A Return to Italy-October, 2024

St. Anastasia church- It was super convenient to visit because it was right next to our hotel! It is known for the fresco of St. George and the Princess. There is an audio tour of it on the monitor below the fresco, because the fresco is rather high up and hard to see. We watched the informative audio tour and enjoyed learning about the fresco.
Castlevecchio-This is basically a museum with LOTs of religious paintings, way too many for me to absorb, but I did enjoy the castle grounds. We also loved walking along the Adige River, enjoying the nice weather.

Vicenza-We took a day trip to Vicenza where we had booked a private 3 hour tour with Roberta Parlato. She took us to Teatro Olimpico. An astonishing theater that is a UNESCO World Heritage site. I'm not going to try to describe it, you just have to see it for yourself. Let's just say it shows perspective! Vicenza is known for its Palladian architecture and Roberta took us around and told us all about the buildings we were seeing and about Andrea Palladio, who is Italy's most well known architect and known around the world. We loved our day in Vicenza and left in the late afternoon to head back to Verona. FYI, my husband is not an architect, but worked all of his career with architects, and we both love to see and learn about architecture.
3 nights Bologna-We left Verona by train and headed to Bologna. We stayed at Hotel Corono d'Oro.
University of Bologna-We headed to the university to see the Teatro Anatomico a cool room where they used the table in the middle to teach the university students how to dissect human corpses. We also viewed the room with all the ancient books, really fascinating.
Piazza Maggorio-This is the main square in Bologna and a great place to people watch and explore. Thanks to Lola (again) for mentioning the curiosities of the square, which you can find on Paul's blog (Bologna on foot) and we had fun trying to find all of them.
Medieval Museum-This is a nice museum to see if you have the time. We spent about 1 1/2 hours.
GWL meet-up-My favorite FB travel group has meet-ups all around the world. We met up with Amy & Frank, full time Nomads from CA. Who sold their home and traveling the world full-time. They were spending a month in Bologna! A wonderful meet up with lots of conviviality! Lol!
Italian Days All Day Food & Factory Tour-We met the small bus in a piazza about a 20 min walk from our hotel at 7am. It was early, but we were excited. We met up with the group (10 of us) and headed out to the Emilia Romagna countryside and picked up our guide, who turned out to be the owner. He was a kick. We made our first stop at a Parmesan cheese factory where we learned all about the cheese making process and how they age the cheese. After, we headed to a Basalmic Vinegar farm and learned about the process for making Basalmic Vinegar and then we sat down to have a hearty and tasty snack (meal?, there was a lot of food). And though it was early, there was wine. Then we moved on to a Prosciutto factory and learned about how they raise the pigs, and certify the meat. Then we moved to the restaurant next door and had a feast with wine of course. I have to say, it was a blast, but by then we were all a bit tipsy! There was even some karaoke going on. A super fun day!

4 nights Florence-We left Bologna and took the train to Florence. We stayed at a B&B called La Casa del Ghiberti.

Brunelleschi’s dome-I had purchased the 3 day pass for the dome climb, the Babtistry and Duomo museum and Santa Reparata. You had to make advance reservations to climb the dome, all 463 steps. We almost bailed, but I told me husband it would be easier to do now, than five years from now. So we did it and were glad we did. Lovely views of Florence. I liked the flexibility of the pass and it allowed us to skip a long line into the Cathedral to visit Santa Reparata.

Duomo museum-Enjoyed this museum and we watched the film on the Duomo and got to see the original Baptistry doors.
Galileo Museum-We had to do this museum as my husband loves science and astronomy stuff. There is a QR code you download for the audio of the museum, which I must say, is very good and comprehensive. As a non technical lay person, I would not have known what I was looking at without the guide. However, if you listened to everything it would take a very long time indeed to go through the museum. It's an excellent museum, albeit a little stuffy inside. I can't imagine what it would be like in the heat of the summer. After the museum, we did the Rick Steves audio guided Renaissance walk.
Accademia-We had advance reservations for the Accadamia museum and of course, you walk in, turn the corner and bam, there he is (The David) in all his glory. We used the Rick Steves audio guide to go through the museum. I'm glad I finally got to see him. 40 years ago when I was in Florence, for some reason I was not with our group and got lost trying to find the Accademia museum and so didn't get to see him. He was worth waiting for! I also enjoyed the musical instruments.
Uffizi Gallery-I enjoyed this museum more than I thought I would. It's fabulous. We again used the Rick Steves audio guide to go through it. Can you tell we love his audio guides? Before our trip, we had watched a documentary on Botticelli, so it was fun to see the paintings in real life. We went in the late afternoon, it was crowded, but bearable.
Church of Santa Maria Novella- The attraction is the painting called Masaccio’s Holy Trinity, we paid our 8euros to go in and guess what? That painting is under restoration! Of course! So now, you can pay another 1.50eurospp to climb on the small scaffolding to see it. So we did, but honestly, the whole church was entirely skippable IMHO. I'm not a big fan of religious artwork.
Tour By Roberto-We met Roberto in Florence along with two other folks for a tour out to the Tuscany countryside and a break from museums. We were fortunate with gorgeous weather and nice people on the tour and Roberto was very entertaining. We visited two hill towns and then headed to his olive oil farm called Madonna Bella, where we were integrated with folks visiting from the RS Village Italy tour. We learned about the olive oil production at the farm and then were treated to a wonderful lunch outside with views of Siena and the Tuscany countryside. We purchased some olive oil to have shipped home. A spectacular day!
Food-We love food and wine and it's an important part of my research and our experience once we are there. In Italy, many of the less touristed restaurants close from 2-7, so I made dinner reservations at 7pm. However, after several nights of this we stopped and this is why. This might be TMI, but if I eat late and then go to bed at our usual time (around 9pm), then my digestive system is not happy. Heartburn and Acid reflux. It's awful and so I had a conversation with my husband and we decided to have our big meal between 1pm-2pm and then just a light meal at dinner. This worked much better for me and a nice bonus, it's cheaper too!

