Emily

Hello. At last, I have organized my life once again and am posting a report from our trip to Italy Aug 29-Sep 12. I gained so much from this website that I felt the need to give something back. Thanks to everyone for your advice and suggestions when I was planning. I have posted about 200 pictures from our trip on ofoto. If you would like to see them, please email me directly as I do not routinely check this board (especially now that the trip is over!). I will be glad to email you the link. Here goes: <BR><BR>ROME:<BR>(Aug 29) Departed O’Hare for Rome, with a 3hr layover in Frankfurt. Frankfurt airport very boring and sterile, but clean! Used Limoservice Rome (37euros) for transportation to Albergo Cesari. They were great- waiting for us when we cleared customs. Really liked the hotel as well- roomier than expected, but tiny shower. Excellent location- between Pantheon and Trevi Fountain. They had a substantial breakfast as well. Our first night we walked around the hotel trying to find a place to get some pizza. None of the places that were recommended to us were found, so we ended up settling on restaurant Rosa Rosae a few doors down form the hotel. The pizza was yummy and the ½ liter of rosso was a steal at $4. I would not necessarily go back to this place as it seemed very touristy and food good, but not stellar. Considering we had traveled so long and it was now 9pm, it worked fine for us. <BR><BR>Spent most all of next day on tour of Vatican with Enjoy Rome (prearranged), which we greatly enjoyed and was very informative. Greg was our tour guide and he was great. We had a bit of trouble getting to our meeting point (train station by Vatican). We did not realize you have to have exact change to ride the metro, so after frustrating attempts at the metro station, we jumped in a cab. There was no line to enter the Vatican so we were thrilled!! We had prearranged a Scavi tour of the excavations below St. Peter’s- really interesting!<BR><BR>Also went to Castel Sant Angelo nearby. Had dinner at Antica Taverna (well-priced, decent food for the most part, but the calamri I ordered was awful!). Spent most all of next day on tour of Ancient Rome. Joined a tour group at the Colosseum that was good; then headed to Palatine Hill. We spent the rest of the day hitting some “highlights” like Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Piazza Navona, etc. Had dinner in Jewish Ghetto at Da Giggeto (reasonable, decent food). The next day we spent the morning wandering around, walked through Villa Borghese, did some shopping near the Spanish Steps (excellent prices on beautiful men’s ties), then headed to the train station for Orvieto. <BR>

xx

B_O_R_I_N_G

Emily

ORVIETO-MONTALCINO:<BR>We arrived at the train station in Orvieto to pick up our rental car at Avis, which we booked through Auto Europe. We had no clue where Avis was located. We were told it was right by the train station, but we did not know which way to walk. We found the street address and began walking down the street and almost turned around and then spotted it. We were very pleased with both Avis and Auto Europe. We then left our car at Avis and walked back towards the train station to take the funicular up to top of Orvieto. Orvieto was a really neat town and I was glad we stopped for a few hours. The Duomo was quite impressive and the town had lots of charm. We sat on a patio at one of the enotecas by the Duomo and had Orvieto Classico wine and cheese snack. We then picked up our rental car and drove to Montalcino. The drive was pretty easy and beautiful! It got very confusing though as we entered Montalcino and tried to find where we were staying in the dark. We finally made it to Palazzina Cesira and boy were we thrilled. It was amazing!! We had a suite that was beautiful and huge with a large separate bath. The owners, Roberto and Lucilla, were very hospitable and served a wonderful breakfast the next morning. This was by far our favorite stay on our trip and was the best breakfast for sure! Surprisingly, it was also the least expensive. There were only 3 or 4 rooms total, so book early! We had a delicious dinner the first night at Grappolo Blu (awesome mozzarella, stinko: veal with balsamic, and pasta with verde and garlic sauce). The Rosso di Montalcino was great, too! We met a nice, young Italian couple and chit-chatted with the two of them after dinner. They introduced us to grappa, which was much too strong for our likes!<BR><BR>The next morning we wandered around Montalcino a bit, which was my favorite town, before heading to Barbi winery. We had a nice tour and wine tasting there and then headed to Castello Banfi winery for a huge lunch (reserved ahead of time). We stopped at St. Antimo Abbey on the way to Banfi and took some pictures- nice! The grounds of Banfi were really pretty, but a bit commercialized. The lunch was very good and it was fun to wander around the grounds. We then headed to Argiano, which was my favorite winery. It seemed more quaint. We had a private tour and tasting here which was really neat and unique. We were still full from lunch and tired from non-stop activities, so we had a casual dinner at Locanda di Piazza Padella, which was mediocre. The next morning we did a tour and tasting at Biondi Santi winery, which was my husband’s favorite. It was really beautiful and the wine was awesome! We then drove to Montefollonico for the most amazing meal of the trip at La Chiusa. It was much “fancier” than I would normally want for lunch, but it seemed a little too far to drive for dinner. It was truly the highlight meal of our trip and the service was impeccable. I had ravioli with truffles and an amazing caprese salad. My husband had a trio of pastas that were delicious.

