Posted by: Libbie Griffin | July 8, 2010

It’s time to try this again!

The Church of the Spilled Blood in St. Petersburg


Blogging is like working out — stop for a day and it’s lost for months. It’s time for me to “work out” again here, by beginning to write in my blog. I’ve thought of many things I’d like to share with you here. Let’s see how long I’ll continue this time!

Today I’m inspired to begin by a blog entry I just found about the White Nights celebration in St. Petersburg Russia. I’ll share this post with you: http://traveljungleuk.wordpress.com/2010/04/18/white-nights-festival-in-st-petersburg-russia/

More soon (I hope),

Libbie

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Posted by: Libbie Griffin | January 12, 2010

Sleeping in Ancient Places

The abbey at Fontevraux in France, once the burial place of Eleanor of Aquitaine, is now the site of a first class lodging and meeting facility.

Travelers in Europe seeking low-cost, clean and safe accommodations sometimes turn to the convents, monasteries and other religious organizations for lodgings. For many years nuns and monks have taken in travelers — actually, some of them have been doing it for centuries. Religious houses not only provide affordable accommodations, they are usually in very interesting, sometimes lavish, historical buildings. But until recently it has been difficult to find these places, even using the web.

At one time Santa Susanna, the America Catholic church in Rome, was something of a finding aid for locating religious houses there that took in visitors in Italy, but their website no longer offers that information. (See http://www.santasusanna.org/ for other useful information about Rome.)

A 1999 book entitled Bed & Blessings by June Walsh and Anne Walsh was very helpful, but it has never been updated. The number of religious houses offering accommodations has grown, and many of them now maintain websites and have email accounts. On-line translation services make it much easier to communicate in advance of a visit. The Walsh’s book was written before the Internet became so widely used so there’s been a need for a new, similar volume.

Now there are a number of books on the market listing religious houses which accept paying visitors. Recently I purchased two of them. Good Night and God Bless: A Guide to Convent & Monastery Accommodation in Europe: Austria, Czech Republic, Italy by Trish Clark seems to be a very thorough listing of places available in the countries it covers. The book itself is a work of art, beautifully produced. The properties listed range from simple convents where a room or two are made available to expensive hotels in former monasteries. If you’re planning a trip to the countries covered, you may discover not only affordable lodgings but also unique experiences by referring to this book while making your plans. I hope the author and publisher plan to cover the other countries of western Europe in future volumes.

Kevin J. Wright’s focus is more religious. He’s authored several books including Europe’s Monastery and Convent Guesthouses. I found the listings in his book to be less than useful for the casual visitor and directed to the pilgrim who is seeking places offering religious experiences.

Amazon lists several other books including those specifically about other countries in western Europe.

The rules established by the orders offering accommodations vary greatly. If you plan to stay in a religious house, be sure you know in advance what the rules for that particular place are. Getting locked out at 10:00 pm. is a possibility — and could really spoil your night on the town.

Libbie

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Posted in Italy, Traveler's Tips, Uncategorized

Posted by: Libbie Griffin | January 11, 2010

The Touring Club has a new home — a chilly one!

The Touring Club has a new home! Last week our new office at 222 Craven Street in New Bern opened. It was a very busy first week! And a very cold one.

The office is in a drafty 19th century building that was originally New Bern’s city hall. As just about everywhere else in the northern hemisphere, New Bern has been suffering through an arctic chill that won’t go away. This morning, according to Google’s weatherman, it’s 15 degrees as I write this, at a little after 8:00 a.m. There’s ice on the pond outside my window. In our eight winters in North Carolina I’ve never experienced weather like this!

The move to an office was primarily inspired by my decision to focus more on selling travel and less on creating and leading tours. Although TTC will continue to offer day trips, short breaks and accompanied cruises, for now I’m not planning tours that require me to be someplace far from home months from now. Instead The Touring Club has expanded from being a cruise-only agency to a full-service travel company with an emphasis on helping people plan perfect travel that is affordable.

Now that the move is finished, I’ll try to get back to writing this blog more regularly. It’s always been my intention to use Practical-Tourist to share ideas that involve less expenditure and more authentic experiences. And that’s the sort of travel arrangements I plan to help clients of The Touring Club make when they come to TTC’s new office.

