Planning Italy Trip, need advice

I'm getting ready to retire at the end of the year and my wife and I are
in the beginning stages of planning a long-desired trip to Italy. We
need a lot of help to try and do it right and at as reasonable cost as
possible. Here are some of the things we're wondering about:

Tour or no tour. We don't know wether its best to do an organized tour
using either Perillo, Tauck, or one of the other tour operators, or do
all the planning ourselves, e.g. transportation, cities, hotels, site
seeing.

Best time of the year to go in terms of a balance between decent weather
and reasonable costs and congestions.

Transportation between cities. Car rental, vs rail, vs bus.

What is a good book that talks about visiting Italy?

We have many more questions, but will save them for another time.

All comments and recommendations will be appreciated.

We'll be leaving from New York City.

Thank you.

On Jul 29, 1:45 pm, John <dejolaNOS...@> wrote:
> I'm getting ready to retire at the end of the year and my wife and I are
> in the beginning stages of planning a long-desired trip to Italy. We
> need a lot of help to try and do it right and at as reasonable cost as
> possible. Here are some of the things we're wondering about:
>
> Tour or no tour. We don't know wether its best to do an organized tour
> using either Perillo, Tauck, or one of the other tour operators, or do
> all the planning ourselves, e.g. transportation, cities, hotels, site
> seeing.


Doing it on your own, with a little bit of advance planning, will be
much cheaper, and give you much more flexibility as to where to go and
how much time to spend in places. And you will have a much better
chance to meet local people and to see things outside of the major
tourist sights.

It's really very easy to get around and see things on your own in
Italy, even if you aren't an experienced traveler.

> Best time of the year to go in terms of a balance between decent weather
> and reasonable costs and congestions.


First choice: March-April or October-November.

Second choice: May-June-September.

Third choice: July-August.

Last choice: December-January-February, unless you want to visit the
south of Italy.

Costs don't vary much through the year, but crowds really do, and
summer days can be over 100 degrees while winters get cold except in
the south of Italy.

Despite the above, I've gone to Italy in December and in August, and
enjoyed both trips. Even in Venice or Rome in the middle of the
summer, there will be many interesting places that aren't packed with
tourists.

> Transportation between cities. Car rental, vs rail, vs bus.


Trains are both cheap and fast, while driving is a nightmare in Rome,
and you can't even bring the car into Venice - and you don't need a
car to explore Florence. I would only rent a car if you really want
to visit small towns off the beaten track - and then return the car
when you're done with the small towns.

> What is a good book that talks about visiting Italy?


Lonely Planet and Frommer's guidebooks for Italy are both very good.
Which guidebook you would want depends on which of the following are
most important to you: (1) art and history, (2) food and wine, (3)
major tourist sights, (4) little-known or unusual sights, (5) modern
Italian life.

John wrote:
> I'm getting ready to retire at the end of the year and my wife and I are
> in the beginning stages of planning a long-desired trip to Italy. We
> need a lot of help to try and do it right and at as reasonable cost as
> possible. Here are some of the things we're wondering about:
>
> Tour or no tour. We don't know wether its best to do an organized tour
> using either Perillo, Tauck, or one of the other tour operators, or do
> all the planning ourselves, e.g. transportation, cities, hotels, site
> seeing.
>
> Best time of the year to go in terms of a balance between decent weather
> and reasonable costs and congestions.
>
> Transportation between cities. Car rental, vs rail, vs bus.
>
> What is a good book that talks about visiting Italy?
>
> We have many more questions, but will save them for another time.
>
> All comments and recommendations will be appreciated.
>
> We'll be leaving from New York City.
>
> Thank you.

Many thanks to Rog, Iceman, and Calif Bill, for your helpful responses.
I appreciate it very much. And besides, you've all armed me with
ammunition to use vs my wife who is tending heavily towards an organized
tour.

May have more questions.

Thanks again.

John schrieb:
> I'm getting ready to retire at the end of the year and my wife and I are
> in the beginning stages of planning a long-desired trip to Italy. We
> need a lot of help to try and do it right and at as reasonable cost as
> possible. Here are some of the things we're wondering about:
>
> Tour or no tour.
Do you speak italian at all?
Have you done tours like that before?
How much time do you intend to spend there?

> We don't know wether its best to do an organized tour
> using either Perillo, Tauck, or one of the other tour operators, or do
> all the planning ourselves, e.g. transportation, cities, hotels, site
> seeing.
If you prepare well, know what you'll be wanting to see and want do really
dive into a country, individual tours are better.
Guided tours are better if you don't have much time, enjoy the contact with
fellow travellers or are afraid to organize everything while not speaking
italian at all.

