Have a 6 week sabbatical coming up, and thinking about summer in Italy. Plus can work annually 4 weeks in a different time zone so could tack that on. We have a 2-year old also.
Curious is anyone has done this before? And recommendations on where to go / stay?
Also, any cheap-ish travel agents you would recommend to help plan?
Thank you!! :)
What are your preferences? Hot (Rome and farther south) or Cooler (anywhere near the Alps, but still possibly hot). Interests when you are not working? Hiking, Art, Touring, Seashore, etc? What is the other adult going to be doing, ie. child care or another job? My initial thoughts are that with possibly 10 weeks in Italy staying north where you can get to other countries for non-work mini-trips might make most sense to cut down travel times with a 2 year old.. If you are taking a university sabbatical there maybe a university town where you could find/make contacts to encourage local connections. Any travel agent will ask these questions. If it is this coming summer you can also pick some likely small northern university towns and look for apartments on websites like Booking.com to see what renting an apartment for 10 weeks might cost so you have some ideas before working with a travel agent. There are also rental agents in all European university towns for new arrivals so seek them out too. Good luck.
Hello BB, and welcome to the forum,
There is a lot to unpack here. If for a sabbatical you are not looking to work but are actually vacationing then you just need to decide what you want to do. Six separate weeks in six spots? Longer in fewer spots or more moving around? For this I think get a couple of good guide books, decide what looks most interesting to you and then stay at or near those places. Are you open to renting a car or are you depending on public transportation? Most areas of Italy are accessible by public transportation but these kinds of basic decisions start to narrow your search.
Keep in mind summer in Italy is hot and many areas can be very touristy. This also drive up prices so depending on budget a mix of bigger towns and smaller, less touristed places might help the budget. Staying in Florence for six weeks in the summer would be punishingly hot and very expensive.
For work you need to consider communications and support for your family and lifestyle more than a tourist does. A town with easy shopping, public transportation, and communications support versus some small hill town is probably best.
You don't state your country of passport but generally you can stay any 90 out of 180 days in Italy on a tourist visa without running into visa issues. If you chain together 6 weeks and 4 more weeks you're staring to reach towards your 90 days limit. But it sounds like you should generally be fine. If you come to work remotely in Italy and are here on your tourist visa you are probably, technically, violating your "tourist" status but I don't think anyone cares. If Italy starts to suspect you are dodging Italian taxes or tax residency - more than 183 in any one year - that is a very different story.
I think travel agents are largely a thing of the past. With internet pricing and information the commissions that kept that industry alive are not really around anymore.
To start I think the basics are always then best. What am I most interested in seeing and experiencing? Where are the places that fit those descriptions the best? Plot out how long you want to spend in those places to see those things and then see how much times is left. You'll probably be surprised how quickly the days get eaten up.
Have a great trip, shows amazing,
=Tod
