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.

Sunday night we flew to Naples (1 hr flight). We rented a car and later we found out that Naples drivers are the most unique of Italy. They don't stop at red lights, and they weave through traffic like nobody's business, especially late on Sunday nights. Even our taxi driver in Rome said he can't drive in Naples. We were glad to finally arrive at our hotel, Grand Hotel Santa Lucia. It was gorgeous! Be sure to ask for a water view if you stay here, the free breakfast is really nice.

Monday we drove to Positano. It was scenic and pretty. The drivers were better on this route. We checked into our hotel Villa Yiara. We ate lunch at Chez Black. There were celebrity pictures on the wall and it seemed like a famous place from the 50s. Our food was good. More expensive than Venice.

We took a ferry from Positano to the island of Capri. You arrive at a little town, Capri, with a funicular and some shops, it looks like it is from the 1950s. This is not the main town. The main town is Anacapri. We took a cab there (20 euro) but there is a bus. The bus looked very crowded and hot. The cabs are cute, convertible, some were historical cars. We took the funicular up which is why our cab was 20 euros but all the way from the ferry dock to Anacapri it is 25 euros, because that's how much it was for us to come back not using the funicular. We got a Capri bell at the first town, which is a very touristy thing to do, and I love my little bell! There are so many to choose from.

Once we got to Anacapri we took the chair lift to the top of the island. We loved this!! The birds, the nature, it was magnificent. Coming down is even more scenic but for us clouds and fog came in so the ride down wasn't as good as the ride up. My parents recommended a hike but we didn't have time. I forgot the name of the hiking path, Rick Steves talks about it. Some people go in the blue grotto (you have to take a special boat) but it eats up a lot of time so we did not do this either. They said the best time is at noon when the sun is shining in but you may have to wait a few hours to get on the little boat that takes you in there so it's tricky to plan the timing. I've heard it's fun though because you have to lean back in the boat just to fit through the little opening in the grotto.

I bought custom leather sandals at La Capri Chic. I have narrow feet so this was great to have sandals made specifically for my foot. I got two pairs (one for my sister's birthday) and they were willing to negotiate for two pair. It was hard to decide on the style. You can see options at Lacaprichic.com before going there if this is something you are interested in. Prices are high on the website. The store is better. I thought this particular store near the chair lift was very nice. I liked the people that worked there.

We took a cab back to the ferry and got some gelato and boarded the packed boat back to Positano.

One thing to consider in a hotel at Positano is if you want to be by the beach or up higher on the hill with better views. Because walking from the beach up is quite a hike! We had to go to our hotel and refresh but then we didn't want to come back down the hill for dinner so we ate at Gabrisa Restaurant near our hotel and it was fantastic.

Villa Yiara was a beautiful hotel and served us a huge breakfast to our room which we ate on our balcony. Then we checked out, got our car and drove to Amalfi. Driving from Positano to Amalfi is gorgeous! It reminded me of Highway 1 in California. We shopped around Amalfi and had lunch. We really enjoyed this town. 

After lunch we drove to Pompeii. We had a tour set up with Marcello at 3:30. This was about a 2 hour drive to get there through a lot of hills. We passed through cute little towns. Most people had a garden or vineyard in front of their house. We toured Pompeii with Marcello in about 2-3 hours. Then we drove to Naples and ate dinner at Pizzeria Pellone. We returned the rental car, took a taxi to the train station and rode the bullet train to Rome.
John had a work conference in Rome at PARCO DEI PRINCIPI GRAND HOTEL & SPA, so we stayed here. It was nice but the pool was not included with the room (you had to pay 18 euros extra) and when there was a problem with our neighbors shutting the hallway door between our two rooms the front desk was not helpful in letting us into our room, which was frustrating. But it was a nice place.

We had an early morning tour at the Vatican museums and Sistine Chapel The Official Pristine Sistine™ Tour: Enter before the Public | Walks of Italy This was an excellent tour. Lots of information. We got a little overloaded. Then we saw St. Peter's Square. In the afternoon we did a golf cart tour of all the other sights around Rome (Pantheon was my favorite): My Best Tour - Rome by Golf Cart - Eco Tours - Travel Agency For dinner we ate at Pierluigi Restaurant - The First Fish Restaurant Rome - Since 1938. The food was 5 stars, the best we had on the trip. But, it was expensive.

