Go to Italy again, or not. Can't decide

such a tough decision! I always say I could just keep going back to Italy but I must do something different. As much as I LOVE Italy I am so glad that I have visited the other places too. If you've never been to Paris it really is a must see, an amazing city with so much to see and experience. Europe itself is addicting and Italy of course is a major part of that.
It's a tough choice you must make, do what's best for you and your wife.

Ray, I always "mix" the destinations I visit in Europe. While I may visit France, Germany, Switzerland or other countries, I ALWAYS make sure I get back to Italy every year. That approach has worked well for me. Would your budget allow you to visit Paris or Barcelona, but also spend some time in Italy? Happy travels!

Everyone should experience Paris at least once in their life. You can go to Paris, take the TGV to Nice, then maybe explore some of the Italian Riviera or Piedmont? Or perhaps Paris, Chunnel to London, then Brussles / Amsterdam and back to Paris to fly home?

I love Italy too, but I would encourage you to add somewhere else to your trip. You could do one of the nearby countries and then do 4 or 5 days in Italy so you could get your "fix". France is a good choice or you could consider Southern Germany, Switzerland or Austria and then do Northern Italy.

Ray Italy is our favorite country overseas also but we have managed to visit a few others while coming & going. Last year we flew Iceland Air (great prices) into Iceland and stayed a couple of days. This is a country everyone should visit once, so beautiful and unlike anywhere else we have been before. We then flew down into Milan for two weeks of sightseeing in Italy in the Tuscany region, Rome & Sorrento/Amalfi Coast. We then left Rome and flew to Paris for a couple of nights. Paris is a beautiful city but after seeing all the tourist attractions, we were ready to go home. The French people are not quite as welcoming as the Italians and the food is certainly nothing special, very overpriced and bland. The best meal we had was in a Canadian Pub-LOL You might also want to visit Austria, it's just a few hour train ride from the Venice area. While staying with our daughter in Austria, we often took the train into Italy for a weekend visits. Austria is beautiful, several cities worth seeing-Innsbruck, Salzburg & Vienna. All accessible by train.
We plan on visiting Italy again next year and making the trip south to Greece & Sicily.

My husband and I visited Italy two years in a row, and loved it. But we tried France next, and then Greece, and Croatia. We've been back to Greece 4 more times. We find it to be inexpensive, beautiful, filled with warm welcoming people and wonderful food. We never would have found Greece had we not forced ourselves out of the comfort zone of Italy. Of course, this year we are returning to Italy ... to Le Marche and Puglia. Can't get too fixated on Greece, either!

What a fantastic dilemma! One that has no wrong choices.... Maybe you could.... 1. Find a good bargain on an airline ticket and plan trip around that location. 2. Pick a region of Italy that you haven't been to or have only briefly visited, research food and wine and culture of area before trip and explore that in depth. Suggestions: Puglia/Basilicata; Sardinia; Sicily/Aeolin Islands; Emilia-Romagna; lakes of Northern Italy; Veneto/Fruili-Venezia Guilia with a few days in Slovenia (capital of Ljubljana, maybe beaches). Staying in one or two places in the region and visiting all of the smaller towns and cities that usually take 2nd place to Venice/Florence/Rome. 3. Paris is, well, PARIS!
4. Depending on how long you have, you can book your US flight into Paris and out of Barcelona (or an Italian city) and get a cheap flight (like from Ryan Air) from Paris to Barcelona or somewhere in Italy (Brindisi for Puglia, Bologna for Emilia-Romagna, Palermo for Sicily, etc....). Have fun deciding!