Libbie

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Posted in About me

Posted by: Libbie Griffin | December 23, 2009

An English Christmas

Regent Street, London, at Christmastime

In 2001 we were in England at Christmastime. I thought it would be fun for the next couple of days to post the entries from my diary for those days, eight years ago, in Britain.

Sunday, December 23, 2001
Near London

What a nice weekend – London for Christmas was a good choice. Yesterday we went to the city to see Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral. The weather was cold but sunny and beautiful, and we wandered around town until 7:00, when we went to St. Martins in the field to hear a performance of Handel’s Messiah.

We began at the abbey. We’ve gone there twice before, but both times on Saturdays, when they close at 1:30, so we’ve never gotten in. Yesterday it was quite crowded, with many tourists from all over, including many Americans. It is an incredible place, a wealth of so many historical artifacts. The remains of a number of Saxon kings are there, as well as the bodies of several early kings. The coronation chair, on which 38 heads of state have been crowned. The bodies of so many famous people, including great men of arts and sciences, as well as many soldiers and statesmen. There are a great many huge, ornate tombs from the 17th and 18th centuries. The abbey itself is huge – very high – and very ancient – 11th century – and gloriously decorated in the most majestic manner. Unfortunately, they don’t allow photographs, and the booklet we bought shows only a small number of the articles in the abbey.

From there we went to St. Paul’s Cathedral. Surely there must have been a struggle for “best” between these two amazing churches for hundreds of years. St. Paul’s was designed by Christopher Wren in the mid 1600s to replace an older cathedral which was destroyed in the great fire in the City of London. It is fabulously ornate and wonderful, but it does not have the ancient artifacts and tombs, etc. that the older cathedrals and Westminster have. We had fantastic luck, and arrived there just as a choir from Cambridge University was performing a Christmas concert along with a choir of younger people. The acoustics in that great church are perfect – this is the site of the famous “whispering gallery” I remember reading about as a school girl. We sat in the magnificent nave, listening and sometimes joining into the singing when the congregation was asked to sing along. It was a special Christmas happening I won’t soon forget.

We then took the tube to Oxford Circus and walked up Regent Street to Piccadilly Circus. Regent is the best shopping street in London, and the sidewalks were totally packed with people. It was fun to be among them. We wandered over a block to Carmody Street, which is something of a leftover from the days of my youth, known for the Beatles and “mod” old 60s England. It still appears to be very popular with the young.

We walked up to Piccadilly Circus, and through Lillywhite’s, the British L.L.Bean. We then went to Trafalgar Square, where the evening concert was held. It was fun to hear the Messiah, to sit in that famous old church on ancient pews. There was a good-sized choir singing, and a small orchestra accompanying them. We went afterward to a restaurant called The Texas Embassy, where we had Mexican food. It tasted vaguely like it should, but wasn’t very good. English Tex-Mex!

We took the train back to this hotel. It is another of those Innkeeper’s Lodges that we’ve been using off and on since Chester. They are nice and cheap – a sale this weekend means we are only spending £30 per night – within 30 minutes of London and a block from the train. Good deal.

Today we went to Windsor Castle, but the traffic was so bad on the motorway that we got there too late. The cost was £20 ($30) and we would have only had 2 hours there. So we wandered around outside the walls and in the town. What an enormous place! George says it could hold a golf course, and I’m sure that’s true – maybe two golf courses. It would be neat to go inside it, but I doubt I ever will. [Actually we did go inside in June.] It is important, and I should have realized that sooner and made sure we saw it. It is Disney-ized, but historically important.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and we move to the hotel in Forest Row where we have expensive reservations. Having seen it once, I have my doubts about it. We’ll see. I hope it will be fun.

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Posted in London, Travelers' Tales

Posted by: Libbie Griffin | December 21, 2009

Going to Italy – Part 5: Rome

This picture is deceiving -- people walking calmly across the wide street at a traffic light is a rare occurence in Rome.

