Our two-week trip to Italy

Posted by marvin.the.paranoid on 06/29/17 12:15 PM

We visitied Rome, used Sorrento as the base camp for seeing the Amalfi coast and Pompeii, went to Florence, Venice, and stayed in Castelrotto to hike the Alpi di Siusi. Things went very well, thanks in no small part to the treasure trove of information in Rick's Italy and Venice guides. Some notes:

One does need tour guides for some of the sites - especially in Rome. We did use tour guides for the Colosseum (Walks of Italy) and the Vatican museums (The Roman Guy),, and in Pompeii (part of the site staff?? not sure - thats where they were standing, as opposed to the tours near the Pompei Scavi station). The guides for the Colosseum and the Vatican Museums were archaelogists. I wasn't happy with the Pompei guide because his command of English was poor - though his knowledge of the site was excellent. I think it would have been a better choice to hire a guide from the outside.
If one has the choice, Italy should be visited before or after the mad tourist summer season. Its hot, and the crowds can ruin everything. We started at 7:30 AM in line at the Vatican, and it was pretty packed at that time. Once we got to the Sistine chapel around 8:30 AM, there was a six-inch gap between people. We did a loop in the tour and saw the chapel again an hour later and while the crowd in the chapel itself was managed well, the throngs leading into it and out of it just made me switch off. A few days later, I visited St. Peter's at 7:30 AM, and given the much lesser crowd, it was a different church! And this was mid June - I can't imagine what July will be like.
One should stick to the broad strokes of the plan: I had planned to visit Ostia Antica in Rome on the day we arrived - partly because it would take just enough time to keep us busy on the first day while we fought off jet-lag. But we lazed about and did other things, and pushed it off to Monday - and I didn't remember until too late that it was closed on Mondays. Urgh. Missed opportunity. Another thing to note: the site does offer guided tours by the archaeologists, but this has to be booked three weeks in advance.
The climb up to the Duomo in Florence can run out of tickets. I made the mistake of not booking in advance and thought I would stand in line. The church opened at 10AM. We arrived at 9AM, discovered that the ticket office had been open from earlier (8:30AM?) and all tickets for the day were gone.
Was equally stupid about not booking in advance the visit to the Academia. We got there when the museum opened and it took us three hours to get inside. The line itself wasn't too long, but the people who had booked ahead of time, or had the Firenze passes had a separate line and they were preferentially let in ahead of us. IMHO nothing in that museum is worth standing three hours for - though I'm sure art lovers will disagree.
Air-conditioning is essential in Venice. I made the mistake of picking a place that was a $100 cheaper but with no a/c. We were in the Rialto, and even on the fourth floor, plenty of surrounding buildings blocked the breeze. We had to keep the windows open to not be cooked, but this let in the mosquitos and the street noise at night. Unless you want to be kept up at 12AM by revellers and the rattling of the street vendor stalls as they are pushed into place at the market around 4AM, pay for the a/c and keep your windows closed!
When hiking the Alpi di Siusi, keep snacks and water handy. We nearly gave up when we arrived tired and hungry at one of the "huts" (really restaurant / rest area) and found it closed for renovations. The closest other hut was 10 mins away, but it was UPHILL. The longest walk of my life!

Edited to add: there is another discussion going on in this forum about the car vs train method of touring. I'm firmly in favor of the train / bus. In Venice, a car is impossible. In Florence, a car is a hindrance for the main sites. Driving in Rome or the Amalfi coast would be crazy.

Posted by marvin.the.paranoid OP

06/29/17 12:58 PM

8 posts

Ran out of space to add this:

I've seen a debate on the internet on whether there is a left-luggage office at the Pompei Scavi station. There is. There is an underground passage connecting the northbound and southbound platforms, and the luggage office is located off of this. There are also luggage lockers at the Pompei site itself.
If you are paying cash in Rome - prepare to be cheated out of change or even have the prices padded. The Tabacchi - who sell the bus tickets - are supposed to be charging the price as printed on the tickets. I ended up with the sorry state of paying 2.5 euro for 1.5 euro tickets because I didn't know better. The rest of Italy is pretty cash-intensive - especially if one is eating cheap, but I didn't get cheated out of anything. Edited to add:
In Florence, we took the hop-on-hop-off bus as a way to both see the city as well as get transportation. At 23 euro a pop (valid for 24 hours), it was more expensive than the buses, but it made up for that in convenience, lesser crowds (I think - haven't been on the public buses in Florence, but on these buses, in the 3rd week of June, there were lots of spare seats - even on the lower deck, where people would want to be in the hot afternoon. And of all the cities we visited, Florence was the hottest.) and predictable timings, and range. The line B, (same ticket can be used on both lines) took us out of town up in the hills from where we got a breath-taking view of the city.
In Sorrento, I picked a place (airbnb rental) one train stop north of Sorrento on the circumvesuviana line - Sant'Agnello. This is basically a 20 min walk from Sorrento, but its not a touristy walk. Narrow pavements, and exhaust spewing vehicles abound. But the stay was very pleasant, relatively quieter, more cheaper eating places (I'm not into spending on fancy sit down dinners), and the view of Vesuvius and the surrounding hills from the third floor open patio was wonderful. I feel good about having made the right choice here.