Travellerwannabe does Italy
Jun 19th, 2006, 10:08 PM
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Travellerwannabe does Italy
Hi everyone,
We just got back from a 26 day trip to Italy. It was amazing. Thanks to everyone for their help in the planning process. We're now doing our part in sharing our experiences with you. Enjoy!!
My boyfriend D (BFD) and I spent 3 nights in Venice, 7 nights in Montepulciano, 3 nights in Florence, 3 in Napoli, 3 in Capri and 6 in Rome.
Venice part I (3 nights, May
16-20)
Flight (toronto-Frankfurt-Venice)
We left on Tuesday May 16th in the afternoon, straight from work. We got to the airport at 2:30, naively thinking that since we're early enough (6pm flight) we'll be able to choose good seats on the flight since we couldn't do it online ahead of time. It turns out that the reason we weren't able to do it ahead of time was the fact that it was an air canada flight operated by Lufthansa. After being sent back and forth between the two airlines at the airport, we had to check in through Lufthansa. My luggage was over the new weight limits!!!!!!! so they gave us a bag and we had to step to the side and repack so , now i have two pieces of luggage instead of one, not sure what the pt is. We get back into line, but now there's a problem checking me into the flight from frankfurt to Venice. Had to go back and forth between air canada and lufthansa counters a few more times before I was properly checked in (it seemed that each airline wanted to pawn us off onto the other). It took us over two hours just to check in, by the time we got to the gate it was almost boarding time (glad we got to the airport so early). It was tough to get us two seats together, but they did, however, they were probably the most uncomfortable seats on the plane as they were both middle seats (in a set of 4) and didn't recline back (in front of a galley). So it was a tough 8 hours to Frankfurt, the people in front reclined back as far as they could, the flight attendants brought food but wouldn't pick up the trays for over two hours. I had to got to the restroom but couldn't get up due to the trays so I nicely asked the flight attendant if she can just take ours since I had to go sooo badly!!! But she flat out refused to since she had to serve tea. I waited for another 1/2 hour, my BFD then had to do a great juggling act with my tray, his tray and the tray of the nice lady sitting next to me so I can go.
Lessons learnt : do not take a flight operated by a different airline than the one you bought the tickets from!!! and always make sure that your seats are booked ahead of time!! I won't badmouth Lufthansa, it could just be that one flight attendant.
We waited at the frankfurt airport for 4 hours, before our flight to Venice. It was kind of interesting to see "smoking stations" there where smokers stand by what seemed to be some sort of smoke vent so suck it out.
Venice
We got to Venice around 2:30pm local time (6 hour time difference). The break in Frankfurt was nice and we felt good getting to our destination. We wanted to take the water taxi in order to experience the great entrance into the city but we cheaped out and decided to take the vaporetto thinking that we'd get the same experience. But we didn't since it turned out that the vaporetto takes you around venice to your stop at the bottom instead of through the grand canal. The one we took was also in serious need of maintenance, it sounded in serious need of maintenance.
Oh well, we decided that we'll have to take that taxi later afterall (the taxi costs 100 euros, the vaporetto about 10). A lot of people had warned us of the smelly Venice water etc, but it wasn't at all. As we got closer to our stop we could see how beautiful the city is. So yes, we belong to the set of people who love Venice. We got off at our stop (Arsenale) and had to carry our luggage up and down 3 bridges to get to our hotel (C'a formenta). We paid $697 canadian for 3 nights (close to 140 euros per night). We had booked it through expedia, everything went smoothly, a guy working there carried our luggage, down the hall, through another hall that went to the outside for a minute by a small canal and then up the stairs. The room was small but very clean, the bathroom seemed fairly new. The location was pretty good, 5-10 min walk from San Marco. It was a good hotel, it's not exceptional but it's good.
We dropped off our luggage and went for a walk. We walked towards San Marco on the boardwalk, going up and down an infinite number of bridges along the way. The boardwalk is very touristy (i guess that's expected). It's full of merchants trying to sell you cheapo masks (not for cheap, typical Tourist traps) and knockoff LV and other designer bags. There were also a few people dressed in carnevale wear trying to suck you into getting a picture taken with them for a small donation. This one woman kept looking at me and saying "come on lady!! come on lady!" but I wouldn't go over.
We started looking for Da Remigio for dinner (recommended by our fodor's travel book) and quickly realized why everyone says to get a good detailed map of venice. As you move away from the grand canal, there are tons of little alleyways that are considered to be streets and nothing is labelled properly. We got lost (firt time of many!!!) in some back alleyways but came across some beautiful high end mask stores. Any decent masks that we had seen up until this point didn't seem so nice anymore. We spent some time browsing as we were still trying to find our restaurant. The backalleys of Venice (or getting lost in the backalleys) is where we started to get an italian feel (as opposed to a touristy feel) with locals shopping at local food shops and kids playing in the piazzas. More exploring and we finally found our restaurant. We had some local cuisine (it consists of seafood mainly), the food was good but not great (it could just be the fact that we don't love seafood). Started walking back to the hotel after dinner (we took a different route this time, got lost again
came across what looked to be a take out pizza place where all the locals were standing in line, decided to make sure we get a pizza there at a different time and went back to the hotel.
The next day we woke up a bit late, had breakfast and walked around all day. We wanted to go inside the basilica di San Marco but after waiting in line and getting to the front, we were told that we couldn't bring in a backpack (we had ignored the signs since we saw everyone else carrying a backpack). So we just left and started walking around, window shopping ( lots of masks, murano glass jewellery , vases etc as well as really good clothing). We went through lots of piazzas and churches including Santa Maria Gloriosa dei frari, checked out the rialto bridge where some kids tried to pick a fight with BFD. We covered most of San Marco, San Polo and Santa Croce (oh so many bridges), eating ham and cheese sandwiches along the way, came across a park (Giardino Papadopoli) where we took a nap.