The very best piece of advice I can give you about Rome is this: never try to drive in Rome! No matter where in Italy you are when you head there, arrange to turn in your rental car at a train station and to take the train (TrenItalia) into Rome. All trains go to the station called “Termini” at the center of town, and from there you can take a taxi to your hotel. Walking in Rome can be an adventure — crossing the street can be a thrill! Driving should be left to the natives!

I made suggestions in my previous post for the first half of your second week, reserving the latter half for Rome. Three or four days are necessary to really begin to see all that Rome offers the tourist and the person with an interest in its history. Everywhere you walk in the center of the city, pieces of ancient Rome are there. And of course, the Forum, at the center of the ancient city, and the museums on Capitolina Hill above the Forum, hold the remains of that great civilization. You will also need a full day in the Vatican to experience both the basilica there and the Vatican Museum, the world’s greatest. But there’s much more to Rome than ruins and old churches and museums. Near the bottom of the Spanish Steps you’ll find trendy shops and fun people-watching. At the Piazza Navona, more of the same. Restaurants are wonderful! Gelato is everywhere. Rome is a hectic, intense city! It’s not to be missed.

I can recommend two hotels in Rome, but I’m sure there are a great many others that are equally good. Recently my group stayed at Hotel Modigliani near the Spanish Steps. Very well located near the metro and close to many good restaurants and shops, we walked from there on one day to the Forum and Colisseum, and the next day to the Vatican, via Piazza Navona. Not expensive by Roman standards, the hotel was very comfortable and the front desk staff was charming and extremely helpful.

When we returned to Rome at the end of our cruise/tour, my group stayed for one night in a Mercure hotel located northeast of the center of the city, but still on the metro and not too far from the center. The Mercure Piazza Bologna is a modern, business-class hotel with a bar and breakfast area; it’s very comfortable and again, the reception staff was more than patient and helpful. (Hotels designed for business travelers can be very affordable on weekends.)

The Leonardo daVinci airport which serves Rome (known as Fiumicino, code FCO) is located some distance from the city, and getting there can be expensive. I would recommend that you plan to go home on Sunday, as there will be less traffic to fight on your trip the airport — and also so you’ll have as much time as possible in Italy. Flights to the U.S. leave between 8:00 a.m. and noon — there are several in the hour between 10:00 and 11:00. Because you gain six hours during the flight home, you’ll arrive mid-afternoon. Leave your hotel at least three hours prior to your flight time. You can travel to the airport by public transportation and by shared, chauffeured vans or by taxis or limo’s (expensive!) Be sure to plan for this prior to leaving home.

My advice to anyone who asks me about European travel is this: do your homework! Go to the library or bookstore and get several books about the places you plan to visit. Google endlessly. Make frequent use of the excellent website called SlowTrav.com. Choose those areas that appeal to you and mark their locations on a map. Find accommodations nearby. We like to find a week’s worth of places to visit within 100 miles of one another, and to find a place to stay in the center of the circle they make on the map.

For me, preparation for a trip and the anticipation is almost as much fun as being there, and it lasts much longer! Buon viaggio!

Libbie

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Posted in Accommodations, Italy

Posted by: Libbie Griffin | December 20, 2009

Going to Italy – Part 4

A contemporary view of Perugia


Resuming my “open letter” to my brother and sister-in-law which contains my suggestions for two weeks in Italy.

My previous posts to Joe and Sue are suggestions for the first week. They boil down to this: fly into Rome, pick up a car and drive north. Rent a self-catering rental in central Tuscany for the first week so you can easily drive to Florence, Pisa, Lucca, Siena and other beautiful places. Now I’ll make suggestions the second week of a first trip to Italy. There are two scenarios described below, each of them filled with fascinating places to experience. Normally, Saturday is the end of a self-catering week and the day to make the move to a new location. That gives you a week to fill before flying home on the following Saturday. I suggest you divide your time, leaving the latter half of the week for Rome. Here are two suggestions for the first part of the week:

Driving south from central Tuscany, near the border with Umbria, there are three places I would recommend to you and others. For those who love classical European art, Assisi and Perugia are the best choices. The interior walls of the basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi are covered in very early paintings (frescoes) that serious art-lovers should see at least once in a lifetime. The artists Perugino and Raphael were natives of Perugia. The churches and the art museum (Galleria Nationale dell’Umbria) here will interest the art lover. Peruggia is a beautiful small city, filled with ancient stone buildings and a lively populace.

