Will you have a car?

Two months in Italy - What a dream. I've posted this on another thread and thought I would post here, too. May and early June are when the Giro d'Italia bicycle race happens. This will affect some areas both in lodging and access. You might want to take a look at the stage routes and plan accordingly. Have a fabulous trip!

Thank you! We will get a car since we may be out of the way in some of the long-term rentals - plus, we want to explore all the surrounding area>

Unless changed they will have a car.

Thanks! I think we will plan to stay here a week or two.

Yes, we are planning to take our car to Sicily. (I think we can do that on a ferry.) we've been to Taormina and a little time in Palermo, but maybe you can tell us the best place to stay to explore the rest of the island.

Besides Taormina, we have based ourselves in Ortigia (Siracusa); Palermo, and Trapani and enjoyed different parts of Sicily from each of them.

You can take the car on the ferry, but it might be cheaper and simpler to drop the car in Naples and get another in Sicily. It takes a long time to load and unload the cars and you have to wait and crawl along in the line.

Yes, we will have a car.

Be careful of ZTL zones in most larger Italian cities - private vehicles being banned from congested city centers and cameras snap plates of scufflows and you'll get a hefty ticket in the mail sometimes months after returning home.

Hi, rcartinc - apologies for not joining in earlier - I was moving my mum down from Coventry to Cornwall and then I was in Venice for a week.

as St Cirq says there are language schools all over Italy. The ones I've been to have all been in big cities save the first which was in Orbetello, a small city with Etruscan roots about 150 kms north of Rome. Most schools offer graded group classes which concentrate on grammar [even in what they call "conversation classes"] but as there are two of you you might be able to arrange for private lessons with a teacher who concentrates on talking rather more than you would get in group classes. One way of approaching finding a school would be to choose the area you prefer and then try to find schools within that area that offer what you are after. OTOH you could spend say the first two weeks in a bigger place where there is more choice of schools and then move onto your more rural location/s, where you would get plenty of practice. [a good reason for avoiding large tourist centres which tend to have lots of english speakers who want to practice on you, rather than you practicing on them!]

Someone here went to a language school in Catania I think, but there's no way I'd want a car there. Ditto Palermo.

We stayed in Monopoly for 3 months in 2016. Loved it! We were near the sea and several great beaches. Its got a charming old town area, large castle and lots of public events. They have excellent travel options (we did not have a car). Very convenient trains and buses. We took side day trips and overnight trips and went as far as Gallipoli.

Thank you so much Annhig!

my pleasure, rcartinc.

What about Calabria?
 

Thanks to all the input we received, we now have most of the trip reserved. We will stay two weeks in Umbria (during the bike race)(thanks for the head's up Rocket79!), then three weeks near Monopoli. After that we have a week before heading back up to Verona, so we are thinking about Calabria - maybe Matarea, or? Any suggestions for a base to explore the far south of Italy?

Thank you again.

I think you mean Maratea. And, I am assuming you will find your way over to Matera, a must see, while you are based in beautiful Monopoli. Last year, we based ourselves in the old town of Castellabate, although there are two seaside areas that also are part of the same town. From there, we were within striking distance of Paestum, and Agropol was a nice town to visit. We saw virtually no Americans, and October was fairly quiet there but beautiful. Our airbnb host shared, for a very reasonable cost, 10% of their family's annual olive oil haul (we were returning on a transatlantic cruise ship that allowed us to bring back the oil) that we got the day they pressed. While there, we heard that a few years earlier, Joe Biden as VP celebrated his wife's 60th birthday in this small town. Had one of the best dinners in Italy at a very affordable restaurant at the top of the town.

There are two blue zone towns (very few places i the world with exceptional longevity) just south in Acciaroli and Pioppi, where there also was a neat waterfront villa museum dedicated to the Mediterranean diet. Pisciotta was another gem with some nice affordable restaurants. From there to Maratea, you will drive some narrow winding cliffside roads that are as dramatic as any in Italy. In this area, there are lots of narrow curving roads, barely two cars wide, with lots of fast moving bicycles and cars, more than anywhere else we have driven in Italy, somehow regularly making three lanes out of the two.

Maratea itself consists of an old hill town which should have been connected to a mountaintop above it by funicular ,since it is topped with one of those massive Rio-like statues of Christ. Instead, they built a strange road that, even though this is out in no-where, consists of a roadway that at the top looks like a section of fhe LA freeway. A bit strange but the magnificent coastal views, ruins, church are well worth the visit, even if the parking is minimal. The hill town has some interesting shops, and the marina area is a pleasant spot for lunch. We did not see it, but there is also a well-known cave to the south.

Thank you, thank you! That all sounds perfect. It's hard to find much information on that part of Italy. I really appreciate your input.