Even though it's very easy to get lost in Venice it's also very easy to get unlost, there are lots of excellent signs everwhere that point you to the main sites, but don't bother finding something at a specific address.
On the way back , we came across a Vaporetto line that did go through the whole grand canal so we got on. There was a lot of picture taking here as we went by lots of basilicas and palazzos (palazzi).
For dinner we went on a wild goose chase again, finally found our restaurant (Al Mascaron), where we were seated at the same table as a German couple. They spoke a bit of english, we spoke a tiny little bit of Italian and no german so we managed to communicate and have a fun time with lots of gestures and acting up things that the other couldn't understand. It was quite comical to see the german guy (they had polished off 3 bottles of wine at this pt) making swimming and underwater motions. On the way back, we came across the pizza place again, we decided that we would get take out from there the next day.
After having some wine at the restaurant, we clumsily found our way to San Marco's square at night where there were many orchestras in different spots playing classical music. As one would end the other would start. This is a must experience!!!
There isn't much of a nightlife in Venice so we got into the habit of watching the sopranos on a portable DVD player that we brought with us, we brought the first 3 seasons with us. I hadn't seen it before but i got hooked after the first episode. This became an addiction!!!!
More on Venice later
We just got back from a 26 day trip to Italy. It was amazing. Thanks to everyone for their help in the planning process. We're now doing our part in sharing our experiences with you. Enjoy!!
My boyfriend D (BFD) and I spent 3 nights in Venice, 7 nights in Montepulciano, 3 nights in Florence, 3 in Napoli, 3 in Capri and 6 in Rome.
Venice part I (3 nights, May
16-20)
Flight (toronto-Frankfurt-Venice)
We left on Tuesday May 16th in the afternoon, straight from work. We got to the airport at 2:30, naively thinking that since we're early enough (6pm flight) we'll be able to choose good seats on the flight since we couldn't do it online ahead of time. It turns out that the reason we weren't able to do it ahead of time was the fact that it was an air canada flight operated by Lufthansa. After being sent back and forth between the two airlines at the airport, we had to check in through Lufthansa. My luggage was over the new weight limits!!!!!!! so they gave us a bag and we had to step to the side and repack so , now i have two pieces of luggage instead of one, not sure what the pt is. We get back into line, but now there's a problem checking me into the flight from frankfurt to Venice. Had to go back and forth between air canada and lufthansa counters a few more times before I was properly checked in (it seemed that each airline wanted to pawn us off onto the other). It took us over two hours just to check in, by the time we got to the gate it was almost boarding time (glad we got to the airport so early). It was tough to get us two seats together, but they did, however, they were probably the most uncomfortable seats on the plane as they were both middle seats (in a set of 4) and didn't recline back (in front of a galley). So it was a tough 8 hours to Frankfurt, the people in front reclined back as far as they could, the flight attendants brought food but wouldn't pick up the trays for over two hours. I had to got to the restroom but couldn't get up due to the trays so I nicely asked the flight attendant if she can just take ours since I had to go sooo badly!!! But she flat out refused to since she had to serve tea. I waited for another 1/2 hour, my BFD then had to do a great juggling act with my tray, his tray and the tray of the nice lady sitting next to me so I can go.
Lessons learnt : do not take a flight operated by a different airline than the one you bought the tickets from!!! and always make sure that your seats are booked ahead of time!! I won't badmouth Lufthansa, it could just be that one flight attendant.
We waited at the frankfurt airport for 4 hours, before our flight to Venice. It was kind of interesting to see "smoking stations" there where smokers stand by what seemed to be some sort of smoke vent so suck it out.
Venice
We got to Venice around 2:30pm local time (6 hour time difference). The break in Frankfurt was nice and we felt good getting to our destination. We wanted to take the water taxi in order to experience the great entrance into the city but we cheaped out and decided to take the vaporetto thinking that we'd get the same experience. But we didn't since it turned out that the vaporetto takes you around venice to your stop at the bottom instead of through the grand canal. The one we took was also in serious need of maintenance, it sounded in serious need of maintenance.
Oh well, we decided that we'll have to take that taxi later afterall (the taxi costs 100 euros, the vaporetto about 10). A lot of people had warned us of the smelly Venice water etc, but it wasn't at all. As we got closer to our stop we could see how beautiful the city is. So yes, we belong to the set of people who love Venice. We got off at our stop (Arsenale) and had to carry our luggage up and down 3 bridges to get to our hotel (C'a formenta). We paid $697 canadian for 3 nights (close to 140 euros per night). We had booked it through expedia, everything went smoothly, a guy working there carried our luggage, down the hall, through another hall that went to the outside for a minute by a small canal and then up the stairs. The room was small but very clean, the bathroom seemed fairly new. The location was pretty good, 5-10 min walk from San Marco. It was a good hotel, it's not exceptional but it's good.
We dropped off our luggage and went for a walk. We walked towards San Marco on the boardwalk, going up and down an infinite number of bridges along the way. The boardwalk is very touristy (i guess that's expected). It's full of merchants trying to sell you cheapo masks (not for cheap, typical Tourist traps) and knockoff LV and other designer bags. There were also a few people dressed in carnevale wear trying to suck you into getting a picture taken with them for a small donation. This one woman kept looking at me and saying "come on lady!! come on lady!" but I wouldn't go over.
