@inthegarden …awesome!! Isn’t it a relief to have it booked and now it’s REAL! I also look over when I book about 3 times just to make sure I have everything correct.
So, what are all your cities again and how many days? We can help each other with things to do, restaurant recommendations, etc.
Inthegarden and conmama, while I have enjoyed reading your posts, and I mean no disrespect, do you realize that you took over someone else’s thread?
Yes! I feel a huge load lifted. I always get a little new feeling of burden added (like, well, you’ve really done it now…there’s no turning back!) but it is far outweighed by the euphoria of planning/going/and all the memories later.
Don’t have a fixed itinerary yet. But that’s the fun part. Fifteen days plus the first travel day ( don’t know if/when we can return, so I’m splurging on the time). Probably four days in Rome (the first day I’m usually horribly jet lagged) and then we’ll do train travel to somewhere in Tuscany, Umbria and/or Le Marche regions, basing in one or two places and exploring small towns and villages ( I hope to pick up at least a little Italian on Rosetta Stone these next months to manage more out-of-the-way places!) Maybe a day or two in a small beach place, IDK. Will see if we can can travel just by train or maybe I’ll rent car for a bit get to out-of the-way rural places or I’ll book a day tour or two. Possibly two nights/one day in Venice, but don’t know, I really am in the mood to putter in quaint, small town and villages on this trip…I think there’s plenty to see in these regions. I especially want to see a charming little hill town in Umbria (Spello) that is right on the train line near Assissi and Perugia…It is full of flower pots hanging from every building! Maybe we will just stay there for awhile! D kind of wants to see Venice but has no interest in Florence. That’s OK, Rome will be enough for us! Maybe Verona. We’ll definately end up in Lake Como because there we will take a train connecting to the Swiss train on Lake Lugano to Zurich.
@gone2mrrw, yes, that had been in the back of my mind that I should duck out. So I will. Sometimes we old-timers get a little chatty here :). Apologies to @Mom60.
Agreed, we will start our own thread if needed, a general Italy thread where any comments are welcome, not just one specific topic. Sorry at @mom60 .
@conmama @inthegarden I am happy to share the thread! I’m reading every post and I’m gathering more information as the thread grows. These travel threads are a great resource for anyone who is planning a trip.
I’m way behind both of you. I have dates on the calendar but absolutely nothing booked. My H and I who aren’t impulsive people decided last week to throw a May sailing trip to French Polynesia into the calendar. We invited the kids and their partners so this week has been spent searching for airfares to Tahiti. Italy planning got pushed to the side. My sister is going in May and she is in town visiting. We spent yesterday afternoon going over where she plans to go and she shared with me places she has already been that she things we will like. It’s her 5th trip to Italy. I would really like to book my airfare. I’ve looked but nothing has jumped out as a great deal or a great route. Like @conmama I don’t like a connection under 2 hours. My sister is flying Norwegian Air from San Francisco to Rome nonstop. My hope is to get moving on airfare for Italy this week.
@mom60, WOW, French Polynesia! What a dream trip! I can see how you have your hands very full now. My D’s dream trip is to Bora Bora (don’t know if that’s French Polynesia) staying in one of those huts on stilts over the water. I tell her, maybe one day for her honeymoon! But I could be tempted too, if the price were right. Tell us all about your planning and we’ll salivate. I don’t know if I would ever be so adventurous as to go on a sailing trip (ferries are about my speed in the water, lol) but it sounds so amazing.
I don’t know it I would have the energy to plan two trips at a time…that’s a lot of work!
Fun! Are you doing a sailboat charter or one of those larger 5 mast sailboat type cruises?
@doschicos we are doing a sailboat charter. We are getting a 45 ft catamaran out of Raiatea. @inthegarden we will sail to Bora Bora but no over the water bungalows in this trip. The way the flights work we will not have any nights on land in a hotel. Red eye flights both directions and 8 nights out on the water. MyH and I have been sailing in Tahiti before and I really wanted to share it with my kids. Since we just went two years ago we know where we want to go. We had a powerboat charter booked for Britnis Columbia for July which we cancelled. The BC trip was complicated because we can’t all fit on the boat at the same time so we would have done a switch in the middle. When we added up the costs the Tahiti trip wasn’t much more $. Tahiti with the family is on my happy list, BC was not.
Back to Italy- I still can’t decide what towns I want to focus on in Tuscany and Umbria. I want to stay in at least one farm or vineyard. I’d love one that offered a cooking class. Also going back and forth between either two or three places. I don’t want to move each night so I’m thinking 2 or 3 nights in each stop. I’m working with anywhere from a total trip of 21-24 days.
@mom60 That sailing trip looks so fabulous! CC is so full of surprises about people! I’m so amazed by the diversity of interesting lives led here. Wish I were brave enough to sail on the open ocean! I’ve done some adventurous things but I don’t know if I could cross that particular barrier. I do better with very sturdy boats that stay close to shore and snorkling in shallow water. But a sailing boat is the ultimate in romantic travel, I think.
Have made my first Italy hotel reservation…in Rome. In the end I did choose the Trastevere area…but there’s free cancellation if I change my mind in the next few weeks or find a place I like as well in the center. But I love Trastevere and I like to pretend I live in a place… and we’ll be there four days. I know It’ll make me happy walking out the door and sitting at a nearby sidewalk cafe or in the plaza three minutes away in the mornings or evenings. We’re staying in a little apartment that reminds me of an artist’s studio with bright, white walls, earthen tiled floors, an old wooden ceiling (not just the thick beams but the ceiling itself) and lots of windows) on a quiet street. With washer/dryer in the kitchenette, and separate living room. All reviews are tops and it’s less expensive than anything of that quality in the center. Around the same price of some regular hotel rooms that I considered without the amenities or character just a few blocks across the bridge in the city center. So we’ll wear out our shoes or take a few extra taxi rides.
