Italy Advice Sought

Sep 8 03:15 UTC 2004

  In October I'm planning to join my brother Kevin and my sister Sheila
  for a trip to Italy.  I've been reading guidebooks and so far the only
  thing I can tell for sure is that our all-too-brief 10-day visit is not
  going to be enough time to see and do a tenth of what we'd like to.

  In a way that's liberating because the sheer impossibility of cramming
  everything into one visit cures me of the impulse of even trying.
  Instead we're planning on splitting our time between two cities
  (Rome, and a second city yet to be settled on, probably Florence)
  and hoping to see some of the highlights of each city and use the
  rest of the time just to experience some of the flow and spirit of
  each place.

  Having never previously visited Italy (or any part of Europe, for that
  matter) I could use some advice.  What should we definitely not miss?
  Which cities should we visit and which parts of those cities should we
  stay in?  How do we find a nice small hotel or pensione that's both
  affordable and a neat place to stay?  What else should we know in order
  to enhance our visit?

response 2 of 19:

Sep 8 07:57 UTC 2004

 Let's assume for the moment that Florence is the other city we choose.
 Even just deciding to spend the whole trip in Rome would yield more
 sites of historical and artistic importance than we could visit while
 we were there.  How does one begin to narrow things down further?

response 4 of 19:

Sep 8 21:52 UTC 2004

 Of course I'm reading guide books and making a list of highlights,
 but experiencing a city should be more than just checking things off
 a list of tourist attractions.  As far as the bus tour idea goes,
 I don't think any of the three of us would find that to our taste.

response 6 of 19:

Sep 16 18:23 UTC 2004

> Experiencing a city if you have limited time and limited budget IS
> ultimately checking things off some list. Are you asking, then, for
> suggestions for NONtourist things to put on your list? NONtourist
> things are what the people living there do (when they are not going
> to see the tourist attractons - these ARE destinations for the inhabitants
> too, you know). So, what kind of NONtourist things are you interested
> in doing? 

Any activity we engage in as tourists will be, by definition, a tourist
activity.  But there's an entire continuum of "touristness", if you will. 
Being bussed from museum to museum to museum ad nauseum means you get to
see an awful lot of great art but not much of the context.  I hope we'll
find time to "waste" just walking around the cities we visit, talking to
people we meet (or attempting to, anyway.. :-) etc.  

At this point I think we have enough items on our agenda to fill much
of the time on our trip but I could still use advice on where to stay
in Rome and Florence.  I'm going to ask for this item to be linked to
agora in the hopes that I'll find more people with experience visiting
Italy.  Thanks for the responses, Rane, but it looks like you're the
only active grexer still visiting the travel conference.

response 8 of 19:

Sep 16 22:28 UTC 2004

I'm active, but I've never been to Italy.

response 10 of 19:

Sep 18 20:50 UTC 2004

"Any activity we engage in as tourists will be, by definition, a tourist
activity". What about tourists engaged in terrorism?

"But there's an entire continuum of 'touristness', if you will." I won't.

response 12 of 19:

Sep 22 18:16 UTC 2004

We know we tire of your sniping, but do you?

response 14 of 19:

Sep 22 19:33 UTC 2004

As an American? Don't know about that. Mostly you ought to be able to avoid
it by remaining yourself.

What IS it with you, anyway? Were you an ugly kid who got bullied, or
something?

response 16 of 19:

Sep 22 21:34 UTC 2004

 Expurgated responses can be read by those who know how.

 Now, however, I'd like to return to the topic at hand -- does anyone
 have any helpful travel suggestions for Italy?

response 18 of 19:

Sep 23 17:29 UTC 2004

re #17: 
>  It's pretty much the same as travel anywhere else, except in England
>  few other countries where cars drive on the left. 

What a discouraging thing to say.