Another charming place in the same general vicinity, known to those who have read Under the Tuscan Sun (or who have seen the movie) is the town called Cortona. Although it has more shops for tourists since Francis Mayes made it famous, Cortona is still a beautiful small Tuscan city. It’s the town at the highest altitude in Tuscany, making the ride into town lovely.

After a day or two exploring this region, you can drive south into Umbria, visiting many charming villages there. Among the better known are Orvieto, Spoleto, and Todi. Umbria has many un-famous villages too. As it’s a bit less touristy than Tuscany, spending time in Umbrian villages and its countryside will give you a good sense of how Italy has been for centuries.

Because you won’t be spending an entire week, it will probably not be possible for you to find a self-catering place to stay, but you may wish to investigate some of the many farm house hotels called “agriturismo,” the Italian country version of B&Bs. Here you can find a daily or weekly rental that includes a lovely place to rest in the countryside and often home-cooked dinners as well. I just googled “Umbria agritourism” and the map that popped up showed a great many places to investigate. Don’t plan to just turn up at one of these places at bedtime, though. Always make reservations in advance.

The other option, of course, is to find a hotel in any of the cities you visit. If you go in April (as I suggested earlier) it won’t be necessary to make reservations and you’ll probably find better prices by simply inquiring in the early evening.

The second recommendation I have for the first half of your second week is to go south of Rome and Naples to the area called the Amalfi Coast. The city of Sorrento is a beautiful town on the cliffs above the Mediterranean. It’s been a popular tourist destination for more than 100 years, so there are many hotels there. It’s a great base to explore the famous, vertical seaside towns of Amalfi, Positano, Sorrento as well as the Isle of Capri, which lies just off shore. Pompeii is a short train ride from Sorrento and is good place to spend most of a day. (Nearby Herculanium is smaller and easily navigated if you want to see a town recovered from the lava dumped in 79A.D. by Mount Vesuvius, but don’t have an entire day to devote to it.)

Because Tuscany and Umbria are quite similar, visiting the rugged, exciting coastline south of Naples will be a change of pace, giving you a different experience of Italy — and a beautiful one! I don’t recommend touring Naples. It’s chaotic and confusing and you won’t encounter many English-speakers. Best to save that for another trip. I do, however, strongly encourage you to end your trip in Rome. My next post gives you a bit of advice about that.

Libbie

Here are some pictures I’ve taken in Umbria — hope you enjoy them!

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Posted in Accommodations, Italy, Traveler's Tips

Posted by: Libbie Griffin | December 17, 2009

Croatia & Montenegro

A tiny island in the Bay of Kotor, Montenegro

We interrrupt our series on travel to Italy to bring you an important message from the other side of the Adriatic Sea. This winter extraordinary prices are being offered for travel to Croatia. Because it’s located in the very mild climate of southern Europe, we think winter would be a fine time to visit this beautiful area that once was part of Yugoslavia. The cities and villages here have not yet been filled with western enterprises as so many places in Europe have been — no McDonalds here! You’ll see medieval towns where life is still lived as it has been for centuries. No, you won’t be sunning yourself on the beaches in winter, but you will be seeing Europe is it was, and without the throngs of travelers found in warmer weather.

One group tour company is now offering a 9-day package tour to Croatia and Slovenia for a little over $1000 per person — air travel from New York City included! This tour visits four cities including Zagreb, Split and Dubrovnik. Contact me at Info@TheTouringClub.net for more details.

Recently I had a taste of Croatia and Montenegro during The Touring Club’s October cruise in the Adriatic. Now the Number 1 goal at the top of my personal travel wish list to is return to those beautiful countries for at least a month. Many of the most intersting places in Croatia are islands, and I’d love to make my way south along the coastline, zig-zagging by ferry between the islands and the shore. I especially loved the tiny country of Montenegro. In both those countries I arranged excursions for our group with local tour companies, so now I have good contacts there. If you’re thinking of traveling to the Dalmatian coast, contact me if you’d like help with your plans.

