Reply #20: I'll be going to Venice this May! I am reading a wonderful book

[CTyankee]

called "Life and Art in Renaissance Venice." I also have Frommer's Northern Italy and Fodor's Italy 2007. Everything you want to know, including temperatures each month and best times to travel places.

I am going on a tour but it is with a new company so I cannot recommend it yet. In 2006 I went to Italy on a Smithsonian tour "Italian Masterpieces." It is one of the the FEW Smithsonian trips that are affordable. Look this one up at www.smithsonianjourneys.org. Look for "value priced" tours, there aren't very many. This one was good. If you go on tour, ignore the meals they "include" at the hotels and restaurants where they pick the menus for you. My friend and I just set off on our own and found great places to eat. We got lost at night trying to get back to the hotel from the Colesseum (we wanted to see it at night) and spent a long time finding our way on the confusing streets. But it was fun and not at all dangerous for two women at night (Naples would be another story I hear).

I do the tour thing because I am older. I probably would do Tuscany in a car if I had someone younger with me driving. There are little places in Tuscany I didn't get to visit that I would like to. And you can just drive around to local restaurants for fabulous meals.

Besides the usual Rome, Florence, Siena and Venice, I would strongly recommend Lucca, which you can get to by train. Also Perugia, which is actually in Umbria, where you can buy fanstastic chocolate and eat pasta with truffles. Altho I loved Assisi for the Giotto masterpieces in the basilica, I was put off by the prevalence of cheap religious stuff being sold everywhere in the town.

AS for language, learn what you need to know, such as directions, and what you'll need to know at the train station. It helps to know the names of food, but of course the Italians have lots of menu items that name the dish after the chef (so you don't know what's in it)! I had a semester of Italian I had taken in 2005 prior to going. And I had gone to Sicily in 05, so I had experienced the language first hand.

I didn't bring along much in the way of dollars (just enough for when I returned to the US). The best way of getting euros is in the ATM machines, just make sure your PIN number is all in numerals (not letters). They won't take traveler's checks anymore, BTW. My ATM card and my Visa (another MC for backup) were fine for everything. It helps to get as much change in euros as you can.

If you are going to Venice, you might want to stay in nearby Padua and take the train in. It's cheaper and you can also see the magnificent Giottos in the Capelli degli Scrovegni there.

Hope you are prepared for the 24 hour clock. I still have to pause to figure out 1800 (6 pm)for instance.

I'm also going to Turin and Bologna on this May trip. I will give a report back to DU when I return. PM me if I can be of any further help!