Help me live 2 weeks like a local

Old Jan 2nd, 2017, 08:49 PM
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Help me live 2 weeks like a local

Hi all,

Will be flying in Rome and out Paris for a period of 2 weeks in May this year.
Might not be the best open jaw for a relaxing trip, but am aiming to make the best of it.

We aim to most importantly have a relaxing time, so no rushing city to city as checkpoints.
Tourist sights are not compulsory at all, only if its truly jaw dropping or brain freezing.
Great food and wine as well as local markets to be the focus, appreciate lazy days simply enjoying the scenery too.

A rough idea is to get in to Rome, spend a couple days and then rent a car to explore the Tuscany countryside. Thereafter proceed to Cinque Terre and then Paris (?). The missus has never been to Venice, and would very much like to head there, but seems tough to fit it in.

Any advice on an itinerary will be very much appreciated. Have driven in Provence before, 2nd time to Western Europe and we will definitely head there there again, so more importantly to take it slow and experience how the locals live. Am still not sure how to plan to head to Paris, so appreciate any thoughts!
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Old Jan 2nd, 2017, 08:54 PM
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2 weeks?? Relaxing?? Live like a local?? Rome, Tuscany, Venice, Cinque Terre, Paris??

None chance!!!

Stu Dudley
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Old Jan 2nd, 2017, 08:57 PM
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Not quite sure what you think the locals are doing that is so fascinating -- paying bills, going to work, grocery shopping, doing laundry.

You have two weeks and are flying in/out of cities that are quite far apart so difficult to have a 'restful - live like the locals' itinerary.

Unless you just rent a villa or apartment for a week or 10 days in one place and then fly to Paris a day or two before your flight home.
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Old Jan 2nd, 2017, 09:19 PM
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think its more accurate to say eat and drink like a local, on weekends? thanks Stu, i'm not trying to conquer all, will be back again, happy to spend a couple days in Rome, then base out of a location in Tuscany followed by couple days in Paris before home.

realise open jaw doesn't make sense but no choice, tickets booked, so now got to make the best of it.
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Old Jan 2nd, 2017, 09:36 PM
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I, too, am confused. Eating and drinking like a local would imply you plan to rent an apartment and do most of your own cooking but your trip sounds too busy for this. You say you want a relaxing pace but then list 5 possible locations you'd like to see. Most of us would not consider this a relaxing pace.

It is usually best to drop off a rental car in the same country where you rent it to avoid drop off fees. You might consider dropping off your car at your last Italian location and flying or taking a train to Paris.
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Old Jan 2nd, 2017, 10:03 PM
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De-clutter.

Rent an apartment (www.housetrip.com or similar) for six nights in Rome, make a day-trip to Pompei.

Take an early train to Pisa - choice of routing via Florence or direct train up the coast.

Three nights in Pisa. See first of all the historic center (Piazza dei Cavalieri etc.) and the Duomo, Baptistery and Leaning Tower. Then spend a day in a rental car touring Tuscany, and make a day trip by train to one of the five targets in the Cinque Terre.

Fly from Pisa to Paris - cheap nonstop flights on easyJet and Ryanair.

Paris will hold your interest for the remaining days. Again look for an apartment if that appeals to you, housetrip, or https://www.gites-de-france.com (look for CityBreak category).

Nearby Versailles, Reims (champagne!), Giverny (Monet!) and others are options.
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Old Jan 2nd, 2017, 10:17 PM
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This sounds like the typical tourist's fantasy - and has no base in reality - but if all you want to do is hang around and go to markets, eat and drink - that's easy enough to do.

Get a guide book or Google around to find what you're looking for and where things are located, so you don't waste time.

What most people think they want is a "local neighborhood" - but many of these areas aren't as accommodating for "wanna be locals" as people hope they would be. Some neighborhoods are definitely not attractive, there are many more homeless individuals than in tourist-central areas, you might find that the conversation stops dead in its tracks when you enter a cafe...then resumes when you leave.

If you plan to rent an apartment in Paris, be aware that the vast majority of them are illegal rentals. If you plan to stay less than one week, the owner/manager might cancel your reservation in favor of someone who will stay longer. Agencies of all kinds are allowed to list vacation rentals, but will not vouch for their legality.