Emily

-CONTINUED-<BR>We then walked off lunch a bit in town of Montefollonico, but it was pretty dead, albeit charming! Then drove to Pienza on the way back to Montalcino. It was also a charming town and I wish we could have spent more time there. We drove to Bagno Vignoni next which was kind of a disappointment. You could swim in a pool with water from the hot springs, but I did not want to swim and put on a swimming cap (required) as I wanted to hit a few more sights in Montalcino when we returned. We returned to Montalcino and went to the Foretezza and the church and walked the streets. My husband had read “Vanilla Beans and Brodo” about life in Montalcino before we left. He thoroughly enjoyed reading it and then seeing all the things discussed when we were there. We had another amazing meal that night at Osteria Re di Macchia, right across from Palazzina Cesira. It was our 2nd favorite meal of the trip (behind La Chiusa). Montalcino was wonderful and I would highly recommend it. One word of advice, I did not realize that you really do need to have reservations to visit the wineries. It seems I read about how people just wandered in and were typically welcome, but we did not find this to be true. We did not have reservation to tour Barbi or Banfi, but to see the others, it is necessary. Lucilla and Roberto were happy to book these for us when we arrived. We left the next morning to drive to our next destination, San Gimignano. <BR><BR>SAN GIMIGNANO:<BR>On the drive from Montalcino we stopped at Monte Oliveto to see the frescoes by Il Sodoma, which was worth the stop. We then drove to Siena and wandered that city for awhile. Parking was a bit hard to find in Siena. The Duomo here was amazing!!! We got lost trying to find the fortezza and then could not figure out how to get into the fortezza once we finally found it- we walked around the whole fortezza! We then headed back to car to continue journey to San G. The drive to San G was not bad, but arriving in San G and trying to navigate the streets inside town was a nightmare. We could not find our hotel, Albergo Cisterna, and the directions we had took us to an area of construction where the road was blocked. We ended up parking (illegally) somewhere and wandered around asking locals until we found our hotel and then backtracked to get to our car. Parking was kind of a pain in San G and cost 11 or 12 euros each day. We were able to pull up to the hotel to unload our bags. The hotel was nice, nothing fancy, but fine with a wonderful and huge balcony where we had evening aperitifs! The breakfast was one of the better ones, too. The town of San G is neat and we really enjoyed wandering around. There were TONS of tourists however and it got very crowded during the daytime, which worked ok for us because we were always gone during the daytime. The Torture Museum was across from our hotel and was really interesting, although a bit unsettling! We had dinner the first night at a place I would not recommend, Osteria de Castello. We tried to go to several other places only to find they were full- seems like you have to book in advance for San G. <BR>

Emily

-CONTINUED-<BR>The next day we left early for a day trip to Florence. We spent a full day in Florence (I had been twice before, but my hubby had not). The traffic was pretty bad as we approached FLO and I was really concerned about where we were going to park and DID NOT want to drive all the way into Florence. I’m not sure where we parked, but it ended up working ok. It was a free parking lot as you enter town from the south on a hilltop and had a long, but do-able walk to the bottom of the hill. We were on the other side of the Arno and walked down to the Ponte Vecchio bridge and crossed over. We had advance reservations to the Uffizi, which was great because the line was really long. After a full day doing typical tourist activities we headed back to San G. We picked up some wine and fruits at one of the enotecas and enjoyed on our balcony before dining at La Mangiota(sp?), which was good. It was the only place that was actually dimly lit on our trip- seems all the restaurants are so bright! <BR><BR>The next day we planned to drive the Chianti Road and visit some more wineries which did not go exactly as planned. The drive itself was really nice with beautiful views, but very few wineries were open to the public without reservations. We went to Villa Vignamaggio and had wine and olive oil tasting. This was our favorite olive oil of the trip. Vignamaggio was the first vineyard to produce chianti and the former owner posed for Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. We were unsuccessful at all the other vineyards we tried to visit that morning. We had a wonderful lunch at Badia Coltibuono and visited the abbey there. We were able to walk into Castello La Lecchia, but no one said a word to us (only 2 employees were there) and the employees looked busy boxing up some wine, so we did not interrupt. Stopped at Lilliano for oil and wine tasting (not too impressive, but very friendly) and went back to San G. We had dinner at La Terraza in the Hotel Cisterna. The veal fillet was excellent; my ravioli was good. We then crashed in anticipation of a very early start and long drive the next morning.<BR><BR>SAN G TO LAKE COMO (with stops in the Cinque Terre and Portofino):<BR>The drive to the first town, Riomaggiore, was not bad- maybe a couple of hours. We parked in Riomaggiore and then walked to the next village, Manorola. It was beautiful and much like the pictures I had seen in advance. We waited about 40 minutes for the next train to take us to another village, Vernazza The trains run in between all the villages of the CT and were really handy for people like us who were short on time!. I was frustrated at having to wait so long and debated to start to walk to the next village. We had a quick lunch in Vernazza before heading back to Riomaggiore to our car. There seemed to be quite a few nice restaurants in Vernazza that I wish we would have had time for- lots of fresh seafood! Once back at the car, we proceeded our journey and decided to stop in Portofino. The drive through Santa Margherita Ligure was beautiful and Portofino was as gorgeous as I had heard. I’m really glad we made the detour. We wandered around a bit and were in awe at the huge yachts and the elite shops! It was really nice. Then we continued our journey to Lake Como.<BR>