Lots of Greetings!
Volker
--
For email replies, please substitute the obvious.

On Mon, 30 Jul 2007 09:52:48 +0200, B Vaughan<me@> wrote:

> On Sun, 29 Jul 2007 13:39:32 -0700, Ken Blake
> <kblake@this.is.an.invalid.domain> wrote:
>
> [about organized tours]
>
> >2. They take you to restaurants that *they* choose, and often restrict
> >your choices of what to eat.
>
> I once met a friend of mine in Rome, who was travelling with her
> mother on an organized tour. It was a very good tour with a university
> group and allowed plenty of free time; the hotel was in a convenient
> central location. I took my friends to a restaurant that evening, and
> they said it was one of the highlights of their trip. On an organized
> tour, you are given things to eat that have been ordered in advance
> and never get to even see a menu. Just to be able to see the variety
> of things offered, to be able to ask questions, and learn how the
> courses are traditionally presented in Italy was a great experience
> for them.



Yes, it's one my great pleasures when I travel, too.

The only time we ever took an organized tour was in China, because of
the potential language difficulty. We were told that a few of the
dinners would be western meals, and we told the tour guide that
whenever one of those days came about, we would go off on our own and
eat in a Chinese restaurant.

He got very upset, and told us how he was responsible for us, how we
would likely get sick if we did that, how we wouldn't be able to read
the menu, and how we were one big happy family who had to stay
together. Since he made such a big deal about it, we reluctantly
agreed.

But on the last night of the tour we were staying in a hotel which had
two restaurants, an American one and a Chinese one. We were scheduled
for an American meal. We told out guide that we were very tired, were
going to bed early, and would skip dinner. Then we went off to the
Chinese restaurant alone. While eating, we noticed him come into the
restaurant and get into a long conversation with the manager. Then he
came over to the table and said "I thought you were tired and skipping
dinner." One of our fellow travelers, who knew what we were doing had
mentioned it to him, without realizing that we didn't want him to
know.

We apologized and told him that we wanted Chinese food and didn't want
to give him a hard time. He laughed and told us that he had arranged
for us not to have to pay for dinner, since we weren't having the
other American hotel dinner. It was very nice of him and completely
unexpected.

But in general, the food that we had on the tour, whether Chinese or
American, was always palatable, but generally pedestrian, and designed
to avoid any possibility of offending American tourists. Most of the
Chinese food wasn't much different than what we might get at home in
the USA. That's not the kind of dinner experience we want when
traveling, whether it's in China, Italy, or anyplace else, and that's
one of the reasons we avoid organized tours.

--
Ken Blake
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

John wrote:
> I'm getting ready to retire at the end of the year and my wife and I
> are in the beginning stages of planning a long-desired trip to Italy.
> We need a lot of help to try and do it right and at as reasonable
> cost as possible. Here are some of the things we're wondering about:
>
> Tour or no tour. We don't know wether its best to do an organized tour
> using either Perillo, Tauck, or one of the other tour operators, or do
> all the planning ourselves, e.g. transportation, cities, hotels, site
> seeing.
>
> Best time of the year to go in terms of a balance between decent
> weather and reasonable costs and congestions.
>
> Transportation between cities. Car rental, vs rail, vs bus.
>
> What is a good book that talks about visiting Italy?
>
> We have many more questions, but will save them for another time.
>
> All comments and recommendations will be appreciated.
>
> We'll be leaving from New York City.
>
> Thank you.

Italy is a rather long country. with big climate differences between north
and south
besides. italy is divided into 20 regions
and each of them. so to stay.. is a differet state.. with different dialects
habits and so on.
before all.

how many days do you intend to spend in Italy ??
what are yr main interests ??

what is yr daily budget ??

then you can make yr plans

if you limit yrslef to the main towns.
then the best way to travel is to take a train from town centre to town
centre

then the best way to visit towns in a limited period of time is to take a
tour

I would say the main attractions of Italy are

Venice ( venezia)
Firenze ( Florence)
Roma (Rome )
Napoli ( Naples)

apart from them. you have hundreds of possibilities
there are medioeval towns.. minuemnts.. castles. churches.. everywhere

If i well rememebr.. 48% of the Uneso protected monuments of the world are
in Italy

name something.. and very likely you will find it in Italy
From the 5.000 years mummy of a warrior found in an ice field ( and now
well preserved in a museum in Bolzano ) to 5.000 yrs old monuments scattered
everywhere.. to 2.000 yrs odl tombs..
and so on.

an Italian would never find enough time in his life to see a small part of
Italy

as a tourist. you have to choose..

good luck