On Thursday John worked and I took a day trip to Tuscany: Rome to Tuscany Day Trip with Wine & Farm Lunch | Walks of Italy This was an awesome day and I highly recommend it. 

 

The lunch stop was at Spedalone, which is a BnB with a pool. They also host weddings. I'd love to come back here!

On Friday the spouse and daughter of John's coworker and I did a cooking class: https://www.airbnb.com/experiences/175961?guests=1&adults=1&s=67&unique_share_id=38b300dc-3dbf-492e-9aa5-df55c660b10d
We loved it! This was a lot of fun. 4 hours. Cookwithmamma on IG. She will do online classes too. Mother and daughter team. cookwithmamma.com She also was able to secure me a hair appointment with her friend antonellabonihair on IG (Antonella Boni on whatsapp +39 334 242 6001). They were great for styling my hair for John's work event that night and doing my nails at the same time. A good price too.

On Saturday we did a food tour in Trastevere. https://www.airbnb.com/experiences/780789?guests=1&adults=1&s=67&unique_share_id=9909fc8e-d5cc-447f-925d-f44323725c38
Lots of different foods, it was good. It was crowded on a Saturday in this area and no room to sit or set your stuff down so eating was a bit of a juggling act.

We had work events Friday and Saturday nights. Sunday we flew home direct Rome to Chicago, 10 hours. Our flight left at 12:45 pm and we arrived back earlier than planned, 3:45 pm.

Taxi advice:  Download FreeNow taxi app to your phone before you go!! Taxis are hard to find in Rome. They will only pick you up at Taxi stops and sometimes there aren't any taxis at the taxi stops. FreeNow makes it easy to pay and it is the more affordable. They will come pick you up at your current location. We tried Uber and this is at least 25% more expensive. The cars are fancier but there aren't many of them and once we had to wait 30 minutes for one to show up. There was a taxi stop across from our hotel and usually a taxi was there but a few times there wasn't. You don't want to be late for your tours. Once I couldn't find a taxi so I went into a cafe and they called one for me, it came in about 5 minutes. Some people have had trouble with taxis ripping them off and FreeNow avoids that. We didn't have that problem and generally the taxi drivers were awesome. One guy in particular helped me find a motorcycle tshirt shop for the boys. It was closed, he called, did everything he could. He wrote down the address for me and I went back later and bought the tshirts. I was short a few euros to pay, I wanted to put on my CC and he said No, no, just took my payment short the euros.

Tipping:  Our Air BNB host told us we over tipped the airport transfer people (the service was expensive, so they were already getting paid well). 10 euro for the car driver, 10 euro for the boat driver. We didn't have anything less, it's tricky to coordinate this, we didn't know what was expected. She said 5 euro is more than enough and generally people in Italy don't expect tips, it's only if you think you got really amazing service. Our tour guides did really appreciate tips, esp. because of the covid experience of the last few years, business is just now picking up for them. At the hair salon they gave me great service for a low price so I tipped 20 euro and the ladies actually whooped it up. So do it if you think they deserve it! One waiter kept hinting at tips and it was a big turn off ("tip not included!" multiple times), it did not work in his favor with us unfortunately.

Money/ATM: We ended up needing a lot of cash on hand. Certain things were cash only (private tour guides, gondola ride, airport transfers, taxis and food under 15, tips, and that small tax you have to pay when you check in to a hotel/air bnb).  There were a lot of random ATMs but our guide told us that you really run the risk of getting a skimmer, the exchange rate is bad and the fees are high (he had money stolen from his account due to a skimmer). It's best to go to an ATM at a bank with security cameras surveilling and make sure no shady characters are keeping tabs on how much money you are getting out.

For covid logistics: We showed our vaccination cards at the aiport on the way there at the boarding gate (couldn't get Verifly to work). For our flight back we went to a Farmacia and paid about 25 euro per person to get the official covid test (rapid test is ok), the day before you leave (the calendar date, doesn't have to be within 24 hours). The farmacia's that do the testing have a white mobile unit out front. There are no lines because I think USA is the only one still needing this (not Europe). Also you have to wear KN95 masks there for the planes and trains still. They call it FF something something. That means KN95 to us.

International Driving permit: Certain rental car agencies require this in Italy. It's important to have if you get pulled over there or you run the risk of paying a high fine. We went to AAA a few days before our trip and it was only $20 and easy to get.

Shopping: Bring extra suitcase space! Buy those special items. You will treasure them. I think with the pricing, the tax is already included in the price so what you see is the price you get.