Libbie

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Posted in Destinations, Vacation discounts

Posted by: Libbie Griffin | December 5, 2009

Going to Italy – Part 3

Piè di Costa as viewed from the village of Montaione

A Suggested Itinerary: Tuscany

My brother Joe and his wife, Susan, are interested in travel to Italy, so I’m using this blog to write them an “open letter” filled with suggestions for a two-week vacation there next spring.

Two weeks in Italy can be spent in many delightful ways, visiting beautiful cities and villages and the areas in between. The Italian countryside is perhaps the world’s most famous – truly beautiful, even along the super-highways. For a first visit, I’m recommending a lot of time in the country combined with visits to two of Italy’s great cities, Rome and Florence.

I recommend you fly into Rome on a Saturday morning. Flights to Europe from the U.S. are nearly all overnight flights. You will usually arrive in Italy between 8:00 and 9:00 in the morning. Pick up your rental car at the airport and head out. Before leaving home study a map and use Google maps to zoom in on the airport, making sure you know the route you want to take away from the airport. For example, I’d recommend taking the coastal highway north, away from the city, and not using the ring highway around Rome.

Make your way to the place where you’ll be staying for the first week. Italy has thousands of cottages and apartments available for weekly rental. Located on farms and in villages, these places provide comfortable lodging at prices much better than hotels. Called “self-catering” because they always contain cooking facilities, they allow you to save money by cooking some of your own meals and making breakfast. Weekly rentals nearly always begin on Saturday, which is why I recommend you begin then too.

In 2002 my husband George and I spent three weeks in a lovely apartment in a town called Montaione. Our hosts could not have been more helpful and friendly to us. The apartment was perfect: well-furnished, cleaned weekly, and in a beautiful location. Montaione is 35 miles southwest of Florence, in the center of the region we call Tuscany and Italian’s call Toscana. I recommend that you inquire with the owner about renting one of the five apartments in his country house, Piè di Costa. Click on the name to link to his very informative website.

Montaione is an ancient Tuscan hill-top town with narrow stone streets from which cars are prohibited except on the edges of town. The population is only about 3500, but all the necessary services are there: ATM machines (called Bancomats in Italy); a post office; a grocery store, a butcher, a gelato shop! What more could you ask? Piè di Costa is actually located on the side of the hill, below the town – the view from just outside the supermarket looks down on “our” house and the vineyards and olive groves that surround it (the photo at the top of this page shows Piê di Costa as seen from the town). From this location it is very easy to drive your rental car around northern Tuscany to many beautiful and/or famous places each day.

Here are six suggestions for day trips:
1. Florence has to be at the top of the list, but I don’t recommend you drive there. It’s not hard to drive to Florence, but I think it’s much easier to take the train from the nearby town of Castelfiorentino, located about 4 miles northwest of Montaione. One important note about that however: be sure you know the train schedule both into the city and home again – not all evening trains take the route toward Castelfiorentino, as we once learned the “hard way.” (Use this English language website from the Italian railroad company to check the schedule: click here.)

When your train arrives in Florence you will be on the northwest edge of the center of the city, at a station called SMN (for Santa Maria Novella, the name of an adjacent church). You’ll be a short walk from the Duomo, as the cathedral of Florence is called. From there you can explore the city: the narrow streets filled with Renaissance churches, palaces, museums filled with great art, sidewalk restaurants, markets designed with tourists in mind and the spectacular food market designed for residents, the beautiful Ponte Vecchio lined with jewelry shops … The list is endless. Florence (real name Fiorenza) is not a huge city, and all the most famous places and tourist attractions are located within easy walking distance of one another. (A good book to read before going is Irving Stone’s fictionalized biography of Michelangelo entitled The Agony and the Ecstacy.)

2. The Chianti region – I think technically the entire area south of Florence (including Montaione) is considered to be in the Chianti region, but here I am referring here to the triangle of land south of Florence, east of the Florence-Siena highway (near Montaione) and west of the A-1 autostrada (freeway). The towns there are called Greve (sounds a bit like gravy), Radda and Castellina. Each of these towns is a very charming and ancient village and you’re sure to enjoy seeing them, but the true charm of this area lies in the countryside where world-famous Chianti wines are produced. Enjoy a full day out here, wandering in the hills and villages. Stop at a winery for a tour and a taste.

