Tamelyn

My husband and I are flying to Rome on March 26 and staying through April 4. This is our first visit and we're thrilled -- my husband's grandfather was born in Faeto (near Foggia) and we would like to visit the village where he grew up.<BR><BR>We're on a slim budget, but we'd like to take in all we can while we're there. We'll be staying in Rome at Hotel Papa Germano; has anyone ever stayed there? We'd also like to get some sort of railpass and need your advice: Should we get a EuroRail pass and spend a few days traveling into France and/or Greece? Will anything be open over Easter weekend? Will we have time to see Rome, Florence and perhaps Venice as well as Faeto? Will we even be able to find Faeto? Help!

sandi

The first thing I'd suggest is to invest in a good map and guide books of the cities in which you're interested. Will you be driving at all? If not, you should get real familiar with several on-line websites that give you train schedule information. I'd also suggest that you type "EuroRail" in the text search section because I'm sure you'll find a wealth of information that's been posted previously. Good Luck.

Jean

If you have 9 days or less (the days you arrive and leave are more like half days) and you begin and end in Rome AND you want to visit Faeto, I'd leave France and Greece for another trip. <BR><BR>Prioritize your plans and don't try to force too many places into a short trip; otherwise, you won't really see much of anything but train stations. <BR><BR>I don't think you'll need a railpass; it will probably cost more than point-to-point fares.

Vita

Looking on a map, Faeto doesn't seem near any of the more touristy areas. You might want to do an internet search and see if you can find a tourist office for Faeto, Foggia, or whatever province they're in, and e-mail them to ask the easiest way to get there. If you don't know Italian, you could use Babelfish to translate. I just checked trenitalia.it and Foggia is at best a 4 hour train ride from Rome. Not sure how to get to Faeto from there. It might not be a bad day trip from Naples if there is transportation from there.<BR><BR>With 8 full days and a possible trip to Faeto, I think I'd just stay in Rome or add a couple of days on the Amalfi Coast.<BR><BR>If you skip Faeto, maybe 5 days in Rome and 3 in Florence. I agree about skipping France and Greece. I haven't been in Rome on Easter but it might be kind of interesting.

a--z

You'd best be served by staying in Italy. From Rome, Florence is 1 1/2 hrs away on the Eurostar (Italy's train schedules = www.trenitalia.com). So you can easily include Florence in your itinerary. As for adding Venice, well that would be alot, as it's another 3 hrs. northeast from Florence. It sounds like a visit to Faeto is a priority, so that stays on the list. Checked the timetables and there are a few ES runs between Rome-Foggia; one leaves at 9:10 am, arriving in Foggia four hours later. Don't have a map in front of me and so do not know how far Faeto is from that point. Possibly bus service (SITA bus) would be able to get you there. Perhaps one of our posters living in Italy could tell you best way to get there (I'm assuming that you won't be renting a car?).<BR>