have read more about the history, I had trouble understanding our guide with his accent. I was excited by the lace making store on Burano and we bought some towels there, that place felt magical. We got to meet the youngest lace maker and saw how she makes the lace. Seeing how "young" she was made me worry who was going to carry on the lace making tradition!  Everything here was glorious but $$$. Pictures of celebrities on the walls. They gave us a receipt in an envelope to drop into the box at the Global Blue office at the airport. We did this and you get 22% tax vat back from your purchase! It was a lot easier than expected. The office wasn't even open, I dropped it in and got the credit back to my CC. I didn't have to fill anything out- they did all the pre work for me at the store. At the glass factory on Murano we saw a really interesting demonstration on glass blowing as well. Lots of Venetian glass chandeliers. These were very expensive. It made me have more appreciation for the ones I saw in hotels. In the gift shop you can get cute little ornaments and earrings for reasonable prices. Our tour guide was very enthusiastic and funny but sometimes I had trouble understanding his English (the others in our group did too) and I really wanted to know what he was saying. 

When we got back to Venice we walked through the historic Jewish neighborhood.

Adding a Venice hotel recommendation. I was going through our pictures and I took a picture of a very charming looking hotel with a nice garden. We did not see the inside, so read tripadvisor reviews but I would look into this place for next time because it looked adorable. Historical dwelling Palazzo Abadessa Official Site | 4 star hotel in Venice.  The Gritti Palace is the most famous hotel in Venice but it looks to cost $$$$- this is where Stanley Tucci stayed on his CNN show.

In my FB Italy travel group several people say they do not like Venice. Their reasons are "too touristy, feels like a theme park, it's not real, real people don't live there, too crowded." My feelings are they did not get off the beaten path because we loved it. It is authentic, it was built 500 plus years ago. I think staying at our Air BnB on the canal helped our experience. We saw real people every day walking to their homes with their dogs (not on leash, but there are no cars so it's safe). We saw kids on their scooters, kids playing ball, kids walking to school, university students, a few homeless people. One kid was subtly bullying another kid and John and I were wanting to intervene but didn't know how and the moment passed quickly. It's good to walk around the non crowded parts, take tours from real Venetians. If we had more time there I would've liked to have visited the art museums, gone to the opera, gone to more restaurants off the beaten path, taken a tour of the Jewish neighborhood (we walked through but we needed a guide). I loved to just sit and look at the boats passing on the canal. It would be great to get a site seeing boat ride through the canals (more than just a gondola ride), to see the little canals. Our water taxi from the airport was so much fun. We also enjoyed stopping at the corner cafe and eating Cicchetti or gelato. Cicchetti are little pieces of bread with interesting things on top and only 2 euro a piece (at our spot, maybe a little bit more other places). You can have 2-4 for lunch or for a little snack. They are perfect. Walking on our way home there was a little nail salon in a home with a sign on the window (I wish I went!), there was always laundry hanging out to dry. So many comforters hanging to dry in Venice and in the Amalfi coast area! It made me think I wasn't washing my comforters enough. A lot of tourists come just for the day to Venice and one guide told us they were thinking about making a limit to the number of day visitors and once it passed a certain number make them pay a fee to control the crowds. I felt the tourists there were mainly Italian and a few from other European countries. We met a few Americans on our Venetian tours and a couple from California at a restaurant. When we went to Positano it felt like everyone we ran into was American. There are a lot less people on the island of Venice in the evening.

 TRIP INFO FOR GRAND CANYON AZ AND SOUTHERN UTAH

In December 2021 we finally got to go on our trip that was postponed from April 2020. We planned this big special trip for spring break and my 50th bday and it was delayed by 1.5 years but it was worth it.

We flew in to Phoenix because we wanted to see Scottsdale and Sedona but a lot of people fly into Las Vegas to see the Grand Canyon, Zion, and Bryce Canyon.

We like to drive and this trip involved a lot of driving but all of the driving was through GORGEOUS scenery and part of the experience.  There was a special and we upgraded our rental car to a BMW 330i, which we really enjoyed. We did hit some slippery snow but even though the car was rear wheel drive it handled it pretty well.