3. Siena is a beautiful, very old city south of Montaione. The center of the town is taken up by an enormous open piazza where each year a very famous horse race is held. Called the Palio, the race occurs twice annually and a dozen or so ancient and traditional neighborhood associations each enter a horse and rider in the race. The streets of Siena, like all the towns in central Italy, are medieval and wind between large houses and apartments that are centuries old. Parking is on the outskirts so it’s easy to walk through the winding streets. Eventually you’ll find your way to the cathedral. If you only enter one church in Italy (and I hope you’ll visit many) this is the one to see. It is spectacular.

4. Pisa and Lucca are located near one another, northwest of Montaione. Of course Pisa is famous for the tower, but we found it to be one of the most beautiful of Italian cities. The old houses are painted in beautiful shades of ochre, and the peeling painted stucco adds to the charm. Pisa is about 40 miles from Montaione. Twenty miles east of Pisa you will find the small city called Lucca.

A medieval walled town, Luca seems to me to be representative of how many Italian cities were centuries ago. The walls are very thick, and you can walk around the city on the top of the walls. As with all the places on this list, it is the atmosphere that makes visiting them so fascinating, rather than a list of must-see places.

5. Certaldo, San Gimignano, and Volterra are three old and famous towns located near Montaione. While it’s possible to visit all three of these towns in one day, you may wish to eliminate one of them from a one-day plan. Certaldo is near Montaione, and lies alongside the highway to Siena. The lower town is nothing special, but Certaldo Alto, the upper town, is a lovely old place at the top of the hill. Climb to the top of the town to find the old church, wander the streets of the ancient village, and perhaps visit the small art museum.

Volterra is a very, very old town located high on a high hill. Home to the Etruscans for hundreds of years before the Roman Empire came into being, today there is an excellent Etruscan museum in Volterra that you may enjoy exploring. The other thing Volterra is noted for is alabaster carving. You’ll find places to watch carvers at work and plenty of opportunities to buy alabaster sculptures.

San Gimignano is well known as the town of many medieval towers. An important city 500 years ago, the town was home to two warring factions who built their homes many stories high for protection from one another. Most of the towers have disappeared over the centuries but several exist today and draw hordes of tourists. When I was there recently I was very disappointed to find the town has become little more than a shopping mall for tourists. People who were with me who hadn’t been to Tuscany before that very day really enjoyed the shops –you may too.

6. Montepulciano and Pienza are lovely small hill towns located some distance south of Siena. You may wish to detour into the hills en route to next week’s destination. It’s a detour that makes a lovely way to spend a day.

Please google the names of all these towns to learn more about them and to see the pictures people have posted. Also, my favorite website for travelers, www.SlowTrav.com, has an endless supply of information for visitors to Italy. Begin here and participate here.

That’s my suggestion for a week in Tuscany. Next I’ll tell you about Umbria and Rome, and why I think you’d enjoy spending your second week in those places.

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Posted in Uncategorized

Posted by: Libbie Griffin | November 30, 2009

Going to Italy – Part 2

Even crossing the street in Rome can be a challenge!


Continuing my suggestions for travel in Italy for my brother Joe and his wife Susan.

In the first part of this series I recommended travel to Italy in early April. Now let’s talk about transportation, both for getting there and while you are there.

Getting there is mostly a question of where to fly into, and whether to come and go from the same airport. For the itinerary that follows, I’m suggesting you plan to buy round trip tickets into Rome. The main airport in Rome (Fulmincino, code FCO) is actually located quite a distance outside the city. I’m going to suggest you save Rome for last, making this an advantage. Driving in Rome is not for the faint-of-heart, but picking up a car at the airport and driving north through the countryside of Lazio, Umbria and Tuscany is just like driving at home.

And that brings us to renting a car. We always rent from AutoEurope, an American company headquartered in Portland Maine. Their website is very easy to use and the whole process if fully automated, but if you need to speak with someone they are always there and always helpful. AutoEurope guarantees you the best price for your rental – find the same car for the same dates at a lower cost and they will quickly refund the difference. They are actually an agent for a number of European rental car companies, so you’ll pick up your car from EuropCar or another rental company. AutoEurope has a web page with specific, helpful information about driving in Italy – here’s a link to it.