We started looking for Da Remigio for dinner (recommended by our fodor's travel book) and quickly realized why everyone says to get a good detailed map of venice. As you move away from the grand canal, there are tons of little alleyways that are considered to be streets and nothing is labelled properly. We got lost (firt time of many!!!) in some back alleyways but came across some beautiful high end mask stores. Any decent masks that we had seen up until this point didn't seem so nice anymore. We spent some time browsing as we were still trying to find our restaurant. The backalleys of Venice (or getting lost in the backalleys) is where we started to get an italian feel (as opposed to a touristy feel) with locals shopping at local food shops and kids playing in the piazzas. More exploring and we finally found our restaurant. We had some local cuisine (it consists of seafood mainly), the food was good but not great (it could just be the fact that we don't love seafood). Started walking back to the hotel after dinner (we took a different route this time, got lost again
came across what looked to be a take out pizza place where all the locals were standing in line, decided to make sure we get a pizza there at a different time and went back to the hotel. The next day we woke up a bit late, had breakfast and walked around all day. We wanted to go inside the basilica di San Marco but after waiting in line and getting to the front, we were told that we couldn't bring in a backpack (we had ignored the signs since we saw everyone else carrying a backpack). So we just left and started walking around, window shopping ( lots of masks, murano glass jewellery , vases etc as well as really good clothing). We went through lots of piazzas and churches including Santa Maria Gloriosa dei frari, checked out the rialto bridge where some kids tried to pick a fight with BFD. We covered most of San Marco, San Polo and Santa Croce (oh so many bridges), eating ham and cheese sandwiches along the way, came across a park (Giardino Papadopoli) where we took a nap.
Even though it's very easy to get lost in Venice it's also very easy to get unlost, there are lots of excellent signs everwhere that point you to the main sites, but don't bother finding something at a specific address.
On the way back , we came across a Vaporetto line that did go through the whole grand canal so we got on. There was a lot of picture taking here as we went by lots of basilicas and palazzos (palazzi).
For dinner we went on a wild goose chase again, finally found our restaurant (Al Mascaron), where we were seated at the same table as a German couple. They spoke a bit of english, we spoke a tiny little bit of Italian and no german so we managed to communicate and have a fun time with lots of gestures and acting up things that the other couldn't understand. It was quite comical to see the german guy (they had polished off 3 bottles of wine at this pt) making swimming and underwater motions. On the way back, we came across the pizza place again, we decided that we would get take out from there the next day.
After having some wine at the restaurant, we clumsily found our way to San Marco's square at night where there were many orchestras in different spots playing classical music. As one would end the other would start. This is a must experience!!!
There isn't much of a nightlife in Venice so we got into the habit of watching the sopranos on a portable DVD player that we brought with us, we brought the first 3 seasons with us. I hadn't seen it before but i got hooked after the first episode. This became an addiction!!!!
More on Venice later
Jun 19th, 2006, 10:48 PM
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Venice part II and drive to Toscana
The next day (friday), we woke up late again, rushed to have breakfast and went for another random walk (still without a good map). Walked by the dressed up people again, today the same woman who was saying "come on lady" the day before is giving me dirty looks, haha, so i started giving dirty looks back. This happened the next day as well. We walked through some high end shops by Harry's bar in moise, very nice area.
There was a vaporetto strike that day (this is why the german guy was making the swimming motions the night before, it's how he was going to get to the airport with his luggage the next day, knowing that the strike will be on). So we knew we were limited to walking and taking the traghetto. We ended up heading to the dorsoduro area and walking by the water (zattere) where there were several nice places. We wanted a snack so we stopped at what looked to be a casual restaurant and asked if we can order 1 pizza (not slice but full pizza) for two people, the waiter very rudely told us that we couldn't (he was almost yelling) so we got up and left, ended up at what seemed to be a university hangout. They were playing hip hop and r&b music that's at least 6 years old, trying to be cool
, we had some nice casual salads and a sandwich, did more walking for the rest of the day. It was very sunny and Venice is soooo bright due to the water reflecting the sun everywhere, sunglasses are a must. Once dinner time came around we wanted to get the takeout pizza from the place we came across the two previous nights and of course now that we wanted it, we couldn't find it. We kept going around in circles and I soooo had my heart set on it, that even though we were starving, i insisted on finding it. A nice Italian man decided to help us out as he saw us staring as street signs (of course we didn't know what street it was on, we just remembered that it was close to the place where the guy had a dog), he spoke little english. He asked us what we were looking for and we say "pizza". He had this perplexed look on this face, you know, the one that says "are you kidding me, isn't pizza everywhere". we tried explaining that it was a take out place, blah blah blah, but he didn't understand us. He gave us directions that did lead us to a restaurant that does sell pizza just not the one we wanted. We eventually found the pizza place, got a large pizza and some ice tea from a neighbouring store. We wanted laundry detergent as well to do some hand washing, this was also a challenge as the woman did not speak a word of english. My limited italian along with everyone making motions of washing laundry and saying (a manno, si si a manno) got us some detergent
So one thing we noticed is that everyone who works in most restaurants, hotels (including chambermaids and people who carry your luggage) speaks multiple languages , french, english, italian, german seem to be very common but you go off any main tourist path and people no longer speak a word of english. For ordering at restaurants we carried a food dictionary with us, that along with a regular english-italian dictionary have saved us many times.
We ate our pizza by the water where some guy in a sailboat asked me for some pizza. I naively thought that he was genuinely hungry but soon realized that he was just trying to get my attention totally ignoring the fact that my bf was right there. He kept yelling out "signorina! signorina! I'm just a poor sailor". I started ignoring him and he stopped after a while. We went back to the hotel to pack and watch another episode of the sopranos.
The next day, woke up early, went to San Marco with no backpack this time!! and went into the Basilica, very impressive. We carried our luggage up and down the steps of the bridges, took a boat to our car rental place and left Venice. We got a really good price on the car rental (250 canadian for a whole week including 0 deductible insurance), this was through autoeurope.com. We were told when we picked up our car that the rental place itself doesn't offer such a great deal on the insurance. We got a ford fiesta that barely fit our luggage and headed for Tuscany.
We wanted to hit Verona on the way but we got hungry so we stopped in Padova where we got lost. We tried asking some people for directions but they refused to help us out. They would just keep walking, ignoring us, or just kind of give us looks and keep going. We were using my compass to get our bearings but that didn't help. Anyway, we eventually found our way to the place where we wanted to eat, ate and got out of there, we didn't do any sight seeing since it was getting late, we didn't think we'd get so lost. We decided to skip Verona
We drove for another 3 hours on the highway.
