parnika_jain

Hi All
Me and my husband are planning to travel to Italy from 14th August-25th Aug 2016. I however am rethinking because of the following reasons:

1. I read that a major part of Italy is closed on 15th Aug due to the National Day
2. It is uncomfortably hot to travel in Aug.
3. Many restaurants and designer shops are shut in Aug.

My itinerary:
03 Nights Rome
02 Sorrento - Full day Capri Tour from Sorrento
02 Nights Florence
02 Nights Venice
01 Night Milan

Please suggest if Aug trip to Italy would be a good option.
TIA!!!

bilboburgler

Nearly every Italian will be back at work by the 16th as for them, the holiday is over.

Sundays and National days many shops will not open, but many restaurants will be heaving.

What is a "designer" shop, is that legal?

I don't go in August because I don't like the heat.

Sassafrass

If you do this, skip the night in Milan, fly out of Venice. Add the night to one of the other places, possibly Florence for a day trip to one of the hill towns.
It will be extremely hot in August.

nytraveler

No Italy is not shut in August. Practically everything (except perhaps a few small family places) will be open except for specific holidays - you mentioned one. But it will be very hot and humid and mobbed with tourists from all over europe, the US, etc.

We go in May to get better weather and fewer crowds.

Odin

I would get some advice from posters who have been to Italy/live in Italy. IME, holidays such as this can be the start of when local people go on vacation and things can be closed away from tourist hotspots. Ferragosto is a very important public holiday.

Whathello

I'm not a specialist of italian holidays - I avoid going there in summer, but this sounds like 'in Paris in august everything is closed'. Which is basically dumb. No such touristy destinations are 'closed'. Never.

Since I'm in such a mood as to correct mistakes that are of no importance, 15th of august is not national day (that would be 2d of june, republic day, but 15th of august is Ferragosto, an old holiday dating from August (the guy who stole one day from february). It coincides with asupmtion, day when Marie goes to heaven, which is public holiday nearly everywhere in Europe (at least where we are civilized) - I know only of Saxony which works on that date.

parnika_jain

Thanks for your replies guys.
From "everything is shut" i meant that the city life would be at a still. We like exploring the small places and restaurants of a place and hence the concern.

To escape the heat and the holiday season, we have now will be travelling in first week of September

Also, Could you guys suggest some good eating joints in these cities and also a cooking class, keeping in mind that we are strict vegetarians.

bilboburgler

Hi, Italy is not shut, and I have no idea what "life at a still" means. Italy side streets are made up of mixed commercial/housing and the commercial has shutters down until they open. So in some towns you will find 2 to 4 in the afternoon the place looks dead, by 8pm the streets will be bustling. Certainly I've never been to Italy at the peak of the tourist season and found it dead. Museums do close on monday though.

If strict V is an issue you need to use http://www.happycow.net/ first of all. I'm only semi-v so I am no help to you on selection except to say that 1) peasant food is more likely to be v than most foods in Italy 2) watch out for frying, while olive oil is the norm in the south and olive oil and other oils are used in the middle they can use some butter with their olive oil in the north. If your diet excludes butter then take greater care.

ekscrunchy

I would seriously rethink your itinerary, as you are spending far too much time travelling from place to place with not enough time in the actual destinations. Better to eliminate one or two cities, including Milan.

Many restaurants close for part of August, but there will be more that will be open. It will be hot, and overwhelmed by foreign tourists, in most of your destinations.

annhig

i agree with ekscrunchy that your itinerary is far too rushed and will leave little time for actually seeing anything. 3 nights in Rome gives you 2 days [barely long enough to recover from jet lag, let alone see a reasonable number of Rome's major sights and/or high end shops, if that's what you're interested in]

The next day will mostly be taken up by getting to Sorrento, you are spending a day in Capri, and then back to Florence which again, will take most of a day by the time you've got the circumvesuviana to Naples, and then the train to Florence where again, you really only have 1 day.

the train from Frloence to Venice doesn't take long, but you still have to get to your hotel, check in etc. so that's another ½ day gone west, and only 1 ½ days in Venice, and after the train ride, half a day in Milan.

So by my maths, you have 10 nights with only 6 actual days of holiday.

Normally I would say drop Milan, but as you are interested in fashion, I would drop Venice and do this:

Day 1 arrive Rome. Stay 3 nights
Day 4 - train to Naples. Stay 2 nights.
Day 5 - day trip to Capri [just as easily done from Naples and it cuts out at least 1 ½ hours travel each way]
Day 6 - train to Florence. stay 2 nights.
Day 8 - train to Milan [stay 2 nights]
Day 10 - ?????
Day 11 - fly home.

This gives you an extra night. I would spend it in Rome, but you may have other ideas.

StCirq

You can't count on escaping the heat by going the first week in September.

I think you may have a tough time finding a cooking class for strict vegetarians.

I agree with the others that you are packing way too much into a short timeframe, especially if as you say, you like exploring "the small places." You'll have hardly any time even to see a smattering of "the big places."

rtwin80days

Hi Parnika,

1. You're confusing India's Independence Day with the Italian holiday on the same date.

2. Your itinerary is too rushed. You are looking at what package tour operators like Thomas Cook, Cox & Kings and Kesari offer with their ridiculous Europe tours, and to make it worse, you'd be managing everything on your own, leaving no time to relax and enjoy the vacation. Please cut back on number of cities to visit if you can't increase the duration of the trip.

3. If you're a strict "Jain" vegetarian, i.e., don't eat root vegetables, etc, you'd have a tough time as garlic and onion is omnipresent in Italian cooking and the foundation of many pasta sauces. Most cheeses will have animal rennet in them. Many breads and gelato contain eggs. I suggest you carry some snacks to tide you over if you hit a rough patch some day looking for an appropriate place to eat and can't find anything nearby. I myself am a vegetarian but a lot more relaxed if compared to a jain vegetarian. I didn't have much trouble in Italy eating out. I even managed to do a week-long cooking vacation in the middle of nowhere in Umbria near Tuscan border. But I doubt you'd find a custom-made one-day vegetarian cooking class in any of the cities you mentioned, at a reasonable cost. Unless you're super lucky. Consider renting an apartment rather than staying in a hotel and cook basic things, if you're the traditional strict jain vegetarian, which from your name and your posts implies you might be.