Let me start by saying my husband and I had a FABULOUS trip. For the most part, it was the first visit to Italy for both of us. (I'd been there many years ago but this trip included places I hadn't been to before, like Rome, Orvieto, Varenna, and Vernazza.) The RS Italy guide was invaluable in our planning, but I wanted to report on a few things we learned that aren't covered in his book in case it's useful to some of you.
Airports: We flew into Rome (FCO) on a Sunday, and every one of the ATMs in the airport was out of order. That--plus the fact that the only place open that sold SIM cards was asking way too much--got us off to a sorta rocky start. But lucky for us, we had someone picking us up from the Airbnb place we'd arranged in nearby Fiumicino, so we didn't need euros yet and we used a pay phone to let her know we'd arrived. On the way back to her cottage we'd rented for the night, she stopped by an ATM so we got our euros. (And we bought a cheaper SIM card the next day in Rome.)
For our return flight to the US 16 days later, we flew out of Milan (Malpensa). We found it to be a more user-friendly airport, with better signage and more shops and services. (Again, we had a ride to the airport from another Airbnb host whose B&B we'd rented the night before to be close to the airport for our 10:40 AM flight.)
Directions to lodging: Despite the excellent directions in the RS Italy guide, every time we got to our next destination (by train or bus) we struggled to get our bearings. It would take a few false starts before we figured out the right way to go to reach our B&B. Maybe it was just us, but be prepared to NOT hit the ground running when you first arrive in a new city or town. At first, we argued over it but finally realized getting lost was part of the experience.
Vatican Museum: I wanted very much to enjoy this place, but it was so darned crowded that I didn't. About 80 percent of the people there weren't actually looking at the art: they were photographing it (and themselves). I don't know what pleasure those folks will get from viewing their pictures later but if you really want to have some lasting memories of the art, buy one of the books in the museum gift shop. I got so tired of trying to bob and weave around people taking pictures that I finally decided to just walk through their shots. If I had it to do over again, I'd skip this museum and just visit St. Peter's Basilica next door. The same issue of people taking photos while ignoring the art applies, but it's such a huge space it's easier to move around them.
Borghese Gallery: This was a much better experience than the Vatican. You can enjoy it without being trampled. Plus, because it's so much smaller, you're not exhausted from walking through it.
Siena: I blundered when I only booked us for one night here. I based that decision on a trip 30 years ago, when I took a bus from Florence for a day trip to Siena and was underwhelmed. I only included it on our itinerary for this recent trip because my husband had never been to Italy, and Rick Steves mentioned Siena shows best at night. That is so true! I'm just putting this out there for any of you considering doing Siena as a day trip. From my experience, it's just not worth doing unless you're there at night, and for me one night was simply too little time to fully appreciate what this town has to offer. (Florence, on the other hand, was almost unrecognizable to me after 30 years, and not for the better.)
Shower curtain: It may seem like an odd topic to cover, but in a couple places we stayed that had shower curtains (instead of shower doors), we ended up getting water all over the bathroom floor. To avoid doing it again, we learned to turn off the water while soaping up, then on again to rinse. (It's a good water-saving practice anyway that we probably should do at home.)
That's it. Everything else we needed to know we got from the RS Italy Guide.