The speed limit was 110 km/hour, we were going at 130-140 and people were just zooming by us.
As we got past Bologna, the scenery totally changed to great moutainous landscape (very beautiful). Does anyone know what mountains/region that is?
As we got into tuscany the scenery totally changed from the big mountains to the softer rolling hills. We got off the main highway to take some country roads to Montelpulciano. We drove narrow very winding country roads that take you up the mountain, the views were getting more and more breathtaking as we drove up, with people going at like 100 km-h!!!!! i didn't think we would make it!!! (I got into a car accident a week before the trip, the damage to my car was big, I was very lucky to end up with just some backpain, nothing serious. This made all the walking a bit harder but I was ok. Driving however made me very jumpy at this point, so the Tuscany drives were extremely tough for me)
It took us a long time to find our resort http://www.santantonio.it/but we did before dark. phew!
The resort did not disappoint, it's part of an olive grove, used to be a monastery, we got our own private cottage. Nico (the owner) speaks, english, italian, dutch, french, swaihili and a couple more languages, he's extremely helpful, his english is amazing, he went to school in england or something like that. The resort is on a hill and has beautiful views. There's also outdoor wood bbqs and a pool with beautiful landscaping. We paid 560 euros for a week (got a discount for paying in cash) for a 1 bedroom cottage. We normally don't like staying in different hotels more than once when we visit an area again but this place we would definitely go back to. We did a quick grocery run and got settled in.
Detailed food section:
Breakfast in Venice was at the hotel , they had a good selection of cheeses, salami, breads, croissants etc.
Lunches we kept simple, fromaggio and ham sandwiches, really nice salads that consisted of lettuce, cherry tomatoes with a soft mozarella on top, there's no salad dressing, you just get a bottle of olive oil and one of vinegar and you pour them on to your taste , very yummy, this had become one of our favourite things to eat. small water bottles ranged anywhere from 1 to 1.5 euros, coffee or tea around the same.
We had 3 dinners in Venice
The first at
Da Remigio
decent service, the food was good but not exceptional
The primi consisted of prosciutto crudo (raw cured prosciutto)
and a white saw lasagna
The secondi consisted of scampi fritti and scampi a la griglia (grilled prawns and fried prawns)
no wine this night, just water
cost 65 euros, service included. we thought that this was a lot for what we got.
the second at
Al Mascaron
excellent food. Decent service.
primi was a mix of antipasti (prawns, little fried fish, octopus salad and other little sea creatures that we didn't recognize), this was big enough to share
secondi i got some sort of mediterranean white fish and BFD got Bracala (cod)
house wine and aqua minerale naturale
this was around 70 euros
The last dinner was from the take out pizza place
We got a large Margherita pizza and some ice tea , i think that they were around 6 euros.
The next day (friday), we woke up late again, rushed to have breakfast and went for another random walk (still without a good map). Walked by the dressed up people again, today the same woman who was saying "come on lady" the day before is giving me dirty looks, haha, so i started giving dirty looks back. This happened the next day as well. We walked through some high end shops by Harry's bar in moise, very nice area.
There was a vaporetto strike that day (this is why the german guy was making the swimming motions the night before, it's how he was going to get to the airport with his luggage the next day, knowing that the strike will be on). So we knew we were limited to walking and taking the traghetto. We ended up heading to the dorsoduro area and walking by the water (zattere) where there were several nice places. We wanted a snack so we stopped at what looked to be a casual restaurant and asked if we can order 1 pizza (not slice but full pizza) for two people, the waiter very rudely told us that we couldn't (he was almost yelling) so we got up and left, ended up at what seemed to be a university hangout. They were playing hip hop and r&b music that's at least 6 years old, trying to be cool
, we had some nice casual salads and a sandwich, did more walking for the rest of the day. It was very sunny and Venice is soooo bright due to the water reflecting the sun everywhere, sunglasses are a must. Once dinner time came around we wanted to get the takeout pizza from the place we came across the two previous nights and of course now that we wanted it, we couldn't find it. We kept going around in circles and I soooo had my heart set on it, that even though we were starving, i insisted on finding it. A nice Italian man decided to help us out as he saw us staring as street signs (of course we didn't know what street it was on, we just remembered that it was close to the place where the guy had a dog), he spoke little english. He asked us what we were looking for and we say "pizza". He had this perplexed look on this face, you know, the one that says "are you kidding me, isn't pizza everywhere". we tried explaining that it was a take out place, blah blah blah, but he didn't understand us. He gave us directions that did lead us to a restaurant that does sell pizza just not the one we wanted. We eventually found the pizza place, got a large pizza and some ice tea from a neighbouring store. We wanted laundry detergent as well to do some hand washing, this was also a challenge as the woman did not speak a word of english. My limited italian along with everyone making motions of washing laundry and saying (a manno, si si a manno) got us some detergent So one thing we noticed is that everyone who works in most restaurants, hotels (including chambermaids and people who carry your luggage) speaks multiple languages , french, english, italian, german seem to be very common but you go off any main tourist path and people no longer speak a word of english. For ordering at restaurants we carried a food dictionary with us, that along with a regular english-italian dictionary have saved us many times.
We ate our pizza by the water where some guy in a sailboat asked me for some pizza. I naively thought that he was genuinely hungry but soon realized that he was just trying to get my attention totally ignoring the fact that my bf was right there. He kept yelling out "signorina! signorina! I'm just a poor sailor". I started ignoring him and he stopped after a while. We went back to the hotel to pack and watch another episode of the sopranos.