Also, if you rent an apartment anywhere in Europe, you run the risk of staying in, instead of getting out and mingling with the locals. Probably not what you had in mind.
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Old Jan 2nd, 2017, 10:40 PM
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As others have already noted, rethink! A week in Rome and a week in Paris might work for you, but it sounds like you really need to do some research to figure out what, exactly, you want. Guide books will be your friends, whether you buy them or consult them at a library.

And remember: Everything is in the mind of the beholder. As for "Tourist sights are not compulsory at all, only if its truly jaw dropping...." Even years after visiting the places you mention, MY jaw still drops at the many, many, many places I was privileged to see. For me, personally, spending a moment relaxing -- which I can do anywhere -- when surrounded by places I will never see again is nonsensical. For others, spending time on a vacation doing anything other than relaxing is nonsensical. To each his / her own!
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Old Jan 2nd, 2017, 11:30 PM
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living like a local is if you have months and months of time.
For a 2 week trip you are a tourist.
If you want to live like a local, you would spend the whole 2 weeks somewhere.
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Old Jan 3rd, 2017, 12:24 AM
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If I were you, given that you want to relax, I would skip Rome altogether (unless you can spend more time there) and head straight to the countryside. You can't even scratch the surface of Rome in a few days, and the most popular sights are super-crowded. If you try to squeeze in a few jaw-dropping sights, you'll be shuffling around the whole time in a pack of fellow tourists, and you'll end up telling people, "Rome was our least favorite place, it was so crowded". Return to Rome sometime when you can spend four or five days there, and you'll see the magic of the city.

I would also rethink the Cinque Terre, which has become a cruise-ship-tour nightmare. This article is in Italian, but a picture is worth a thousand words. Look at the video, which gives an even clearer picture.

http://genova.repubblica.it/cronaca/...ti_-123899365/

If you spend a week in the countryside, maybe some place less touristy than Tuscany, you could then head to Paris and spend a relaxing week there.

If that's too leisurely for you, then I would suggest five nights in Rome, five nights in a rural area, with a day trip or two, and the rest of the time in Paris.
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Old Jan 3rd, 2017, 12:27 AM
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As already said, this is a dream. We spent ten weeks in France last year with a combination of one and two week stays. We stay in holiday rentals and we eat out once a week. We shop at the local supermarket, small shops and markets. But we do not pretend we are ' living like a local '. We are on holidays and not paying the electricity bill, taking my elderly Mum to the doctor, meeting our child's teacher, taking the dog to the vet or all the other everyday things that occupy your life and mine and the ' locals 'in the town you are visiting.
Just go where you want to visit and enjoy your holiday.
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Old Jan 3rd, 2017, 01:30 AM
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Living like a local includes having your jaw open my going in front if Notre dame on your way to work.

Renting an apt for several days will mean getting an apt tuned for tourism including lift kitchenette and lift.

For such a planned trip just go the tourist way stay at hotels close to the center and enjoy.

At least you'll ave the commuting the locals do every day
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Old Jan 3rd, 2017, 04:51 PM
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@ rhon: Well said!
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Old Jan 3rd, 2017, 05:02 PM
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Wow, after looking at that video of the Cinque Terre, I'm glad I went in 2000 when it was quite reasonable, and I don't think I will return!
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Old Jan 3rd, 2017, 05:16 PM
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Another rookie mistake: flying in and out of the same city instead of open-jaws. Arrange your itinerary first THEN buy the flights.
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Old Jan 3rd, 2017, 06:08 PM
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@ artsnletters: Ditto! I was in the Cinque Terre during shoulder season of 2002, and it was during a few rainy days, at that -- quite a different, and absolutely wonderful, experience! I simply can not imagine going again.
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Old Jan 3rd, 2017, 06:45 PM
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bvlenci: That is absolutely heart breaking. Witnessing tourists peeing in doorways? Ugh!

I still have my gorgeous, serene, scenic photos and my memories of Le Cinque Terre from September of 1996. I would have guessed that we were the only tourists in Riomaggiore during our stay. I remember watching the fishmonger arrive with his horn blaring and selling freshly caught fish from his vehicle as the women came out of their homes and surrounded him with Lire in hand calling out which fish they wanted. I remember two nonne conversing with each other. They were high above us from their third story windows - one of them was on one side of the main road, the other talking from the other side of the main road, as we walked beneath them on the road to get our morning cappuccino. I remember being on the hike from Riomaggiore to Monterosso with a glorious rest in Vernazza, barely encountering a dozen other hikers.