Emily

LAKE COMO (VARENNA):<BR>Well, our journey became one of pure frustration as we approached Lake Como. Seems like we had been driving maybe 3 hours when we found ourselves at Lake Como. This was exciting because I expected it to take longer. Well, my excitement was premature as we got really lost! I’m not sure if we missed the initial turnoff to head towards Vernazza (perhaps because it was sooner than we anticipated), but all of a sudden we found ourselves at the Swiss border- not where we were trying to go! We asked the Swiss guard how to get back to Vernazza and thought we followed his directions, but it seemed to just get worse and worse. The fact that it was now dark- 8:30ish- didn’t help. We were told to go through Lecco and then we would see the turnoff for the road to Vernazza. So, we tried to go through Lecco, but the street signs were conflicting and to make matters worse, there was a street fair of some sort that blocked the road we were told by a local to follow. We found ourselves driving on the sidewalk lost and frustrated. To make a long story short, we eventually started seeing signs for Vernazza and followed them to our hotel, Albergo Olivedo, but it was now almost 10pm! And, wouldn’t you know, as we excitedly and exhaustly went inside Albergo Olivedo to check in, we were told by the owner, Laura, that since we had not shown or called by 9:30pm she had given our room away! I understood that she needed to do that for financial reasons (accepts cash only, so no credit card guarantee), but it was positively the last thing we wanted to hear after a frustrating drive. And we never stopped to call because, for one, I never saw any pay phones, and we kept thinking it was going to be around the next corner. Dumb on our part. At any rate, Laura called a hotel nearby and got us a room for the night at the Montecodeno. Although the owner was really nice, I would not recommend it. I had to be a bit persistent with Laura in assuring that we would be able to check into Albergo Olivedo the next day for the remaining 2 nights. <BR><BR>The next day, we took the ferry from Varenna (which is directly across from the A. Olivedo) to Bellagio. Bellagio had lots of charm and I wish we could’ve reserved a room there. Seemed all of the recommended properties were either sold out or too pricey when I tried a few months out. We took the hydrofoil from Bellagio to Como. The view was pretty obstructed on the hydrofoil, but it was a good, quick way to get to Como. Seems like it still took about an hour, which was more than I had anticipated. We were really surprised at the cost to take the ferries and hydrofoils. It was not outrageous, but definitely more than we had expected. Once in Como we took the funicular to Brunate for a gorgeous view of Lake Como. We had heard there was a nice area to hike to (uphill), but never found it. There was a well-marked easy pathway that allowed for the nice view at the end of the pathway. Back in Como, we opted for the more scenic ferry back to Vernazza, with a stop in Mennagio. The ferry took quite some time (?2-2.5 hrs or so?), but was enjoyable. When we returned we checked into the Albergo Olivedo and were pleased with our room- spacious with a nice balcony overlooking the lake, hardwood floors, and real linens. My only complaints were a very lumpy bed and only a tub, no shower. We really enjoyed our stay there and were required to take half board, which I was reluctant about. The meals were actually pretty good- some items were excellent (eggplant parmesan); others just good (ravioli). I would definitely avoid the cr&egrave;me brulee and tiramisu- both were pudding-like in appearance and not particularly palatable. Breakfast was mediocre- bread and jam and yogurt. <BR>

