okwdvc

My family (includes myself, DH, 12 and 14 year old) is considering spending 6 - 8 weeks in Italy. We have never been. The problem is I don't even know how to begin planning something so long in a place I have never been. I have read quite a few travel books and it all looks so wonderful but overwhelming.

I guess the biggest thing I am struggling with right now is where to go. Do we try to see a city or two per week or would we be crazy to spend all that time in just one or two cities? We really want to take in the culture and I think that is so hard to do if you jump from place to place once a week. However, I don't want to go all that way and not see much.

Any sage advice for a true rookie? Thanks!

Lisa

marzi1708

Hi there Lisa.6 - 8 weeks is a fantastic length of time.I'll try and be brief ! We have been to Italy ourselves several times but mostly to the North apart from when we spent a few days in Rome. What I would do is to split it up say in stretches of two weeks in one base and cover that area from that base.The Northern part of Italy is lovely. You can base yourselves on on of the town in Como (we usually stay in Menaggio) and that would give you coverage for Milan and even say Lugano in Switzerland.The ferry takes you to several lovely villages and towns around Lake Como like for instance Bellagio.Then you could move on to Lake Garda - some lovely villages there too like Desenzano del Garda and Sirmione (a lovely walled town with a castle and a moat - we lodged at sirmione). From there you would be close to places like Venice and Verona (of Romeo and Juliet fame). After that I would do Tuscany with Pisa and Florence just two of the lovely places you could visit.Rome is naturally in my opinion the place for cultural - it is so magical. I will never forget the feeling we got just standing in the Collosseum.You imagine the crowds hundreds of years ago sitting there.Rome is about 4 hours drive from Pisa.I don't know which airports you will be using but planning your trip around that would be a good idea say arriving Milan and departing from Rome.Via Micelin is a great site for calculating routes with time and distance.This is getting to long so if you wish to ask anything in particular hust send in a post.I need help with Provence at the moment so I'm logging in several times.Hope I was of help. Marica (Malta - Europe).

Kate_W

IF you are planning to spend such a long time in Italy (what a wonderful idea), I would strongly encourage you to add an educational experience to it. There are lots of language immersion programmes and you could easily incorporate a 1-2 week (or more if you want) course into your schedule. Language courses are a great way to start a trip because the school provides an environment in which it is easy to meet other people (students, teachers and administrators), offers sightseeing opportunities (organised or simply with other students) and an exposure to the culture. Classes are often relatively inexpensive - and you might even be able to find a homestay arrangement that would accommodate your entire family, so you could live with Italians for a week or two. Courses typically are for 3-4 hours per day (leaving afternoons for sightseeing) but if you wanted a lighter or heavier programme, no doubt you could find it. If you wanted do more than a week or two, you likely could find a school that offers courses in more than one city, so that you could move from one to the other.

You can also often find programmes that combine language classes with something else, e.g. cooking or art appreciation.

I've read some reports from families who studied a language together and they talked about how much the kids enjoyed watching their parents learn something new. And it's not too early for the 14-year old to be thinking about college admissions - a language immersion course is nice to have on your record.

bobthenavigator

Spend several hours at www.slowtrav.com to get some good ideas. They have an entire section on how to plan your trip.

okwdvc

Thanks everyone for the great ideas and starting point.

Kate W: I had never considered a language immersion program in Italy. What a fabulous idea. If we could find a place that included cooking, I think the entire family would love that. I am off to search for places right now. If anyone knows of any such programs, please let me know. Thanks!

Lisa

Dayle

wow Lisa,

How lucky you are! You've just given me an excuse to indulge in a fantasy. I've had 3 wonderful trips to Italy for a total of a "mere" 9 weeks. So here's what I would do with 2 months:

5 days Venice
4 days Dolomiti
3 days Lakes
1 day Milan
2 days Piedmonte
5 days Ligurian Coast
7 days Tuscany
2 days Florence
2 days Umbria (around Assisi)
7 days Rome
7 days Amalfi Coast/Naples area
last 5 days add to any of the above or maybe Sicily

Just a rough outline with the longer stays in apartments. Mixing cities/museums with countryside/scenery.

Love the idea of a language course, or cooking classes, which would require staying put for a much longer time and a whole different type of trip.

Either would be wonderful. It depends on your family's interests and personalities.

Buon viaggio!

Pausanias

Travel around for sure, but since you have so much time to spend, spend a lot of that time in one spot.

suze

It's really a personal style choice, having nothing particular to do with Italy. For me, I love to try to "get local" so would choose to rent an apartment in 1 or maybe 2 places only. Then day trip around from there.
This kind of trip is also a lot easier to plan than moving around often. Just depends what you would enjoy.

I would begin language classes at home for the whole family right now. It will truly enrich the experience.

BarbaraJ

Lisa,

That's terrific you can spend so much time in Italy! And don't be overwhelmed with your planning. This is a great site for ideas and help.

There is a combined language/culinary school in Siena - Dante Alighieri - Siena (http://www.dantealighieri.com/). I'm taking a cooking class there and wish we were going to be in Siena longer so I could also take the language clasees. Do a search on the web for other schools in the area you would like to start your trip in.

Kate_W

The challenge will be finding a school that accommodates teens and/or family groups, but I'm sure there are some. I know of some in France. A quick google for "Italian immersion for families" turned up this link: http://www.babilonia.it/italian_lang...students2.html

That should get you started.

You might also want to have a look at a thread I started in the educational travel section on "How to make the most of your French language vacation". The same principles would apply to Italian courses:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34869116