Italy - next vacation project!

listening...

I've never been to Italy, but my sister was in Umbria in September last year. She said that it rained a lot more than expected.

(Was the Guatam-Margo event reported???? I missed it!)

Yes it was reported !!!

HERE

Margo:

My Favorite places in Italy ... Rome because of the piazzas, the artist communities, and the fountains. Outside Rome about 45 kilometers is the largest gravity fountain system in the world, I think it is called Tivoli Gardens (not to be confused with those in Sweden) ... Venice because of St. Marks Square, the Far East blend of Architecture, and the terrific crystal/glass industry! Florence was very nice also, but down on my list.


Anon

Thanks! Glad that at least the two of you got together. The restaurant sounded funny, I hope the margaritas were good.

Teehee, I wonder if there are any Mexican restaurants in Italy??

Tivoli Gardens is a gravity fountain system? How interesting, must look into that.

Bookmarking. c.i.

Lucky for all of you that I am late for work. Lots to post. But, I haven't been to Lake Como, etc. Won't keep me from going on and on here though. I am glad to hear this is your next project, Margo!

Osso

We're waiting breathlessly for your Italy stories....


Anon! G'day! Long time no see! Yes -Rome is fascinating, and we'll probably spend dome time there, but.....

Piffka - it was great to meet Super Gautam - you must make the effort when you're in London - if he can fit you in to his busy schedule. I was indeed bestowed a great honour - but then it was mid-week, when things are a tad quieter for a lad-about-London-town!

To anybody who is new at a2k travel, margo and I know each other from many enjoyable threads long past. I have some repute as a logorrheaic poster on anything about italy, but I speak from the point of view of the besotted (a flaw).

I am still besotted, despite various precarious predicaments there, the fact that I still can't really talk italian, and that there is too damn much to see. I took, for several years, Bell'Italia magazine, a sharp magazine that visits various places in italy each issue, and does very thorough histories of the places. Thorough, as ...with architectural sections of the town through different time periods... unfortunately that mag is in italian, and excellent italian it is. I may have never seen a better magazine, as their info always has panned out in my best research efforts...ne'er mind, they seem to be scrupulous re info.

The uncanny thing is, though I have been to the country a few times now for a while, that magazine is always talking about places I have never been to. Stacks of them, stacks of places I have never been to and want to go.

What is northern, is the question. You know that italy changes (and yet in a way doesn't) within each few miles.

Margo, if you nail down a specific place, I can go through my cartons and find great articles. Or, gads, maybe they are on line by now.

But this brings up the DONT TELL ME effect. Part of why I was so hit by italy when I first went, is that I had absolutely no clue.

I remember a marital discussion about 'we need to go somewhere'. (Me, used to vacations before I met Him, had only been up to Santa Barbara and back to LA, for a bunch of the recent years...He liked to stay home and write. I....had just been through four years of school (working at the same time), two years of working after getting out of school, incredible cramming for boards, and was now out on the other side And I Wanted To Go Someplace. Together we picked Rome. It could have been Cairo, and now you would be hearing all about Cairo.

So, when I bought a used Fodor's guide book and tried to pick a hotel, and did, because it was a one star (low cost) and had a garden...I absolutely could not visualize what we would see. I still remember the map, with the Colosseum about 3/4" away. I almost think people know too much now. I was so bowled over by intense lack of sleep combined with major jet lag - and the sense of some kind of coming home...that I have never gotten over it.

Prereading might preclude those kind of surprises. More later, post before I lose this one.

Two people I would like to get to check in here for you, to counteract my general and obnoxious euphoria, live in or near Italy. One is now in Rome and the other in Vienna (goes to italy often), and they can be more trenchant. The one in Rome is PaolaL, from abuzz, and just getting her feet wet here in a2k. She knows italy in detail and has a practical bent of mind. To tell perhaps too much, she and her husband have written a guidebook to italy in italian and german, and soon now, in english. We met on abuzz arguing about a Richard Meier building (we had the same pov). Do you remember her? We met in person when I was in NY this spring.

She is a friend, but is also swift in email response and knows a lot about diff places.

Not that you need batches of people for your trip ideas...Myself, I demand to be queen of my own trips. At least in my mind.