The next day, woke up early, went to San Marco with no backpack this time!! and went into the Basilica, very impressive. We carried our luggage up and down the steps of the bridges, took a boat to our car rental place and left Venice. We got a really good price on the car rental (250 canadian for a whole week including 0 deductible insurance), this was through autoeurope.com. We were told when we picked up our car that the rental place itself doesn't offer such a great deal on the insurance. We got a ford fiesta that barely fit our luggage and headed for Tuscany.
We wanted to hit Verona on the way but we got hungry so we stopped in Padova where we got lost. We tried asking some people for directions but they refused to help us out. They would just keep walking, ignoring us, or just kind of give us looks and keep going. We were using my compass to get our bearings but that didn't help. Anyway, we eventually found our way to the place where we wanted to eat, ate and got out of there, we didn't do any sight seeing since it was getting late, we didn't think we'd get so lost. We decided to skip Verona
We drove for another 3 hours on the highway.
The speed limit was 110 km/hour, we were going at 130-140 and people were just zooming by us.
As we got past Bologna, the scenery totally changed to great moutainous landscape (very beautiful). Does anyone know what mountains/region that is?
As we got into tuscany the scenery totally changed from the big mountains to the softer rolling hills. We got off the main highway to take some country roads to Montelpulciano. We drove narrow very winding country roads that take you up the mountain, the views were getting more and more breathtaking as we drove up, with people going at like 100 km-h!!!!! i didn't think we would make it!!! (I got into a car accident a week before the trip, the damage to my car was big, I was very lucky to end up with just some backpain, nothing serious. This made all the walking a bit harder but I was ok. Driving however made me very jumpy at this point, so the Tuscany drives were extremely tough for me)
It took us a long time to find our resort http://www.santantonio.it/but we did before dark. phew!
The resort did not disappoint, it's part of an olive grove, used to be a monastery, we got our own private cottage. Nico (the owner) speaks, english, italian, dutch, french, swaihili and a couple more languages, he's extremely helpful, his english is amazing, he went to school in england or something like that. The resort is on a hill and has beautiful views. There's also outdoor wood bbqs and a pool with beautiful landscaping. We paid 560 euros for a week (got a discount for paying in cash) for a 1 bedroom cottage. We normally don't like staying in different hotels more than once when we visit an area again but this place we would definitely go back to. We did a quick grocery run and got settled in.
Detailed food section:
Breakfast in Venice was at the hotel , they had a good selection of cheeses, salami, breads, croissants etc.
Lunches we kept simple, fromaggio and ham sandwiches, really nice salads that consisted of lettuce, cherry tomatoes with a soft mozarella on top, there's no salad dressing, you just get a bottle of olive oil and one of vinegar and you pour them on to your taste , very yummy, this had become one of our favourite things to eat. small water bottles ranged anywhere from 1 to 1.5 euros, coffee or tea around the same.
We had 3 dinners in Venice
The first at
Da Remigio
decent service, the food was good but not exceptional
The primi consisted of prosciutto crudo (raw cured prosciutto)
and a white saw lasagna
The secondi consisted of scampi fritti and scampi a la griglia (grilled prawns and fried prawns)
no wine this night, just water
cost 65 euros, service included. we thought that this was a lot for what we got.
the second at
Al Mascaron
excellent food. Decent service.
primi was a mix of antipasti (prawns, little fried fish, octopus salad and other little sea creatures that we didn't recognize), this was big enough to share
secondi i got some sort of mediterranean white fish and BFD got Bracala (cod)
house wine and aqua minerale naturale
this was around 70 euros
The last dinner was from the take out pizza place
We got a large Margherita pizza and some ice tea , i think that they were around 6 euros.
Jun 20th, 2006, 04:38 AM
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Thank you for sharing your trip with us. I am a fellow Canadian from Halifax. My husband and I flew with Air Canada and Lufthansa via Montreal & Munich to Rome on May 16th the this year. We happened to be in Montalcino the exact same time as you were in Montipulciano. We took that beautiful drive from Montipulciano to Montichiello and on to Pienza. Sant' Antonio looks like a wonderful spot.
Just a tip for future. You can call Lufthansa in advance to do your seat selection for the transatlantic portion of your trip. They won't do the inter European connections though.
We found the seating on Lufthansa much more squishy than Air Canada. It was an uncomfortable flight on our way over but from Frankfurt to Montreal on the way back it was an Air Canada plane and there was a lot more leg room.
I'm glad you had a nice trip and I look forward to hearing more.
Just a tip for future. You can call Lufthansa in advance to do your seat selection for the transatlantic portion of your trip. They won't do the inter European connections though.
We found the seating on Lufthansa much more squishy than Air Canada. It was an uncomfortable flight on our way over but from Frankfurt to Montreal on the way back it was an Air Canada plane and there was a lot more leg room.
I'm glad you had a nice trip and I look forward to hearing more.
Jun 20th, 2006, 08:01 AM
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I'm enjoying your report and look foward to the rest. I flew Lufthansa from JFK in March and had a great flight. Guess I was lucky, I was there very early and was able to get a decent seat, at least on the way over.
Jun 20th, 2006, 03:00 PM
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Hi everyone,
thanks for your replies, I'm attaching a link to the Venice photos.
More to come
Crazy4Travel thanks for the tip. I actually lived in Halifax for 3 years 93-96 (grades 10-12). I went to Halifax West high school.
http://ca.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/dmc...QSyDFBpiuJQwlD
thanks for your replies, I'm attaching a link to the Venice photos.
More to come
Crazy4Travel thanks for the tip. I actually lived in Halifax for 3 years 93-96 (grades 10-12). I went to Halifax West high school.
http://ca.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/dmc...QSyDFBpiuJQwlD
Jun 20th, 2006, 05:18 PM
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Ciao travellerwannabe, I posted to you earlier but the post didn't take..Fodor's is having some computers glitches.
I love your trip report!!! I can only imagine how frustrated you were trying to leave Canada. You must have the patience of a saint.