One tip about renting cars anywhere: use a credit card that covers the deductible and save the very high cost of covering it. Contact your credit card companies well in advance to ask about that, and (if one tells you they provide coverage) get it in writing! My experience has been that Mastercards generally provide this coverage and Visa cards don’t but verify that! Also, verify that the coverage will apply in Italy.

The most economical cars are those that come with a standard transmission and that operate on diesel. The cars are quite small, so you’ll get close to 50 miles per gallon – which you’ll be grateful for because fuel will cost $8 to $10 per gallon with the currency adjustment.

There are many online mapping services that will allow you to plan your route. Some will estimate the cost of fuel and indicate the cost of toll roads, if they are to be used (www.viamichelin is good for that.) It’s also a very good idea to purchase a map of Italy long before your trip from a large bookstore. You’ll want to know what’s within range of the places you are considering for your lodging.

Since the itinerary I’m suggesting for Joe and Sue involves a lot of touring in the country, a rental car will be a necessity, but I would never recommend one to anyone going to Rome or Venice. Driving in Rome is hair-raising – just walking across the street there can be life-threatening. And there are no cars at all in Venice.

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Posted in Destinations, Italy, Traveler's Tips, money-related

Posted by: Libbie Griffin | November 29, 2009

Going to Italy – Part 1

The area above the main door of Florence's duomo, the cathedral.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving day last week with my brothers and their families in Ohio. It’s the first time my family has been together for a holiday in nearly 20 years. The twin babies we remember from 1994 are celebrating their 25th birthdays this week. The years have flown past.

My brother Joe and his wife Susan asked me lots of questions about going to Italy. I recommended that they engage in “slow travel.” That’s settling into one region for a week or two, renting a cottage or an apartment, and exploring the countryside as well as the cities. It’s an entirely different way to travel than dashing from one famous city to the next, and one that we really enjoy.

I am going to write a letter to Joe and Sue with suggestions for their possible Italian vacation. I thought it might interest readers of this blog too. So over the next few days I’ll post here my idea of a perfect holiday in Italia.

I’ll begin with when to go. I’m recommend traveling there in early April for several reasons. One good reason to travel then is to enjoy pre-season prices. Italy is no longer an inexpensive destination. By going in the “shoulder season” the cost of airfare and accommodations will both be lower. For example, today Orbitz returns a round trip fare from Columbus Ohio to Rome in early April of just under $1000. When I check the same trip two months later the fares are all between $1400-$1500. The prices on the accommodations I’ll recommend are similarly discounted.

Another reason to travel in early Spring is to avoid the crowds of tourists that will be everywhere in Italy in May and June. Cruise ships are bringing as many as 3000 people per ship into Rome, Florence and Venice – and often there are several ships there at one time. In late Spring school kids of all ages descend on Europe from everywhere in the world. Italian kids are taking day trips. American and Japanese kids are celebrating graduations by traveling together. Kids of all kinds are everywhere making for crowded conditions in the Vatican and St. Mark’s Square and many other places.

Early Spring weather is usually not a consideration in Italy, which is very hot later in the season. George and I were in Italy from early March to late April in 2002 and never experienced weather bad enough to slow us down at all.

Finally, this year Easter is April 4th. Not every town and village in Italy celebrates Easter in the old traditional ways but many do. Called “Pasqua” in Italian, Easter is celebrated from Holy Thursday until the Monday after Easter. The traditions of Thursday and Friday are very solemn, but the fun starts by Sunday. Here’s a description of the fireworks exploded each year at Florence’s special “duomo” (the cathedral): “In Florence, Easter is celebrated with the Scoppio del Carro, explosion of the cart. A huge, decorated wagon is dragged through Florence by white oxen until it reaches Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence’s historic center. Following mass, the Archbishop sends a dove-shaped rocket into the cart, igniting the fireworks held in the cart. This spectacular display is followed by a parade in medieval costumes.” (This description is taken from About.com’s description of Easter in Italy.)

So my first suggestion is to travel to Italy in early April. Come back tomorrow for more recommendations.

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