What are you favourite places, things to do, restaurants hotels?

Well, one of my favorite things to do is to search this board rather than to ask exactly the same question that has already been asked and answered dozens of times before.

Thank you for taking your time to give me such a helpful response. Very kind of you.

Kate, spend 2 hours at slowtrav.com and your cup will runneth over.

To kate12--that response was unnecessarily unkind. That said, people on this board are a most useful resource when you can narrow down the scope of your request and/or show that you have researched the query before posting here. Platzer should not have bothered to respond to you but he/she was probably "overwhelmed" by the open-ended nature of your request.

i am new to this forum and so I am learning. When I read (for a couple of hours), the titles that were broader seemed to get the biggest reponses. for example
What is your favourite country? 262 reponses
"Picture Taking" 34 responses
Lone Woman in France and Italy 28 responses.
I concluded from that that it might be better to have a wider title, than a very specific one.
Obviously from your reactions I was incorrect.
Thanks Bob for the lead to Slow travel. It is a very helpful web site.

I'll answer for you Kate12. We just returned last week and loved the chianti area. We stayed in Castellina and it was exactly what I thought tuscany would be like! Small town, good restaurants and a wonderful little market on Saturday! WE stayed at the Hotal Palazzo Squarcialupi and loved it so much that we plan to return again very soon! It is beautiful country! We also loved the Castello Verrazzano in Greve in Chianti for a wine tour and lunch. It was amazing and I'd go back again and again. the guide, Jillian, was wonderful and provided an explanation of wine and tasting that was lacking in Napa. We liked florence and you ahve to go for the David at the very least, but I found it too large a city to really get to know well. I know others will differ on this. The restuarant Gallopapa was wonderful in Castellina and I celebrated my birthday there. We only had 5 days and so only saw San Gim., siena and chianti as well as Florence, but several people we met as well as a friend who studied in tuscany recommend Lucca.

There is a long thread on here, somewhere about favorites in Umbria.
My recs:
Perugia, Assisi, Todi and Montefalco.
And I also loved Spello. Umbria is bigger than you think.
Good luck,
j

kate12,

Don't worry about some rude people on this board. Some seem to think that any new person on this board know all of the thread that have been written here for the past decade. Please do ignore such rude people and take the advice of the many nice people who are willing to help.

Hi Kate,

The best meal we had on our honeymoon was at Hotel Umbra in Assisi. We stayed there, its wonderful! Very affordable and right in the centre of town and large, nicely decorated rooms. Their restaurant is out of this world.

Best of luck, hope more people give you a hand!

Jamie

Still, it might be as well to tell Kate12 how to search for those old threads. I remember a very, very long one on Umbrian hill towns that argued the pros and cons of almost every tiny hill town in Umbria. I think there have been similar ones about Tuscany.

Kate12, just type <Umbria> and <Umbrian>, <Tuscan> and <Tuscany> -- without the angle brackets -- into the Search box and, I promise, you will find lots and lots of information.

On another topic:

Hotel Umbra in Assisi is a wonderful place to stay; many rooms have beautiful views, some have terraces with views.

I'm sure dinner, when it is served outside on the terrace, must be enchanting. However, when I was there, only the dining room was open and the meal, to be very honest, was mediocre.

At the next or second-to-next steps over from the ones to the Umbra, is La Pallotta: less expensive and, in my opinion, much better cuisine.

If you feel like splurging a little, San Francesco is very good.

(Both of the recommendations came from Conde Nast Traveller Gold: Umbria, which is published in Italy, in Italian, and for Italians. And most Italians are very, very fussy about good food...)

Thank you all so much for your help. I have done a search now and am gathering a lot of info. Pretty well have an itinery booked...some time in umbria, and some in tuscany. Not enough time to do everything so we will just have to come back!

Kate, if you're still planning, our favorite place in tuscany is Pienza - a small pleasant town that's very managable and is the Pecorino capital of Italy.
Our favorite B&B is there as well - Le Traverse.
Here's a description of our first trip there:
http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/5733/tuscany1.html

Good luck, Kate.

When you get a little further in the planning process, post your itinerary here and you will certainly get lots of opinions, positive and negative. Chances are, you will have a fabulous trip. Italy is wonderful...
j