We packed a lot in 7 days. If you want to stay and do lots of hiking you'll have to extend your visit.

Itinerary:

Day 1: Arrived on a Sunday early afternoon and drove the few hours up to our hotel in the Grand Canyon. (if you have extra time it would be fun to stop in Flagstaff)

Day 2: AM: Took a helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon. Well worth this splurge! But you may have to be flexible when you do this, they cancel for high winds, or if it's cloudy/foggy. We got lucky and had perfect weather. We flew with Maverick Helicopters. It was 5 minutes from our hotel. In the afternoon we drove through Grand Canyon National Park and stopped at all of the lookout spots. One of my favorite stops was the Desert View Watchtower. It was cold but there wasn't big crowds. It was icy and scary to walk. We saw cool antelope. When we left the park we saw a bunch of people lined up to go into the park because they wanted to see the sunset. We missed the sunset. Probably would've been cool. But the line was very long. Also, when you go into the park buy the $80 annual national park pass because if you go to more than 2 parks it will be cheaper (otherwise it's $30/park).

Day 3: We drove from our hotel just outside of the Grand Canyon south rim entrance into the Grand Canyon and over past the Desert View Watchtower to the Cameron Trading Post for brunch. It was farther than we thought but we really liked the restaurant (recommended to us by someone at our hotel). Going through the park is the quickest way up north otherwise you have to drive south through Flagstaff adding on a few hours. It was cloudy and you couldn't see much of the Grand Canyon on this day. We stopped to see Horseshoe Bend which was really beautiful. You can just pull in, pay a small fee and walk over and see it. In the summer I've heard it is fun to go boating down in there. Then we continued on through Page to Zion. We stayed at the Zion Lodge at the bottom of the canyon. Coming in from this direction is quite an amazing and scary drive! You have to see it to believe it and it takes quite awhile going down all of the hairpin turns. You might feel like you are going to die. Either that or we are whimpy, but wow!! We arrived at our hotel and it was so quaint we couldn't stand it. But we also felt a little scared surrounded by massive rocky cliffs. We ate at the hotel restaurant which was good. You have to order your food at the entrance, before sitting down. Maybe this was temporary for covid.

Day 4: Snow had fallen and the hiking paths were slippery. We did the mini Emerald Pools hike. That was pretty and enough hiking for us on that chilly day. We drove to Bryce Canyon and saw the amazing Hoodoos. There were a couple of look out spots. It was scary and our fear of heights kicked in but the views were spectacular and I was a bit overcome with emotion. We drove back to Zion. There are two roads in and out to our hotel. The one we took most often- the big scary one with the tunnels and huge drop offs and then a short easy one to the other side of Springdale. The short easy drive has one main road that is full of cute restaurants, spas, shops, and hotels. Highly recommend! This would be a good spot to stay if you can't get in at the Zion Lodge. We had the best dinner here! Whiptail Grill.

Day 5: We left Zion Lodge early because there was lots of snow and we had to get to our Antelope X tour a few hours away. As we drove out there were lots of photographers with special equipment on the roofs of their vehicles for photography to get shots of the snow in the mountains. The antelope canyon tickets were tricky to get but glad we got them. Upper and Lower Antelope Canyon are more popular, Antelope X is a newer tour (5 years old) but we were very happy with it. Gorgeous!  https://www.antelopecanyon-x.com/ After touring Antelope X we ate at the Cameron Trading post restaurant again. Then we drove down to Sedona. This was probably our biggest driving day. The drive to Sedona was beautiful! We arrived, checked into our quaint hotel. Saw the sunset (great views from our hotel) and hiked up a nearby path to see the airport Mesa vortex. We walked from our hotel to Mesa Grill Sedona, another great restaurant we highly recommend. We had prickly pear cocktails.