I often do a “stake in the ground” reservation … with possibility of cancelling if I change my mind. The studio sounds lovey. We did not find many washers (and fewer dryers) in the Rome airbnb listings .
@mom60, I’ve read some good things about Orvieto. It’s in Umbria but near the border of Tuscany so maybe a good base for both regions. I think the cooking classes and other things you want are widely available in both but especially plentiful in Tuscany. I kind of like that Umbria is a bit off the main track though.
Your apartment and location sounds absolutely lovely! @inthegarden . So does the rest of your trip! @mom60, I agree that sailing like you are doing is the ultimate in adventurous. Hats off to you!
So, now you can eat more gelato and pasta! Your rental sounds charming.
I loved walking around the hill towns in Tuscany. Also don’t miss some of the famous gardens. The Villa d’Este’s fountains are fabulous.
@mom60 I am jealous of your travel plans!
@Mom60 for a farm-stay in Italy, google for Pamela Sheldon Johns, Food Artisans, Poggio Etrusco. Pamela is from the Santa Barbara area but has lived in Italy for 20+ years. She has written many cookbooks and is also hosts on her farm.
Their home is near Montechiello and Montepulciano. A stay a Poggio Etrusco with a cooking lesson may be just what you are looking for.
I was hoping to nudge my D to take a cooking class because she loves Italian food…would be nice if she were the one to take over some of the family cooking, but, nope! Maybe I will just sign us up anyway!
My plans have shaped up in the last two days…I’ve been a little obesessed. But I realized how popular Italy is, so I decided to make some bookings. The plans have morphed but I’m excited about the changes. As I mentioned earlier, we got a flight out of Zurich and I was planning to take a high-speed train from northern Italy on the next-to last day. But someone said that these trains are underground a lot of the time, tunneling beneath the mountains, which would kind of defeat the purpose of flying out of Switzerland (although it would be more efficient than backtracking to Rome from Lake Como).
After some investigations and asking questions on Tripadvisor, I found out there’s a train that originates in Milan that runs NW to Lake Como and stops a few places (including Varenna) on the lake, then curves and heads eastward to Tirano where you can catch the famed Bernina Express scenic train (with panoramic windows) through the Bernina Pass in the Alps, running near St Moritz and ending in Chur (near Davos). While it’s possible to then get another train to Zurich the same day from Chur (getting in around 8:30 PM) we decided to spend two nights in the pretty mountain town of Chur, and one night in Zurich, getting a mini-vacation in Switzerland. We really liked the look of Varenna/Lake Como, with all the grand villas, sumptuous gardens, boats criss-crossing the Lake to other villages, and possibilties of walking/hiking in the mountains. Plus, Varenna has been there since the 11th century, so there’s got to be some interesting historical aspects to explore (even though it’s no Florence!) So we’re staying four nights/three full days there to really relax into this part of the trip. Yesterday I booked a little apartment in a house that got 10/10 reviews for the location just a couple of blocks from the lake and a helpful host. Lakeside wold be great but out of my budget unless we were further out of town (hard with luggage and no car) or wanted a tiny room. Traveling with a teenager (even a nice teenager) it’s great to have room to spread out when together 24/7!
So, the downside, of course, is that leaves only four days between Rome and Como to do what I had originally thought of as the main part of the trip where we’d spend the most time (Tuscany, Umbria and/or Le Marche villages). It’s OK, because I don’t really like heat and a trip like that would probably be better in May or October. I’m looking for a classic hill town with a train station with possibilities for easy daytrips to other places by train (maybe I would rent a car for a couple of days to explore the countryside better.) Maybe Assissi (with day-trips to Spello and Perugia). Another side of me thinks I should be taking my D for a beach day somewhere (I don’t think anyone swims in Lake Como)…but that would be stretching the trip very thinly. Yet another part of my brain is kind of unsettled to miss the artwork of Florence, though maybe that (with the hill towns) is just another Italy trip waiting to happen (preferably in April/May).
Ideas? Italy experts: what, really, is the main difference (aesthetically) between the landscapes and small towns of Tuscany and Umbria? If you were blindfolded and the blinds taken off in any spot in each, would you know which region you were in (other than Tuscany having more visitors?) Does Tuscany have more vinyards, more beautiful light or landscapes? Is Umbria drier or less scenic somehow…or is it simply a little less-traveled?
I will be following the thread for sure. Thanks for all the input. Considering Italy May 2021 for the honeymoon. 
“Italy experts: what, really, is the main difference (aesthetically) between the landscapes and small towns of Tuscany and Umbria?”
I’m hardly an expert, but having been to both, I’d say what really differenciates the two is Cinque Terre and the coast. Everyone wants bragging rights of photos taken with these picturesque Tuscan villages in the background. Because of this, Tuscany and Cinque Terre are quite often mobbed by tourists well through October. For me that’s a major turn off. Umbria, being landlocked, won’t have the coast for you to explore, which also makes it somewhat the road less traveled for the average tourist. But Umbria is, imo, equally gorgeous, “typically Italian” and magical. It just doesn’t have the well-advertised romanticism of Tuscany.