Please let me take a moment to thank all of you who write comments on this site. I just returned from 11 glorious days in Rome, Tuscany, the Cinque Terre and Paris with my wife and her mother, who turned 83 on our arrival in Rome. In planning this trip for us I took Rick's advice about researching EVERYTHING I could get my hands on, but in reality it was what I learned from the hours of reading here, FROM ALL OF YOU, that made our trip a success. Granted, Rick Steves is good, but his perspective is that of a tour guide. Yours, and now mine, is from that of the traveling public. I hope that in the coming months and years I too can make a small contribution to helping someone else have a vacation as great as ours. My reward for all the hard work...my mother-in-law hugging me in Paris and saying "this is truly the trip of a lifetime for me. I'll never be able to find enough ways to say thank you."
THANK YOU ALL!!
Jim