3 Weeks in Europe

[Aeneas]

The most innocuous of threads is filled with so much vitriol.
I guess I don't read enough CP to understand where all the inside jokes and hatred comes from. Any chance you could all just keep it to PM's?

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by Aeneas

The most innocuous of threads is filled with so much vitriol.
I guess I don't read enough CP to understand where all the inside jokes and hatred comes from. Any chance you could all just keep it to PM's?

A travel-advice thread is serious business...

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by Hi-Psi

Actually could you do everyone a favor and disappear from this forum? Your posts are absolutely useless and the last thing this site needs is more useless posts.

Aww that is so cute. Newbie is trying to fit in.

[4X4]

re: FurnaceFace

Originally Posted by Aeneas

There are many interesting sights near Assissi.
I would keep Pisa to a minimum, half day at the most. Just my opinion.
I could show you a book/pics of Orvieto, bet you'll want to see it.

5 days is great for Rome, you can do well in 3 days but you will be pressed for time.

Are you museum goers? If so, make sure you book ahead for the Uffizi, Bargello academia in Florence. really nice if you can be the first group in the Uffizi when it opens.
When hitting the highpoints of Florence (museums, Duomo, etc.) do not forget the Pallazo Vecchio and Santa Croce (Tombs are amazing)

Cinque terre is simply stunning. Hope you do the hike.

Do Pisa as a stop along the way to Lucca from Florence, if you're going to check out Lucca. I recommend staying a night in Lucca, but I'm biased. Take the train from Florence to Pisa, slam your bags into the lockers at the train station, take two hours to go check out the leaning tower and the cathedral, then proceed to Lucca.

Poor Pisa. I feel bad about sending people right through the place, but man, that is one ugly, boring town. Lucca, on the other hand, is a town that you could easily kill a few hours exploring, and even stay in for a night.

Stick with 5 days in Rome. Or at least 4. Vatican is a whole day. Imperial Rome (all the ruins around town) is a whole day. Catacombs is half a day. Wandering Trastevere (which, IMO, is one of the best things to do in Rome) is half a day. Ostia Antica is a day. Supper should take two hours, after which you should still wander around and see some of the nightier stuff like Spanish steps and trevi fountain. And even just wandering around back to piazza venezia and colosseo to see it lit up at night.
If you're going with a woman, she's probably gonna want to shop. Just so much to do there, you MUST stay more than 3 days. So many good restaurants. So many monuments, fountains, churches, ruins.


And CinqueTerre is amazing. Do the hike. Stay there a couple of days and take a little time checking out each town. Wear comfortable shoes. Take the boat from Montorosso to La Spezia so you can see all the towns from a few hundred meters out. I stayed in La Spezia, Rio Maggiore, and Montorosso. I had the most fun staying in Montorosso (by a country mile). La Spezia isn't part of the 5 towns, it's the city closest to Cinque Terre.

[Aeneas]

I guess I say Rome in 3 because I don't shop and I don't mind getting up early and getting at it. I compressed your schedule by going to the Vatican museum first thing, then the rest of the Vatican by noon.

Spent the afternoon of that day in Trastevere.

For sure imperial Rome deserves a day. This last trip I actually took guided tours of the Colosseum and the forum. Normally I just do that on my own, thinking I know enough. I will say I was glad I did, it didn't cost too much and did have enough information to entertain.

I wanted to see all of the Basilicas of Rome this trip, and every Michaelangelo piece in Rome; so I walked all over the city.

Had I 5 days to spare I would have gladly relaxed more. There is just so much more to see outside of Rome, that I felt 3 days was it.

To each his own.
Also wasn't my first trip to Rome, so that made it easier to get around.

[Cowperson]

Mrs. Cowperson and I were in Rome for eight days a few years ago, ensconsed in a small but expensive hotel on a non-touristy street about a 10 minute walk from the Vatican. It was roughly day 7.5 that we realized we hadn't done any shopping for either ourselves or anyone else . . . . . we'd simply been living in the city, wandering around mostly on foot, seeing things, experiencing things, grazing when we felt like it. Very nice experience. I particularly enjoyed getting up at about 5:45 or 6 a.m. and going for long runs in a mostly deserted Rome, something most people probably don't see.