It might be going too far to call my husband an ice cream fanatic, but we (especially him) were looking forward to eating lots of gelato and boy, did we! For him, sometimes twice a day. It amazed us that there is literally a gelato place almost every 100ft in Italy, well, at least in the heavily touristed parts and many of them are busy! We had fun trying many different flavors.
I also have to give a shout out to the pizza. We stopped at several places for the buy the slice to take away and we were amazed at how good it was, at every place we went to.
Then there is the oddest restaurant dinner experience I think my husband and I have ever had. We had reservations at 7pm at Dari Ristorante in Verona. It's a rather large restaurant, but we appeared to be the first ones there. We thought, oh we're just early others will show up. But no one did! We were the only diners in the restaurant that night. However, the food was good and we had lovely conversation with the owner.
Accomodations-All of our hotels had excellent locations. We were pleased with all of them and would stay at them again. We certainly did not spend much time in them. Our B&B in Florence was a five room place and our host, who lived on site, was a bit quirky and seemed to want to socialize with us, more than we wanted to with him. There was a small terrace with two tables and we wanted to sit there and enjoy our glass of wine from a bottle that we had purchased. This seemed to invite him to come out and talk with us. We ended up after two nights of that, going and having our wine elsewhere. Our B&B was called La Casa del Ghiberti and was very well located around the corner from the cathedral. Our room was huge, but lacked some good luggage racks for our suitcases and as I said previously, came with a quirky owner. Also, he advised us the A/C was shut off for the season, so we kept the windows open which allowed mosquitos and noise to disturb us, but better than being too hot.

All our hotels included breakfast which we find is a must for us. The simplest breakfast was at the BnB and the best breakfast was a tie at Hotel ALA and Hotel Corona D'Oro.
Our hotel room at Corona d'Oro was the smallest of them all and I think next time we might have to ask for a bigger room, it was tiny and the most expensive of all of them as well.
Final Thoughts-We flew out of Florence, thru CDG and back to Anchorage. All flights left on time and everything went smoothly. The Florence airport has a very quirky layout. Count us in the camp of we love Italy. Since this was our first trip, we did a lot of the big sites, and it was heavy on the museums. I would love to go back to all of them and see some of the lesser sites or just spend more time wandering.

For the first time, I used the TravelSpend app to keep track of expenses. Total price of our trip (including our flights) was $10,986.00 I really liked using the app. It has different categories for expenses. I found the key was to enter the amount right after we spent the money and not do it later. We are not on a budget really, just like to know where the money is going.
We are already planning a return trip, to Rome this time for a long stay in 2026 and maybe Venice again if I can talk my husband into it. We had a wonderful time!

Great report, Tammy; thank you!

As you know, Stan and I spent a couple of weeks in Venice and Florence this past June, and had a wonderful time. I loved reading your experiences in the same cities we visited, and even more enjoyed your notes on Verona. We visited Bologna a couple of years ago, and also loved the Italian Days all-day food tour. What a treat that was!

Thanks for your upbeat, lively descriptions. Can't wait to hear what you have to say about Spain next year.

An excellent trip report and well formatted so that it stays together.

Great trip report Tammy. Thanks for sharing.

We almost bailed, but I told me husband it would be easier to do now,
than five years from now.

You know we're getting older when...

It's nice being older and a little more financially secure to do what you want, but then other challenges come up. Money can't buy you knees.

Great report Tammy! I’m bookmarking it since I hope to get to Venice, Verona and Bologna next year. Thanks!

Tammy, Thanks so much for an excellent and detailed trip report. I will keep an eye out for anything else you write, we too prefer a large lunch & pizza by the slice is fine for dinner. And I'm with you on not liking much religious art, especially before 1500's. I call it 'the Flat Faced Gold Stuff' (no disrespect intended.) There's just so much art to see in Italian cities, might as well go with what pleases you. I've been to the area around Vicenza but missed that amazing Teatro Olimpico, will need to go back just for that gem! Thanks again.

Thanks for the great report, Tammy. We spent 8 nights in Rome in 2017 and it was wonderful--you will love it!

Loved your trip report, Tammy, and all of the details you shared! My hubby was definitely in the “at least one gelato a day camp”, too! Your description of your husband’s cravings made me smile.

Rachmaninov is one of my favorite piano composers, and to be able to hear it at La Fenice would be amazing!

Tammy! What a fun time you had! Thanks so much for taking us along!

Thanks for the report! You do such a great job of researching and planning!

Happy to see a new trip report and when I saw it was yours, I was even happier! Many thanks for all the detail. Italy is always a good idea.

Loved your report!

Thank you for your well organized trip report. This past September we spend time in Padua/Venice/Dolomites. We took a day trip to Vicenza. The Teatro Olimpico is amazing and unlike anything I've ever seen. It was worth going to Vicenza just for that. We walked around the rest of Vicenza looking for the Pallodio buildings. It sounds like taking a tour enhances the experience. We had just used the RS guide.

We also liked our "tour" on the Grand Canal in Venice using the RS audio tour, and we did it twice as well!