Ray,, I love Paris and France in general, but I do try and add another country to each trip to get another taste, and have often been surprised at how much I enjoyed the "other" places. With the cheapo airlines it really is not a huge price buster to add a visit to somewhere else. If you can find a decent open jaw( fly into one place out of another) its a great idea to fly into say Rome, spend week there, then fly to Paris,, spend some time there , then either fly home out of Paris, or fly back to Rome( you can get return Paris Rome tickets on airlines like Easyjet or Vueling for about 100 euros, sometimes less, buy well in advance) This summer we are flying into Amsterdam, then train to Paris, then train to Nice( going to be about 50 euros), then flying from Nice to Barcelona( with Vueling, its cheap) then flying from Barcelona back to PAris( Easyjet,, all taxes and fees in, 169 euros for two of us) . Remember you are already paying thousands for airline tickets to get over to Europe, another 3 or 4 hundred dollars to get around and visit a few more places is not a huge deal ( usually) I would however limit how many places you go, we will be there for 22 days, my thing is one country one week minimum .. too much commuting does add up and dilute whole experience ( for me, just personal opinion and taste)

As I'm sure you knew when you posted this topic, the answer to your question is that only you can know what you will enjoy the most. Here's my philosophy that works for me: Better to dig one well 60 feet deep than 10 wells six feet deep. I've chosen to dig my well in Italy. There's no other place on earth that per square mile has the same amount of art, history, culture, food, wine, natural beauty, and on and on. I've been studying the language for years and can now have an hour-long conversation on the train with whatever friendly Italian might be sitting there. This has enhanced the experience so much more than would be the case otherwise, opening up a doorway into that country that few tourists get to go through. This was driven home for me on our most recent trip to Italy. Our return flight had a 23 hour overnight layover in Paris, so we spent the night in the Marais district, touring the Notre Dame area. I felt crippled because I couldn't speak with the locals. For me, it turned the experience into a "bubble" experience, where I felt I was separated from the culture due to this language barrier. We're now planning our fourth trip to Italy, for May 2013, and I can't wait!

After numerous trips to Italy and Switzerland, and a few other places like London and Paris, we switched it up and went to Spain last May. We absolutely loved it. We started in Barcelona, and traveled from there to Toledo, and beautiful walled city perched on a hill, and then made a loop through Andalucia to visit Sevilla, Granada and Cordoba. Like you, we have studied Italian and are pretty good, but it was easy to switch to Spanish. We found very nice hotels that were less expensive, generally by 30 euros or so, than comparable places in Italy where we stayed the previous year. Travel by train was easy and affordable with discount tickets purchased in advance. The food and wine are excellent, and the historical sites amazing. Add the art and architecture and it all adds upmto a great destination.

Ciao Ray - down the road in St. Helens! With the incredibly cheap inter-european flights now, I would vote for staying a couple of days in Paris and flying to Italy to finish your trip. Before going to Italy 3 years ago, I was all about Paris and France, but now that I have been bit by the Italy bug I can't get enough. However, if you have never been to Paris you have to go at least once. And thanks for the cheap flights you can have the best of both worlds - Paris AND Italy! If you want way off the beaten path in Italy, look at the Veneto and FVG regions. We spent 3 nights in Asolo and 3 nights in Cormons last year and had an amazing time.

Since you have been taking Italian lessons, why not try to get more immersed in an Italian city or town? If you enjoy Tuscany, try Pistoia for a real jolt of non touristy Italy. Using this locale, you can still hit any place in the region.

Wow, so many great replies. But I still don't know what to do. That's part of the fun of it tho. I love the unexpected. Our first trip was a true adventure. Fish out of water, flying by the seat of our pants. Out of our comfort zone. Loved it! I'll never go to Hawaii again! I like the idea of the cheap fares between the major cities. That's a for sure. But I like the idea of digging my well in a small Italian city for awhile.
Nice to have options.

Ray, My husband and I have been going back to Italy every year for 14 years. We just can't seem to break the habit.;) One year for our anniversary we took a train from Milan to Paris for five days at the end of two weeks in Italy and this year we're flying into Munich for five days before going on to Italy for two weeks. We loved Paris but there's just something that draws us to Italy. Good luck making you decision!

