Just booked a doozy of 3 weeks.
June 20th - 27th - Turks and Caicos
Go to work for 3 days.
July 1-3 - Austin for buddies bachelor party.
July 4 - 7 - Las Vegas to win a WSOP bracelet and a million dollars in the Mystery Bounty event.
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No stop in Ohio?
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Gotta be honest. KoŔice is kinda meh.
Nearly everything worth seeing is in the old town and itās super compact. You can knock it out in a day easily.
Been walking around the city and checking things out here since 6 am. Airbnb check in is at 4 pm.
Iāll be taking day trips and hiking the rest of the break.
Overwhelmed with the options in Italy. Starting in Rome, ending in Geneva, probably going to Lauterbrunnen before Geneva, but need at least one additional Italian destination. We are thinking smaller, quieter. Cinque Terre in heavy consideration. Also considering someplace smallish in Tuscany where we can rent a car and explore the country. But Lake Como/Orta etc also seem appealing. Honestly every place I look into seems amazing. Museums etc are not our thing so we are not very drawn to Florence, but also maybe a mistake to miss it?
Never been to Italy but doing fewer places better is my choice always. You canāt do the whole country in two weeks, two months or probably two years so trying isnāt worth it.
Oh totally agree. But thatās what makes it hard - we need to pick one or two from a seemingly infinite list of choices.
My wife is a travel guru and spends tons of times researching unique travel places and said Cinque Terre and Lake Como are supposed to be awesome after I showed her your post btw.
I believe Cinque Terre is extremely heavily touristed at this point, but I can attest it is a magical place to say the least. You can hike both along the water and higher into the hills.
My dad went to Lake Como before the pandemic and said it was amazing and not heavily touristed.
Either/both are probably great options.
Iād stay at an agriturismo in Tuscany and definitely hit Florence. Itās too great to miss when youāre right there.
Iām in Florence right now, as I type this.
Do not skip Florence.
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Second on Anne Frank House. Brouwerij 't IJ is a great place for a beer. Both the Van Gogh museum and the Rijksmuseum are wonderful if you like art museums. I favored the former, as it told more of a story about the man, while the Rijksmuseum was a bit more impersonal, but you might favor the latter if you like Reubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer over Van Gogh. And just wandering around the canals is great.
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My first trip to Italy was 2 1/2 weeks which I split between Rome, Florence, and Venice.
I used them as bases for day trips as well as seeing the cities themselves.
Saw Pisa, Naples, Lucca, and Veneto on day trips
Youāre also probably going during a time where tourism hasnāt fully recovered which is awesome. I was in Florence in February 2017 and even during the off season it was jam packed.
Loved Lake Como. However, itās a place thatās very limited during the off season regarding tourism. So much is closed or restricted due to the lack of people. I wanted to take the ferry to some small villages along the lake but almost everything at those villages was shut until summer.
Honestly, the locals seemed kinda grateful about them not being there though they did acknowledge that living there can be boring since aside from a few local hangouts, there isnāt too much going on.
@LFS Wife and I did a Rome/Como trip and in 2019 and really liked Como, especially after the overwhelming annoyance that was Rome. It was beautiful and quiet, although part of the quietness was thanks to staying at a place outside of the busier towns. https://www.filario.it/ - highly recommended but itās pricey.
Cons: Nowhere to eat but in the main towns, so youāll be getting on ferries or booking cars for all of your meals if you donāt stay in Bellagio or wherever. This was fine for us, but it could get old if you have kids in tow. Also, thereās a lot less to see and do than in Rome, obv. But if taking lots of walks through gardens and ferry rides sounds good, Iād recommend it.
Also, we had one of our favorite meals at some quaint alpine restaurant at the top of the mountain that was basically just some guy cooking things at his familyās house. Friendliest dude ever, and the food was great, if super heavy (polenta and buckwheat pasta with tons of cheese, horse sausage).
Cinque Terre is great and I totally recommend it but itās a short term visit thing. You go there and can hike between the villages on a path up top. Will probably be hot so bear that in mind. Takes about 2 hours and you can get the train back. You can go swimming as well but thereās not really anything to do there other than that and no reason to stay.
I think youāre fine to miss Florence personally if youāre not a cities and museums guy. If you do go there, it is possible to daytrip to Cinque Terre on the train, which also goes through Pisa if you want to gawk at the Leaning Tower. So thatās an option.
This is where I think weāre ending up - Florence to see Florence, but also as a base for a day trip or two. Then two nights around Lake Como, two nights in Lauterbrunnen, and then the Golden Pass train from Interlaken to Montreaux and on to Geneva.
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If you are a buildings person and you often find yourself annoyed that the most interesting parts of them tend to be off limits to tourists, youāll be delighted to know that you can climb to the top of Brunelleschiās dome on the Florence Cathedral and go outside on the lantern (cupola) for 360Ā° views of the city. The thing is actually built as two nested domes, and the way up is via twisty stairs in the space sandwiched between them. Then afterwards you can go down into the crypt below and pay your respects to the guy who designed what is still the largest masonry dome on earth, even if he was known to be a bit of a prick while alive.
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Oh hell yeah I would absolutely do this
I went to Florence in my younger days, the only details I can remember were watching Algeria play a world cup game and then going to the giant nightclub featured in Jersey shore, getting into a huge fight with my girlfriend at the time, puking on the plane to Croatia the next day then getting dumped (astute decision on her behalf) by said girlfriend a week later mid-trip. 10/10 would recommend.
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Yes, I did this and highly recommend it.
Something like 26 years ago I was in London and went to the British Museum where the Rosetta Stone was on display, and it was positioned only a couple feet behind some velvet ropes. Some of the more unrefined individuals were reaching over and touching it, finger grime and what have you left behind as digits traced grooves. I have to admit that I reached over and touched it a little too. OK, just wanted to get that off my chest, it looks like itās in a glass case now.
EDIT: sharp contrast w/ Stonehenge, which had a wide perimeter and it seemed like we could only get like 50-100 feet close to it. Luckily when I was there a captivated tourist made a dash for it and started slapping one of the monoliths until security escorted him off in a stern, British way
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