What I like to do when I am planning is plan, yah, but I like to hear all the why nots. Which I may or may not listen to. I say this in fantasy. I have never actually submitted any travel idea of mine to others' opinions, except the people I am going with.

Ok, I'll quit with this and give a recent trip tour, later tonight or in the morning.

My last trip, the style of which I don't recommend, was to photo piazzas in various cities. I also dealt with need of a pal (not a person I knew well, what was I thinking?) coming with me, sorry (now I can say this) that I did that. My shadow left after about ten days, and my trip improved.

Cities - Roma, through Bologna to Parma. Parma to Modena. Modena to Faenza. Faenza to Siena. Siena to Roma. Roma to Milano to Piacenza to Cremona. Cremona to Milano to Vigevano. Vigevano to Ivrea. (Why am I here?) Ivrea to Firenze, early. Firenze to Lucca (in love with Lucca, anyone want to move to Lucca?). Lucca to Viterbo, not easily. Viterbo to Roma, not easily. Roma to US

So, the furthest north I got was Ivrea, because I was and still am interested in the orange hurling festa they have there...it seems to make a potential alternate to gang warfare in Los Angeles, which was once home of many orange groves...but no, that is just a literary construct. Their jousting, their citywide Palio-type thing, involves orange hurling by young men wearing protective masks. The piazzas fill with broken oranges...I am interested for my logs and, perhaps, book.

I went to Ivrea to photo the two piazzas where the orange hurling takes place once a year, and was entirely occupied instead with finding a place to stay. Hated the city, though it turns out a bookstore is owned by friends of friends, and a film editor I know had family from there. Still, I walked from the station up the usual z hill, and saw molti graffiti, and worse, could find no place to stay, for a long time.
Finally threw the credit card at a business type hotel, and left as soon as I woke up the next dawn.

That was my only real negative experience on that trip and it might have been that I was on day 27 and weary.

I tried to take pictures of Ivrea for my film editor friend, and could hardly figure where to aim the camera. Ugly, I don't like it, avoid it. (It's north of Torino, Turin.)

Of course - in real life, it is probably a wonderful place. I just happened to despise it.

[Blush] - Believe me, the honor was all mine !!

I know I'm getting old; I read Gautam's post as "Believe me, the horror was all mine!!" c.i.

Probably so, c.i., but he was kind enough not to mention it!

Perhaps you have a hangover after your birthday dinner?

margo, It's not any hangover. It's my age; going deaf and blind real quick. My memory is none too dependable either. c.i.

Osso, I agree with you. I think the awe and excitement diminishes a little the more you travel and the better informed you are.

Italy was my first exotic overseas destination (if you don't count London). I arrived in Florence after a 24-hour train/boat/train trip from London, to meet some friends. While I had done quite a lot of reading about Florence, I was certainly not prepared for it mentally.

Florence was different - alive, noisy, fascinating, so-o-o-o Italian. My friends had been there for 2 weeks (part of their 6-month European honeymoon!) and were relaxed. I wanted to see it all - in a week - and then to Milan, as we had tickets for La Scala! So much excitement!

I came back to Florence later in that trip, and revelled in it again for a few days, before Rome. It remains my favourite Italian city.

I still remember most things in detail from that two month trip, my first time in Europe, almost 20 years ago. I've been many times since, but that remains the most exciting in my memory. My first trip to Spain is the only thing that comes close! A brief trip around Lake Como is also sneaking up there!

Stories !?

Hey - this was a dream - but....it could be happening!!!!!!

A friend rang the other day and suggested a trip to Italy next year (friend I went to England and France with 2 years ago!). Not definite yet, but wheeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, Yippee, Margo, I'm hoping for you!

Osso, and the best of all is that he pays the airfares, and he doesn't travel economy!

Last summer I was on a Mediterranean cruise that included stops in Florence, Rome, Sorrento and Venice.

Florence has the Uffizi gallery; Rome has everything you've seen in your history books (Pisa and the tower; Pompeii and the ruins; the Forum, the Colisseum, the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel, and on and on).

Venice is classically fabulous.

But I think Sorrento was probably my favorite, and not for anything of spectacular historical significance, but because it is a more, uh, prototypical Italian city. Upscale, to be sure.

I could not recommend just one of of them.