We spent some nice days in the hilltop town of Radda-in-Chianti in Tuscany, didn't really enjoy much about the very touristy Florence and had a strangely interesting time in a place everyone wondered why we'd bothered visiting, Milan.

The principal lesson I think we've picked up in our wanderings around Europe - and I'd include New York maybe - is to pay the money required to park yourself in the centre of a place for many days and use your feet to get around. You'll have a better experience than trying to blitz a whole bunch of different towns/cities.

Cowperson

[FurnaceFace]

I seem to have turned this thread into another tangent - sorry to the original poster. As you can tell though, there are many here who have Europe experience so if you have specific questions, go for it.

Pisa was always a stop along the way. Everything I've read says it's not really worth it for longer so the plan was to hit it on the way to Lucca or as an afternoon when staying in Lucca.

Hiking the Cinque Terre was also assumed in our travel plans.

I am lucky, Mrs Furnace isn't a huge shopper...although there will be a shoe buying event in Florence I'm sure. When last we were in Italy she got a flu so we decided to just head back to Paris fast. We were in Venice, taking the train across, and even though she was sick, we spent time on our stopover in Florence going to the shoe stores.

I had mentioned to 4x4 earlier I found an apartment on Piazza della Rotonda with balcony views of The Pantheon. I believe that will be our Rome home base.

Some of my favourite things about Europe - and traveling in general - is just wandering around the streets getting lost and looking at nothing but just everyday life. The Barri Gotic in Barcelona is perhaps my favourite walking area.

[CrusaderPi]

Originally Posted by Hi-Psi

Actually could you do everyone a favor and disappear from this forum? Your posts are absolutely useless and the last thing this site needs is more useless posts.

Thanks for the input December '09.

[4X4]

Piazza della rotonda! We almost acquired a gorgeous apartment there. That'd be an amazing place to stay. That's about a 5 minute walk from where my apartment ended up being. Smack dab in the middle of Rome, with everything a short walk away.
Just some advice, EVERYTHING inside of a 5-10 minute walk of that area is touristy and therefore overpriced. To eat, walk directly south and go straight down via arenula and cross over into Trastevere. Go in a few blocks and find some hole in the wall restaurant to eat at. 10x better food, probably cheaper, and you'll get the full experience of the bread, the wine, the 5 courses... F*** I love that city.

[FurnaceFace]

I expect we'll do most meals in the apartment. Might as well use the kitchen while we have one. We'll splurge on a night in Rome and then elsewhere. We really do like cooking for ourselves as you get to interact with the locals a bit more and feel more like you're "living there".

[4X4]

Originally Posted by FurnaceFace

I expect we'll do most meals in the apartment. Might as well use the kitchen while we have one. We'll splurge on a night in Rome and then elsewhere. We really do like cooking for ourselves as you get to interact with the locals a bit more and feel more like you're "living there".

pm me before you go

[St Loomis]

Originally Posted by Jagger

I had to laugh at this. Before we had kids my wife and I did quite a lot of travel to 'interesting' places. Since kids we still travel but much more safely.

Anyway, we were in Marrakesh, Morocco where the hustlers can be insane. We'd been traveling for about five weeks at that point and I had a full on beard, big shades, French Legionnaires type hat, hadn't showered in a while! I looked a right prat probably. I was approached by a hustler type who wanted to buy the lady for $1000. When I declined he then offered to buy her for a camel! Once I told him that she was my wife he completely backed down sheepishly, was really apologetic for offending me, and made a quick exit. I've been married for close on 20 years to the 'lady' now and I still remind her occasionally that I could have sold her for a cool grand! (There's days I tell ya........)

Fun to look back on now. But yeah, be careful in some of these places.

It sounds to me like you were in Morocco a long while back. I was there for a month this past summer and found it to be extremely safe. There were no hustlers unless you consider people selling rugs, spices etc. to be hustlers. Sorry, just had to defend Moroccos honour, it is a great place to go.

[FurnaceFace]

Originally Posted by 4X4

pm me before you go

We don't go until September, so lots of time.