Day 6: We were supposed to go on a pink jeep tour to see the Ancient Ruins and the Diamondback Gulch but because it rained overnight the trail wasn't in good shape and we couldn't go. Instead a guide took us into another park area and gave us a lot of personal stories and information. He was great and we enjoyed it a lot. I was a little disappointed to not see the Ancient Ruins though. Our guide has his own youtube channel of ancient ruins around Sedona:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtyYxKEusMbMHBURZaSY5Hg?app=desktop   After this we ate and shopped a little then drove to Scottsdale. It was New Year's Eve and we had dinner reservations at Zinc Bistro. We also wanted to watch Michigan play in the Orange Bowl. After dinner we went to the hotel lobby bar where lots of families were hanging out watching the bowl games. It was so fun and they had live music. I highly recommend the Westin Kierland! We met other Michigan fans and talked at length with a man, Ashish, that graduated the year after me. He was a local but had a "scotch locker" at the hotel. There was a special scotch event there that night. Who knew such things existed. He said this was the largest Scotch Library in the country. 

Day 7: We had a wonderful brunch at the Herb Box. We took a massive hike, the Freedom Trail at Squaw Peak. Ate sushi for dinner. Noah and John hung out at the lobby bar again listening to the live music.

Day 8: Anne and Cole went down to the lazy river at the hotel. This area was really nice. It was chilly for it but I wanted to experience that lazy river and I did! This would be a fun hotel to come for a girls weekend. There is also a big golf course. We ate lunch at NYPD Pizza and then went to the Desert Botanical Garden. The airport was close by and we caught our flight home. Old wonderful friends from our kids PreK class from Chicago were on our flight!! That was a great surprise.

Hotels:

The Grand Hotel at the Grand Canyon- I think we overpaid here. The location was good but our rate was bad. It was an OK hotel, I wouldn't pay more than $200/night. Indoor pool and hot tub which was nice.

Zion Lodge- I was glad we were able to stay here! Next time I would try to stay in one of their cabins. Our room was a little noisy from the neighbors. Our rate was good. I recommend! (but they book up quick, our original trip I was unable to book here)

Sky Ranch Lodge Sedona- gorgeous views. Loved this old tyme but newly updated hotel. Nice outdoor pool and hot tub. We had a back porch with a great view.

Westin Kierland Scottsdale- expensive but really nice. We met lots of friendly interesting guests. The pool area is great. Lazy river, hot tub. Lots of different sunning areas. The only negatives- it's huge and you have to walk a long ways to get places. If you don't want to valet your car you have to park it across the street so that adds another 10 minutes of walking when you want to go out for dinner.

Restaurants:

Plaza Bonita, Grand Canyon- Mexican. This place was packed. The ambiance wasn't great but the food was pretty good. We had to wait a long time and while eating there were lots of people in close proximity (Covid concern).

Big E Steakhouse, Grand Canyon- this is a big touristy place with pretty decent food but not my favorite. They show a video of all the amazing sites in northern AZ.

Foodie Club, Grand Canyon- your lunch basics.

Cameron Trading Post- we went here twice- we really enjoyed the chili, the grilled cheese, and other comfort foods.

Whiptail Grill, Springdale, UT- the dinner was A+, not too expensive, just really good. I had a taco salad that was fresh and delish.

Sedona Pizza Company, Sedona- this pizza was fine but not our favorite

Mesa Grill, Sedona- this was really good and we enjoyed it a lot. Prickly Pear cocktails. John had an excellent ribeye steak. Special experience.

Zinc Bistro, Scottsdale- French food, good!

BEI Sushi, Scottsdale- local sushi place it was OK, service not great

NYPD Pizza, Scottsdale- Great pizza

The Herb Box in old town Scottsdale- we LOVED this place for brunch.