Emily

-CONTINUED-<BR>The next day we drove to St.Moritz, which we were told was 60 minutes away, but was really about 2 hours. The drive was gorgeous with lots of cascading waterfalls. We got about 20 minutes into our drive and realized we had forgotten our passports, which we would obviously need to cross the border. So, we had to turn around and go back and get them- bummer! St. Moritz was scenic, but smaller than I expected. We wandered around the town some and had lunch and then took the funicular up one of the mountains, expecting to hike around for awhile. It was a nice view from the mountain, but not what I had expected. The mountain was barren- no trees like I was used to in the Rockies. They were doing some work on the mountain and had cranes and helicopters flying overhead in preparation for the 2003 World Downhill Championship (or something like that). We headed back down after minimal hiking (it all looked the same to me) and got some delicious Swiss chocolate before heading back to Varenna. We explored Varenna for a little while upon our return- cute town- and then sat on our balcony and had some wine before heading down to dinner. You were supposed to be at dinner around 7:30, which worked fine with our schedule, but might be limiting to some. <BR><BR>The next day we went to the Villa Monastero’s gardens (in Varenna) before heading to Milan. The gardens were gorgeous! I wish we would have had more time to visit some of the other villas- the pictures of them looked incredible! We decided to return our car in Como at Avis and take the train to Milan, which was a smart move. We had not planned to do this, so we did not have directions to Avis in Como and were wandering around when we stumbled upon it- very lucky! Once in Milan, we took a taxi to our hotel. Hotel Gritti. I was so glad that we took a taxi; I don’t think we would have ever found it if we had taken other methods of transportation. I would not really recommend the Hotel Gritti. We had tried months in advance to book a few other places, but all were booked months in advance. Since it was only one night, I figured I could make it work, and it did, but it was not something I would normally stay in. The room was clean, so that was good. The shower was disgusting and extremely small. It was just a shower head and you had to stand right next to the toilet. There was a shower curtain that you could pull around you to separate you from the toilet, but it kept touching me and sticking to my wet body and grossed me out. I opted to just drench the bathroom and dry it off with a clean towel once I was done. Anyways, once we checked in we had to head straight over to the church, Santa Maria Novella ( I think that’s the name), to pick up our Last Supper tickets, which we reserved in advance. After paying our 15euros for 2 tickets, waiting a few minutes in line, and then going through several automatic glass security-like doors, we were granted entrance into the Last Supper. It was in a really simple room with only one other item to see. It was a real disappointment in my opinion (and my husband’s), but at least I can say I’ve seen it. We hit a couple of other highlights in Milan, with the Duomo being the most impressive. WOW!!! Although, there was tons of scaffolding around it. We went to dinner at a place I cannot recall that was a former bank. It was interesting- with a giant screen displaying runaway models, but probably more appropriate for a place to have a cocktail rather than dinner. The dinner was good, but nothing to rave about. <BR>

Emily

-CONTINUED-<BR>The next morning (Sept. 12) we departed from Milan Malpensa back to USA. I was shocked at the apparent lack of security screening- no ID checks at gate. Considering we heard on CNN that morning there was heightened security (worldwide) due to potential terrorist threats surrounding Sept 11, this was a bit concerning. At any rate, we made it safely to Frankfurt where we were to change planes and head back to Chicago. We only had a 50 minute layover so when we arrived 40 minutes late, I thought for sure we would not make our connecting flight with 10 minutes to spare. Then, when I saw the enormous line to go through security in Frankfurt, I thought for sure we would not make it. Security was very tight there. They held the plane for us, which was great because the next flight back to USA was not until the next morning and I really did not want to spend the night near the Frankfurt airport! The flight home was uneventful, but our luggage did not make it (we expected that would happen with our Milan delay). We were told at O’Hare someone would be bringing it to our home the next day, after 5pm. When I called to double check the next day, I was told our luggage had to undergo more security checks and would not arrive until 10pm- midnight. I was a bit nervous as we had 7 bottles of wine wrapped in bubble wrap (we took bubble wrap with us) in one suitcase. I feared our luggage would arrive with our beloved bottles confiscated! We were thrilled to have our bags back home with us and even more delighted the wine made it too! It was truly an amazing trip! Now, I am busy planning our next rendezvous!

ttt

topping as overlooked.

Trish

Emily,<BR>Thank you for your report. I truly enjoyed it. Your trip sounded very similar to ours, that we took in October. I haven't reported on it yet, but hope too soon. Montalcino was one of our very favorite cities also!

Karen

Emily,<BR><BR>Thanks for the wonderful tale of your trip, as well as all of the worthwhile information and recommendations.<BR><BR>We are planning a trip for April next year. I have been twice before, but it will be a first for my husband - we are very excited<BR<BR>

BOB THE NAVIGATOR

Interesting report and itinerary Emily. You hit some of my absolute favorite venues in Italy. I am glad to hear you enjoyed Montalcino--we hope to go back there next year. Your mistakes are not uncommon. Always plan to arrive in daylight hours, and Varenna is not the easiest place to find with a car. Next time use viamichelin for the detail of your destination. Thanks for sharing.