This is the itinerary for our Italy trip. <BR><BR>Dec 26 - dec 30 Roma<BR>Dec 30 - jan 6 Firenze<BR>Jan 6 - jan 7 Milano<BR>Jan 7 - jan 13 Venezia<BR>Jan 13 - jan 16 Roma<BR><BR>And these are our concerns:<BR><BR>Roma - Dec 26 is an italian holiday, can we expect some restaurants and some sightseeing to be open that day? Is there a website for Roma with sights and their opening hours? <BR>Is anybody familiar with the area around the Lepanto metro station? We are planning on staying around there. Are there cafes/shops around?<BR><BR>Firenze - We will be here for new years (seen posts on this before but no help) and are wondering if the rstaurants will be open and if there is anything special to do on new year's eve, not looking for anything fancy, just what the locals on a budget would do. <BR>We are planning on day trips to Pisa and Siena and the bus seems the best way to go, where can I find timetables for these? AFTA (Firenze bus website) only had local buses. We are counting on 6 hours max to Pisa including round trip and probably a full day in Siena, is this reasonable? Also, we are planning on going to Fiesole on new year's day, can we expect shops and restaurants/cafes to be open? Do you recommend to stay in the main town instead and do it on a non-holiday? I copied the Siena info from a previous post.<BR><BR>

I found that many smaller hotels close in late Dec. and do not reopen until Jan 2 or so.

The Florence-Siena bus timetable is on:<BR>www.sienaweb.it/territorio/trasporti/rapida.htm<BR><BR>Florence-Pisa is better by train. You can find times on:<BR>www.trenitalia.it<BR><BR>6 hours is plenty for Pisa IMO - maybe too long. I'd probably combine it with nearby Lucca, - together they make a nice day-trip from Florence.<BR><BR>Hope this helps ...<BR><BR>Steve

Never been to the Lepanto area, maybe some other fodorite can help you out.<BR><BR>Anyone?

Make dinner reservations for New Years, as EVERYONE (italians, tourists...) eats out that evening.

I love you.

It really gets my goat when people say Pisa isn't worth (fill in the blank) amount of time. Pisa is such a charming little town. The Piazza di Miracoli is fun to see but the charm of Pisa is in the town itself. The best way to see it is to walk from the train station to the Piazza. Poke your head into the shops along the way. Take your time seeing how people in Pisa live. It's a lot more special than a tower that leans surrounded by hundreds of stands selling t-shirts and leaning towers.

If you can find a copy of the Dec. issue of Saveur magazine, there is a great article on NYE in Florence...especially in a trattoria called Garga! I want to go sometime!

ttt<BR><BR><BR><BR>

ttt

Hmmm. Where IS Lepanto ???<BR><BR>Looks like you've stumped the experts.

The Lepanto metro station is on line A, between Flaminio and Ottaviano stations.