TRIP TO ACADIA NATIONAL PARK in BAR HARBOR, MAINE

 In August 2021 all 15 of us in my extended family went to Bar Harbor, Maine for 7 days/nights. We stayed the entire time at Bar Harbor Inn (https://barharborinn.com/) which was beautiful and full of charm. I would recommend this hotel because 1) gorgeous views abound of the harbor! 2) we had a nice balcony to sit out and enjoy it 3) there is a walking path that goes by the front of the hotel to enjoy the views in a different way 4) there is a really good free breakfast 5) wonderful outdoor pool 6) the hotel is historical with beautiful flowers and walking paths 7) nice restaurants 8) Walking distance (5 mins) to town. There is not good parking in town, so walking is preferable. Our favorite restaurant was the Terrace Grille, which was outside, and had great views of the harbor. The problem was that everybody else likes the view at this restaurant too so the wait to get a table can be long. The hotel gives you a "cut in line" pass for the restaurant but it only worked against people not from the hotel and it didn't save us much time. Also, if the weather is bad they will close up quickly. The only con about this hotel was for our large group it was hard for us to find a place to hang out together to play cards and games. For this reason, I would consider renting an Air BnB house on the water. There were several beautiful ones but I'm sure they are booked up quickly! And one last thing to consider, we were able to rent out a big private dining area at the hotel for my parents 61st wedding anniversary with a lobster dinner. That was amazing. There was a balcony off the dining room overlooking the harbor (same one that's been there over 100 years) and we had a photographer come take family pictures since we are not all together too often. Another very nice hotel to consider in town is the Harborside Hotel. https://www.theharborsidehotel.com/

Getting to Bar Harbor: we drove from Chicago and stayed one night in Syracuse NY. Two days was plenty of time to get there. One the way back we took 3 days because we wanted to explore all the cute towns on the coast of Maine (Camden, Kennebunkport) and Newburyport MA. We enjoy driving and exploring and so this worked well for us. On the way back we stayed in Brattleboro, VT and then Jamestown, NY. We saw Lucille Ball's home and met up with Chicago friends at Chautauqua Lake. If you want to fly you'll probably have to go through Boston and take a tiny plane to the Bar Harbor airport (which is what my sister's family did and warning, it can be tricky to get an uber or taxi from this airport), or you could rent a car and drive up from Boston. Or fly in to Portland, Maine which is a bit of a drive from Bar Harbor (but less than Boston).

Some activities to do while in Bar Harbor:

Of course see Acadia National Park. There are many hikes, you can ride bikes, get up early to see the sunrise over Cadillac Mountain (get your reservation in advance- I think they are doing this a few months out due to covid). Do not try to ride your bike from Bar Harbor Inn to Acadia like we did. First, you'll get lost without navigation, it's up hill, it's farther then you think, you might get killed from the cars that are zooming up and down the hills. Just bring your bikes in on your car. We brought our bikes from Chicago and you can also rent them there but then you have to have a bike rack on your car.

Of course go whale watching! barharborwhales.com

Rock climbing! This was 100% worth it and amazing. I never thought I would do this but I loved it and they will tailor it to your abilities. Beautiful views! Adrenaline rush! Amazing! My niece had so much fun she wanted to go again a different day but they were all booked up. If your hips are not flexible you might struggle but it's still worth it for the views. I am afraid of heights but I was able to do this (I almost threw up looking at the pictures online but once I was there I was fine). https://www.climbacadia.com/

Sea Kayaking! www.acadiakayak.com This was a fun way to see birds, seals, and porpoises up close in the area away from the tourist crowd.

Fishing: we rented a boat just for our family (I think there was a limit of 6 people per boat). This was another scenic way to see the coast of Maine whether you like fishing or not. We stopped and talked to the lobster catchers (I am sure they have a more professional name) and it was fun to learn about lobster trapping.

At low tide there is a sand bar you can walk on over to a little island.

This really worked out well for a big family group trip to do these activities together. It is a special place where you might want to go every summer.

Restaurants: Eat lots of Lobster rolls! I really liked the ones with corn our first night at Geddy's. Other favorite restaurants: The aforementioned Terrace Grill overlooking the water, Thrive for lunch (casual, healthy!), Side Street Cafe for mac n cheese, Route 66 had good basics for the kids and no wait, Jeannie's Great Maine Breakfast and Jordan's Restaurant for breakfast, and Project Social for Tapas (the kids didn't like it though). Blaze had the best pizza. I really liked the Jordan Pond ice cream but Ben & Bill's was good too and also MDI ice cream is famous but very long lines and unusual flavors.