I am going to enjoy a glass of wine while I look at your photos.
I love your trip report!!! I can only imagine how frustrated you were trying to leave Canada. You must have the patience of a saint.
I am going to enjoy a glass of wine while I look at your photos.
Jun 20th, 2006, 05:43 PM
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Well, I followed LoveItaly's example (always a good thing to do) and enjoyed a glass of wine while looking at your pictures. They are beautiful and really encourage me to take my husband there ASAP!
I love the laundry along the canal! And the Italian Coast Guard. Thanks so much for sharing and I'm looking forward to more.
Linda
I love the laundry along the canal! And the Italian Coast Guard. Thanks so much for sharing and I'm looking forward to more.
Linda
Jun 21st, 2006, 03:49 AM
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Hi Everyone,
thanks for the great comments! Glad everyone is enjoying my report. Yes my patience was definitely running out at the airport in Toronto, I remember saying something like "I don't want to go anymore!" Another thing about legroom these days, I'm 5'1 and I had trouble!!!!
thanks for the great comments! Glad everyone is enjoying my report. Yes my patience was definitely running out at the airport in Toronto, I remember saying something like "I don't want to go anymore!" Another thing about legroom these days, I'm 5'1 and I had trouble!!!!
Jun 21st, 2006, 04:35 AM
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TOSCANA I
Forgot to mention one thing about Padova, we ran into one of the people who refused to give us directions in the same restaurant that we were asking for directions to (can you believe it??)
i wanted to go kick her in the shins but BFD wouldn't let me!
back to Tuscany.
May 20th - May 27th
We arrived on the evening of May 20th as I described previously. There was a huge dutch group having dinner at the bbq closest to us (at least 10). We waived, they waived. We end up seeing this group the most out of anyone else who was staying there, very friendly but unfortunately we didn't have a common language we could communicate it.
The woman who takes care of the cottages is named Suzanna, very friendly but doesn't speak a word of english, I tried carrying out some conversations in Italian with her but I would just end up struggling so i just avoided it (probably the wrong thing to do), she's the sister of Nico's wife's best friend (everyone seems to be related or everyone is this town). Her dog Diva who's a bit too friendly for my taste (i don't like/am scare of dogs) was around a lot of the time. Our cottage had one bedroom, one bathroom and a nice living room/eating area/kitchen with a fireplace. The living area had a smallish window with a killer view, and a tiny tv with satellite (they don't seem very big on big tvs here). The place was stalked with Avignonesi Montepulciano wine and other drinks (they all cost if you use them but the prices were much cheaper than you can get in the store, especially the wine). There was lots of storage space (phew), there was even a small shelf in the bathroom that we were also able to use.
There were a few bugs in the place (we discovered later that they were coming in from an open window in the bathroom. We're in the country so what do we expect right? We tried to close the bathroom window, had to pile up two chairs to reach it (we later found a lever close to the ground that can open and close it ah).
On Sunday , May 21st , we woke up at 7:30 am (i'm obviously over the jet lag here, i don't even wake up this early at home!!). Went out for a walk to check out the grounds and just sat around enjoying the sounds of the birds along with a rooster in the background. We had breakfast, lunch and then decided to head into the town of Montepulciano. For those of you who haven't been to this area, a lot of the towns in this area are fortified hill towns with a huge gate that serves as the only entrance to the town. Parking is always at the bottom of the hill and you have to walk up these very steep hills to get into the actual town. Only locals are allowed to drive inside the town (and trust me you don't want to anyway). We had a bit of trouble finding parking initially, but finally found this 1/2 hour parking spot close to the tourist office, parked the car and headed into town (we figured it's a small town, how long could we be there for and hey, no one is probably going to check right?)
As we painfully walked up the hill, we came across a lot of wine tasting places offering Montepulciano wines such as Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and Vino Rosso di Montepulciano among others.
Some of them also offered Pecorino cheese tastings (very very yummy). We went into a couple of the places and got tours of the wineries/etruscan tombs (??). We came across a few lookout points where we hung out and took pictures, did i mention that this area is breathtaking?
We stopped and had coffee and pastries at cafe Poliziano (very friendly place, they had let me use their bathroom the previous day when we were desperately looking for our resort). Their pastries are yummy. btw, i like italian cafes waaaayy more than french cafes. We decided to sneak some sugar packets into our pockets since we didn't have any sugar in our cottage. We got carried away (well BFD did) and we walked out with poketsfull of sugar packets (he really got into the stealing thing and kept sneaking them into my pockets as I discretely kept asking him to stop haha). There was a couple there with 4 small boys playing soccer IN the cafe. Somehow we ended up spending 5 hours in the town instead of the originally planned half hour. As we were getting to the car, we saw a policman and a policewoman about to give us a ticket (if only we left the town 10 minutes earlier!!) We tried smooth talking our way out of it to no use. They asked for our passports and car documents and gave us a 35 euro ticket, to be paid ON THE SPOT! we asked them what would happen if we weren't there, they said there were two kinds of tickets, one if you're there, one if you're not there, it got very confusing very quickly since again, we had communication problems. What we got from it though was that we were parked in a "limited traffic area" so only locals are allowed to park here (we had missed that sign). We pretended not to understand a few times but they were very stern. We tried cracking jokes but they didn't get them or care to get them. They said that we got the one for parking in a limited traffic area but there's another one for driving in a limited area so i was like "so you gonna give us another ticket once we start driving?", not even a smile!!! So i was said "how do we know who YOU are" so they started talking and showing their registration numbers, telling us where to check etc (can you tell we're desperate here!!). Needless to say, we payed 35 euros and got out of there. We made dinner back at the cottage.. pasta. We noticed that everything tastes better over here, even the same things that you make at home, the groceries are a lot fresher and better tasting
The next day, we did a day trip to Pisa. It was a little further than we had anticipated, we always seem to look at the total number of KMs and assume that we're taking we're taking a straightforward road there or something. We seemed to always forget the fact that they're country roads!! Our original plan was to visit Lucca in the morning and Pisa in the afternoon but we didn't make it there until the afternoon. We took the S146-->Pienza--> San Quirico d'Orcia, then the SR2 --> Siena. We wanted to take the SR429 towards Pisa from Siena but we had trouble figuring out where to go once we got to Siena. We had a very detailed Michelin map book but that didn't help, since once we got to a roundabout with arrows and signs pointing in all directions. We ended up taking the SR2--> A1--> A11 path. So we DID get to pisa, there's not much to the town itself as many of you had mentioned. We walked around a huge wall (the site is fortified) but all the way there were guys selling knockoff bags and cheap paraphenelia (we soon learnt that these guys are in all tourist towns). The tower and the neighbouring duomo and battistero are spectacular. Worth the trip, this was definitely better than what we had imagined!! We had a quick pizza lunch at Le Buca (recommended by Fodors), well the restaurant is but maybe ordering Pizza wasn't the best choice. It was just OK. It was 17 euros for 2 Pizzas and 2 cokes with a nice view of the tower. We headed out of Pisa very quickly since we had only paid for 2 hours of parking and we don't want to park illegally now do we?.