Your remark about "digging a well" caught my eye! My husband was reluctant to go AGAIN to Italy, and I, too, had been working on my Italian..........so we went to Sicily! The BEST trip of our lives two years ago, and we DID go to Paris last year, lovely, drove up to Normandy, and loved it, but Sicily stole our hearts! We rented an apartment in Taormina for a week and ended up staying for ten days! Would have stayed longer had the apartment been available. We did take two excellent day tours with a private guide, which we had never ever done before, thinking it would be too expensive, and that was the best thing we ever did! One visit to the beautiful little hill town where the Godfather I was filmed, along with a trip to Mt. Etna, another day to a vineyard, a honey farm, and a working and incredibly beautiful working farm for lunch. The best day of our lives! (The tour guide charged only eu80 for a full day.......don't know if those are
the same rates, but money well spent.) Taormina is an absolute jewel in Sicily, and a destination for weddings.....weddings every day, and we walked down the streets with the wedding parties several times! Magificent Greek ruins, incredible food, warm people.....private message me if you want info!

I appreciate the fact that you're hung on Italy. But, there are many other worlds in Western Europe that need to be seen and experienced. We prefer to explore a new city/region about every 4 days. This year, it's going to be London, Florence and Rome. Last trip was Munich, Innsbruck/Salzburg and Vienna. Before that was London, Amsterdam and Paris (all flying.) Another great trip is Vienna, Budapest and Prague. Or, Sweden, Norway (Bergen/Oslo) and cruise to Helsinki. With the European budget air carriers, you can also include Italy in with your triads above. And, many open jaw air fares are no more expensive than round trips into popular European gateway airports. You just owe it to yourself to widen your horizons. Now, you can still include where you're comfortable.

Donna...we have not been to Sicily, and your description sounds great. We've been considering it. I love the idea of hiring a guide for a day. Our trip isnt until June 2013, but if you dont mind I may private message you later this year for info.
We're having fun considering options for a 2 week stay. Maybe flying into Barcelona, then after a few days catching a cheap flight to Sicily, and staying there for awhile.

Ray what lure does Italy hold over you and your wife? The people? Geography? History? Food? La dolce vita? Italy is a lovely country. The best thing about the Continent is the ability to be in another country in a matter of hours. Start out in London, lunch in Paris and Barcelona by sunset. Expensive as it is I love London. Nothing like it. You could easily spend 5 full days there and then train or fly elsewhere. Travel open jaw. Are you up for something completely different? Turkey is unbelievable! Both of you should talk about why you keep returning to Italy. Maybe those answers will help you decide where else might generate similar feelings. What a wonderful dilemma!!

This is the perfect example of how there's no "one-size-fits-all" approach when it comes to travel. In an age where it's increasingly possible to do virtual visits of almost every place on earth, it's the human experiences that make the difference to me. I'd much rather have those rich experiences in one country than be able to say that I've "seen" lots of different countries. But it's really a matter of temperament and desire, and those vary widely from person to person.

I was in the same situation. I kept going to Italy. I am going back to Italy this year. I am still obessed with Italy but the other places are lovable too. Some of the cities on the Croation coast were ruled by Venice and you sees signs of it still. Maybe you can pick a place that is different but still has some Italian flavor or some Roman ruins.

Claudia...The answer is yes, yes, and yes. We love Italy for so many reasons. We ask ourselves "How can it get any better than this?" While my ancestral roots are in Northern Europe, everywhere I want to visit is on the bellissimo Mar Mediterraneo.
-sigh- So many places, so little time (& bucks).

Ray, My wife and I are were facing the same conundrum, very similar circumstances so I am going to share what we did---we went west which was the far east -- to Singapore. It is a curve ball but something to consider.

While I go to Italy every year, I feel like everyone should also visit the beautiful city of Prague and the gorgeous city of Warsaw. Switzerland is also a favorite...especially Chateau d oex and Interlocken and surrounding areas.
If you want to visit smaller Italy cities, I would suggest Lucca, Siena and Verona. All wonderful. Also the villages around Lake Maggiorie up North are fantastic...Stresa and Cannobio. YOu can be in Switerland in 20 minutes while staying around this gorgeous lake.

Absolutely PM me. Truly the trip of a lifetime, and we remain friends with both the landlord and the tourguide. They Facebook message me almost every day if you can believe it!
I'll give you the website now in case I get hit by a bus in Rome -=as I am taking one of my girlfriends there in April again to Italy! website: holidaysinsicily.uk.com Agent: Claudio Pugliese. He's quite a character @40 years old, and we loved him. Tourguide: Angelo. Claudio can find him!