I almost forgot! On day 10 we also took a gondola ride. I don't care how touristy it is, everyone who goes to Venice should take a gondola ride. The more people you have the cheaper it is since they don't charge per person. We took our gondola ride from one next to the Accedemia Bridge. It was 60 Euro for 1/2 an hour or 80 Euro for 45 mins. We sprang for the 80 Euro. Techincally I think we only got about 35 mins., but it was wonderful. You really get up close and personal with the canal. We started out on the Grand Canal and ended up in the smaller canals which was the best part in my opinion. And no, the canals did not stink.<BR>Day# 11 - Went to St. Mark's Square and watched people putting pigeon seed all over their bodies so the pigeons would roost on them. Everyone was very tired at this point and everyone had come down with colds so we didn't go in St. Mark's or the Doge's Palace. Just walked around and looked in shops. Got lunch consisting of sandwiches from a bar and sat near a fountain next to St. Mark's and fed the pigeons. Since everyone was tired and feeling blah we all went back to the hotel. Everyone except me took naps. I went out on my own and wandered around. I came across a gondola workshop which was really cool. Two guys were painting one and there was an unpainted one inside a shed. Then I found a phone and called my husband to tell him everything he was missing. I wandered around some more finishing up my souvenir shopping and headed back to the hotel. We all went to dinner at 7:00 at the same Osteria we ate at the previous night. I had past w/ baby squid which completely horrifed my mother-in-law. It was pretty good, but not something I would order often. After dinner we went to the church in Camp San Stefano for a Vivaldi concert. We bought our tickets at our hotel. We all enjoyed the concert and went back to the hotel.

Day #12 - We woke up early, had breakfast and wandered around to do a little window shopping before we had to leave to go back to Rome. We caught the water bus to the train station and took the Eurostar back to Rome. In Rome we stayed at Hotel Navona again, this time we were given rooms on the 4th floor. My mother was not pleased with the stairs. We went to Piazza Navona in the evening, watched the people (it was quite crowded being Friday evening) and then found a restaurant way back in the alleys to the west of the piazza. I had lasagna which was delicious. The restaurant served a lot of seafood, but we did not partake of the seafood, just pasta &amp; pizza and some very good wine of which of course I can not remember the name of it. Very good service too, very friendly &amp; helpful picking out the wine. Got some gelato afterwards and walked back to the hotel saddened by the fact that this was our last night in Italy. The next morning we awoke at 3:30 AM and Limoservice Rome picked us up at the hotel at 4:30 AM to take us to the airport to catch our 7:00 flight. We took Swiss Air again to Zurich &amp; then to Boston. <BR>I want to go back!!!!

hi,<BR>thank you very much for your valuable information. I will be in Italy for 4 days. If you come to my country, Vietnam, I 'll be your guide.best regards

Khoalh,<BR><BR>Thank you! I'll keep it in mind. You never know what the future holds.

Thanks for such a great trip report, I felt I was there again reading it. I too stayed at Hotel Navona but we were on the same floor as the lobby (thank goodness). You can't beat the location!<BR><BR>We wanted to stay at Il Nido in Sorrento but it was closed for the winter in November, so we stayed at Mignon and I was not disappointed. It too had a wonderful location Sorrento.<BR><BR>Glad you had such a great trip!!<BR><BR>April

Thanks for such a great trip report, I felt I was there again reading it. I too stayed at Hotel Navona but we were on the same floor as the lobby (thank goodness). You can't beat the location!<BR><BR>We wanted to stay at Il Nido in Sorrento but it was closed for the winter in November, so we stayed at Mignon and I was not disappointed. It too had a wonderful location Sorrento.<BR><BR>Glad you had such a great trip!!<BR><BR>April<BR>[email protected] om

scullysioux: thanks for the great report....i will be honeymooning in italy for the month of july. did you find that it was difficult to locate good (and affordable) restaurants on your own? i am hoping to use the guide book at times, but also hoped that talking to locals would be a good resource. any more advice would be great. thanks again.<BR><BR>joshp

Josh,<BR><BR>Congratulations! What a great honeymoon.<BR>To answer your question we had no problems finding good restaurants for dinner in Rome. For lunch we were pretty much stuck with whatever there was where we were at the time we were hungry. The problem we had was I was travelling with my parents and mother-in-law who are in their 60's. After a day of walking and sightseeing they were beat and did not want to walk very far to eat dinner. As a result we looked in the areas near our hotels. We found really good inexpensive restaurants in the alleys to the west of Piazza Navona, the further back we went the better they got. In Florence we had difficulty finding anything with less than 3 languages on the menu (we really wanted to avoid anything touristy as they are not very good). While in Florence, my father came down with a cold and was not feeling well so we did not walk far. We found that looking in our guide book did help. We found a couple good restaurants this way. Venice was expensive, and had a lot of snack bars, not many restaurants that were close to our hotel. I like your idea of asking the locals, I'm sure you would find great food that way. They should know!