We took the scenic route on the way back (yes, it took even longer than the way there
and drove along the water. We drove through Livorno where there seemed to be a US naval base (why??) they even had their own radio station, we got out of the car , took some steps down to a rock formation where lots of people where sunbathing. We came across an older lady who was sunbathing topless, she had obviously had "them" done. She was wrinkled all over, except for there where the skin was nice and smooth, not a very pleasant site . We headed south again, this whole area (which was not in my travel book) was very happening with beach goers (lots of rocks no sand). We headed South again (very beautiful scenery), we saw Elba from a distance. We were planning on getting to Elba during our week but we just ran out of time and driving stamina Now that we've been there, I think that using Montepulciano as a base and driving all over Tuscany from it was not the best idea. Don't get me wrong I would still want to spend a full week there but maybe we should've added a couple more days in a more central location of Tuscany (next time )
We got all the way south to Rosignano Solvay (beautiful with nice beaches). We then started heading South east to just outside of Grasetto, we then took the S73 NE. Most drives were done to Reggaeton music, drove BFD insane we drove through a lot of "real" italian villages full of old people who look about a thousand years old. We had dinner at home that night and watched the Sopranos. Season 1 done We realized during this drive that the reason we could'nt get our bearings in Padova was because the compass always showed that we were either going south or south west. We thought that maybe we were using it wrong but when we tried it out outside the car it worked fine. We then realized that compasses don't work properly in cars!! of course!! We had followed it incorrectly soooo many times at this point.
Forgot to mention one thing about Padova, we ran into one of the people who refused to give us directions in the same restaurant that we were asking for directions to (can you believe it??)
i wanted to go kick her in the shins but BFD wouldn't let me!
back to Tuscany.
May 20th - May 27th
We arrived on the evening of May 20th as I described previously. There was a huge dutch group having dinner at the bbq closest to us (at least 10). We waived, they waived. We end up seeing this group the most out of anyone else who was staying there, very friendly but unfortunately we didn't have a common language we could communicate it.
The woman who takes care of the cottages is named Suzanna, very friendly but doesn't speak a word of english, I tried carrying out some conversations in Italian with her but I would just end up struggling so i just avoided it (probably the wrong thing to do), she's the sister of Nico's wife's best friend (everyone seems to be related or everyone is this town). Her dog Diva who's a bit too friendly for my taste (i don't like/am scare of dogs) was around a lot of the time. Our cottage had one bedroom, one bathroom and a nice living room/eating area/kitchen with a fireplace. The living area had a smallish window with a killer view, and a tiny tv with satellite (they don't seem very big on big tvs here). The place was stalked with Avignonesi Montepulciano wine and other drinks (they all cost if you use them but the prices were much cheaper than you can get in the store, especially the wine). There was lots of storage space (phew), there was even a small shelf in the bathroom that we were also able to use.
There were a few bugs in the place (we discovered later that they were coming in from an open window in the bathroom. We're in the country so what do we expect right? We tried to close the bathroom window, had to pile up two chairs to reach it (we later found a lever close to the ground that can open and close it ah).
On Sunday , May 21st , we woke up at 7:30 am (i'm obviously over the jet lag here, i don't even wake up this early at home!!). Went out for a walk to check out the grounds and just sat around enjoying the sounds of the birds along with a rooster in the background. We had breakfast, lunch and then decided to head into the town of Montepulciano. For those of you who haven't been to this area, a lot of the towns in this area are fortified hill towns with a huge gate that serves as the only entrance to the town. Parking is always at the bottom of the hill and you have to walk up these very steep hills to get into the actual town. Only locals are allowed to drive inside the town (and trust me you don't want to anyway). We had a bit of trouble finding parking initially, but finally found this 1/2 hour parking spot close to the tourist office, parked the car and headed into town (we figured it's a small town, how long could we be there for and hey, no one is probably going to check right?)
As we painfully walked up the hill, we came across a lot of wine tasting places offering Montepulciano wines such as Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and Vino Rosso di Montepulciano among others.
Some of them also offered Pecorino cheese tastings (very very yummy). We went into a couple of the places and got tours of the wineries/etruscan tombs (??). We came across a few lookout points where we hung out and took pictures, did i mention that this area is breathtaking?