What they are encountering now is pure nuts. They have to do something to spare the residents from the onslaught.
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Old Jan 3rd, 2017, 06:46 PM
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This is my first post on Fodor's, have to say I'm surprised how harsh some comments are...

I will give my advice as someone who lived in Europe for a few years and go every year for a month or so (normally Northern Italy). I have never been able to manage the wandering travel that is also relaxed - without settling in a place is always ends up hectic because of the logistics and physical drain of constantly moving, navigating and just figuring everything out.

If you desire to try to experience Italian life as much as possible with a two week time frame - I would suggest see Rome for a day or two (hit the high spots), then get to where you will spend at least a week and settle in - then fly to Paris for another day or two (high spots again). I find great cities are appreciable (on some level) in short time because there is a short list of epic things to see. Of course you can spend years and never really experience it all but it can be very fun in the short term (for example I just spent just two days in Tokyo last week and it was a blast). Anyway - there are lots of cheap flights to Paris from Italy on budget carriers (I think Ryan flies from Bologna). A perfect city to experience Italian life in my view is Ferrara. It is between Bologna and Venice, and you can do easy day trips to either city or Florence (trains under one hour) Not many non-Italian tourists visit Ferrara because it is in the shadow of these famous cities, but it is beautiful and charming. Not very expensive and can be traversed by bicycle - and most lodgings there include bikes in the price. The city is surrounded by a medieval wall with a bike and walking path on top. There are outdoor markets in the city every few days. A very good hotel that also has a suite property so you kind of have a small apartment is the Hotel Annunziata. I wish you luck with this adventure. Let me know if you need more info... Regards, SAm
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Old Jan 4th, 2017, 08:03 AM
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I really like Ferrara myself, but trains to Venice take about an hour and a half, while those to Florence take as long as that and also require a change in Bologna.

And I would not advise trying to hit the high spots of Rome in a day or two. I don't know when SJCerone was last there, but the most popular spots in Rome are suffering under an onslaught of tourists unlike anything I've seen before the past few years. If you spend two days hitting the Vatican Museums, Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, and the Colosseum, you'll spend two days in crowds like rush hour on the Tokyo metro. Not fun! You can either skip some of the high spots or spend more time there, to recuperate between top-ten sights.

We were in Rome for almost two full days last week. My son-in-law had never seen the city before, and we took him around. He saw the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill; he had intended to visit the Colosseum the same afternoon, but ran out of time.

He could have used the ticket the following day, but, again, he couldn't find the time. We visited the Villa Farnesina, and took a (guided-by-me) walking tour of the center, visiting Campo dei Fiori, Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, and Trevi Fountain. All of these were extremely crowded, and after that, he was too tired to return to the Colosseum. Instead we took a flying visit to St. Peter's Square to see the Christmas tree and nativity scene. He is a young, active man, and that's about all he could manage in two days.

The two "biggies" (the Sistine Chapel and Colosseum) are missing from this itinerary. We deliberately chose some less-famous activities, like the Villa Farnesina, a beautiful Renaissance villa, set in a lovely garden, with frescoes by Raphael. This was pleasantly uncrowded, and allowed us to breathe a little before hitting the Pantheon and Trevi Fountain, which were sinking under the weight of tourists (but still worth seeing).

It used to be that you could easily visit St. Peter's Basilica in the late afternoon without waiting in line. On this visit, the line was half-way around the square at 5:30 PM, half an hour before closing. One reason is that there is more security everywhere, and the other is that millions of tourists from all over Asia are visiting Europe for the first time.

I wouldn't dream of going to the Vatican Museums in high season, unless I took an early entry tour (which really only helps for the first half hour) or the Friday evening visit (only available in some months). As for the Colosseum, I went there with some visiting cousins two years ago, and we had to wait for almost an hour under the broiling sun even though we already had tickets. There is a limit of 3000 people who can be inside at one time, and they were at the limit.
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Old Jan 4th, 2017, 08:08 AM
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Locals aren't all that relaxed, even when they are planning their eating and drinking. If you want to live like one, learn the language, make a doctor's appointment, pore over appliance manuals, and visit the local tax office.

If you just want a relaxing vacation, I'd agree with spending a week in Paris and a week in Rome, and purchase open-jaw flights. Skip the Cinque Terre - you couldn't pay me enough....
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