Planning Your Trip In Italy:
Where Should We Go?
From Mama Margaret’s Italy Travel & Food E-newsletter, December 28, 2011
You’ve decided to explore Italy for your 2012 vacation. Where to go? You face endless, tantalizing possibilities and feel like shouting, “Help!” Help is on its way…right here.
1. “What kind of travelers are we?”
Choose the best regions for you.
Are you big wine lovers and want to experience your favourite wines right where they’re made with the producers? If you love Amarone, choose the Veneto. For Barolo---Piedmont. For Chianti or Brunello—Tuscan y. For Nero D’Avola—Sicily.
If food is your number one priority in life , ask yourself, “What kind of Italian food?” For silk -like pasta, Emilia-Romagna. For healthy vegetable dishes and seafood, the Riviera or Puglia among others.
If you love adventures in nature, what season to go? In winter, you can ski in the Dolomites north of Venice, in the mountains near Turin in Piedmont or on Mount Etna in Sicily.
In summer, you can hike on paths on the Amalfi Coast or in hills in many parts of Tuscany and Umbria. Italy’s two coasts of beaches may beckon you like in Sardinia, the Riviera and Calabria.
If you adore art, what period of art and architecture? Florence focuses mostly on the Renaissance. For me, Rome shines for the antiquities and Baroque. Puglia offers imposing castles, Greek temples, quaint trulli houses, white Greek -like hill towns.
Find regions that match your passions. How? Check out the “Learn About Italy” section of our web site.
2. “What kind of travelers are we?” Slow or fast?
Do you like to settle in one place, hang out for a few days and get a good feel for life, food, wine and culture there? If you have a week, pick one region as a base, or two regions a short trip apart. If you have two weeks, choose two or three regions. You’ll avoid spending too much time traveling and getting settled in too many hotels.
Some flights cost less money and time than longer train rides. For example, flying from Rome to Catania in Sicily takes one hour and costs from 98 Euros return so you could do Rome and eastern Sicily in a week.
Do you want to see as much as you can in the short time you have? Plan to stay at least two, or better three nights in each place.
Travel time between places can eat up half a day door to door . Venice to Florence is about two hours by train. But add time to get to the train in Venice from your hotel, find your train in Venice (assuming you bought tickets in advance), get from the Florence train station to your hotel and get settled, and time for the unexpected. You’ve lost a morning.
If you stay night #1 in Florence, tour Florence day #2, stay in Florence night #2 and leave day #3, you’ve spent about 1.5 days there. Hardly doing this magnificent cit y justice.