We stopped and had coffee and pastries at cafe Poliziano (very friendly place, they had let me use their bathroom the previous day when we were desperately looking for our resort). Their pastries are yummy. btw, i like italian cafes waaaayy more than french cafes. We decided to sneak some sugar packets into our pockets since we didn't have any sugar in our cottage. We got carried away (well BFD did) and we walked out with poketsfull of sugar packets (he really got into the stealing thing and kept sneaking them into my pockets as I discretely kept asking him to stop haha). There was a couple there with 4 small boys playing soccer IN the cafe. Somehow we ended up spending 5 hours in the town instead of the originally planned half hour. As we were getting to the car, we saw a policman and a policewoman about to give us a ticket (if only we left the town 10 minutes earlier!!) We tried smooth talking our way out of it to no use. They asked for our passports and car documents and gave us a 35 euro ticket, to be paid ON THE SPOT! we asked them what would happen if we weren't there, they said there were two kinds of tickets, one if you're there, one if you're not there, it got very confusing very quickly since again, we had communication problems. What we got from it though was that we were parked in a "limited traffic area" so only locals are allowed to park here (we had missed that sign). We pretended not to understand a few times but they were very stern. We tried cracking jokes but they didn't get them or care to get them. They said that we got the one for parking in a limited traffic area but there's another one for driving in a limited area so i was like "so you gonna give us another ticket once we start driving?", not even a smile!!! So i was said "how do we know who YOU are" so they started talking and showing their registration numbers, telling us where to check etc (can you tell we're desperate here!!). Needless to say, we payed 35 euros and got out of there. We made dinner back at the cottage.. pasta. We noticed that everything tastes better over here, even the same things that you make at home, the groceries are a lot fresher and better tasting
The next day, we did a day trip to Pisa. It was a little further than we had anticipated, we always seem to look at the total number of KMs and assume that we're taking we're taking a straightforward road there or something. We seemed to always forget the fact that they're country roads!! Our original plan was to visit Lucca in the morning and Pisa in the afternoon but we didn't make it there until the afternoon. We took the S146-->Pienza--> San Quirico d'Orcia, then the SR2 --> Siena. We wanted to take the SR429 towards Pisa from Siena but we had trouble figuring out where to go once we got to Siena. We had a very detailed Michelin map book but that didn't help, since once we got to a roundabout with arrows and signs pointing in all directions. We ended up taking the SR2--> A1--> A11 path. So we DID get to pisa, there's not much to the town itself as many of you had mentioned. We walked around a huge wall (the site is fortified) but all the way there were guys selling knockoff bags and cheap paraphenelia (we soon learnt that these guys are in all tourist towns). The tower and the neighbouring duomo and battistero are spectacular. Worth the trip, this was definitely better than what we had imagined!! We had a quick pizza lunch at Le Buca (recommended by Fodors), well the restaurant is but maybe ordering Pizza wasn't the best choice. It was just OK. It was 17 euros for 2 Pizzas and 2 cokes with a nice view of the tower. We headed out of Pisa very quickly since we had only paid for 2 hours of parking and we don't want to park illegally now do we?
. We took the scenic route on the way back (yes, it took even longer than the way there
and drove along the water. We drove through Livorno where there seemed to be a US naval base (why??) they even had their own radio station, we got out of the car , took some steps down to a rock formation where lots of people where sunbathing. We came across an older lady who was sunbathing topless, she had obviously had "them" done. She was wrinkled all over, except for there where the skin was nice and smooth, not a very pleasant site . We headed south again, this whole area (which was not in my travel book) was very happening with beach goers (lots of rocks no sand). We headed South again (very beautiful scenery), we saw Elba from a distance. We were planning on getting to Elba during our week but we just ran out of time and driving stamina Now that we've been there, I think that using Montepulciano as a base and driving all over Tuscany from it was not the best idea. Don't get me wrong I would still want to spend a full week there but maybe we should've added a couple more days in a more central location of Tuscany (next time )We got all the way south to Rosignano Solvay (beautiful with nice beaches). We then started heading South east to just outside of Grasetto, we then took the S73 NE. Most drives were done to Reggaeton music, drove BFD insane
we drove through a lot of "real" italian villages full of old people who look about a thousand years old. We had dinner at home that night and watched the Sopranos. Season 1 done We realized during this drive that the reason we could'nt get our bearings in Padova was because the compass always showed that we were either going south or south west. We thought that maybe we were using it wrong but when we tried it out outside the car it worked fine. We then realized that compasses don't work properly in cars!! of course!! We had followed it incorrectly soooo many times at this point.
Jun 21st, 2006, 07:35 AM
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Oh no, you didn't think Montepulciano was a good base? In October, we are staying between Pienza and Montepulciano, beside the hamlet of Monticchiello. Did you feel like you were trying to cover more ground than was reasonable in a day? I might have to scale back my daily quests.
Jun 21st, 2006, 07:59 AM
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Hi Crazy4Travel, yes it's definitely a small world .
Edhodge, It's a good base if you're trying to stay in Southern Tuscany mostly, there's definitely lots to see there but we were trying to cover North and South and East and West and use that week as our relaxing week I think we were a little too ambitious. It ended up being reasonable because we cut out a lot of things (the long drives were getting to us). We cut out Elba, Saturnia, Arezzo etc. Doing Pisa on the first day definitely gave us a feel or just how far everything is (if you just look at number of Kms which is what we did originally everything seems so close but those country roads make 10KM seem very far).
Edhodge, It's a good base if you're trying to stay in Southern Tuscany mostly, there's definitely lots to see there but we were trying to cover North and South and East and West and use that week as our relaxing week
I think we were a little too ambitious. It ended up being reasonable because we cut out a lot of things (the long drives were getting to us). We cut out Elba, Saturnia, Arezzo etc. Doing Pisa on the first day definitely gave us a feel or just how far everything is (if you just look at number of Kms which is what we did originally everything seems so close but those country roads make 10KM seem very far).
Jun 21st, 2006, 08:03 AM
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I just want to add one more thing, it really depends on you, we were in Italy for close to a month so we didn't want to be in crazy go-go-go state all the time because we knew we would burn out too early. If your style of travelling is very fast then you can definitely do it. Ours is more of a medium pace.
