PLANNING AHEAD

PLANNING AHEAD

See how important planning ahead can be? If they'd checked their subsoil . . .

If this is your first trip to Italy, start planning your trip at least nine months before you go. A year is better.

The reason is simple: you need time to read the travel books, check out the websites, and talk about what you (both)(all) want to see before you can even start making reservations. And you need to start making reservations at least 6 months before departure for off-season, 9 months for the summer.

Let's be more specific. If you want to stay at a really great bargain you found in the Sunday travel section, or a very well-known place (Le Sirenuse in Positano, Cipriani in Venice, or Punta Tragara in Capri, for instance), a year for the summer and nine months for fall and spring may not be enough lead time.

At the other end of the price scale, the really low-priced good hotels are widely featured in guide books, and bargain hunters will be there ahead of you.

Half our lodgings for our trip in 2000 were second or third choices, the result of waiting until two months before we left the U.S. to start making reservations, even though we were going after Labor Day. The fact that they turned out to be great is a tribute to Karen Brown's wonderful guide to Italy inns (www.karenbrown.com).

We know it sounds like a sampler Aunt Mary would work for your kitchen, but it's true: The more time spent planning, the better the time there.

TRAVEL GUIDES

Use the books. All our fabulous restaurant experiences in our first trip were the result of reading the books we recommend (see Books and Links). After that, we used the advice of Italian friends. You can use this website, of course (see Places to Eat).

GET A MAP OF ITALY AS A WHOLE, THEN MAPS OF THE SECTIONS YOU'RE TOURING, AND ANY LARGE CITIES. DON'T RELY ON INTERNET MAPS.

Michelin maps are the best - they used to be divided in North, Central, and South for Italy. Now they're divided by the areas they contain, making it a little easier for you. See specifics on the Books and Links page.

NOW REVIEW THE MAPS AND YOUR ITINERARY, TOGETHER. THE DRIVER CANNOT ALSO BE THE NAVIGATOR. EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW WHERE YOU'RE GOING.

If you're driving, you'll get lost at least 11 times. It's okay. If you follow our mileage recommendations, you'll have plenty of time to find your way again.

MONEY

This seems to be the likely place to warn you that hotel cashiers often will not have cash. So, when you convert money, do not get many large notes unless you're planning to shop with cash.

In addition, although the major cities have Cambio or shops to convert dollars, credit cards, or travelers' checks into Euros, that is not true in a great many other cities or in towns and villages, even those such as Camogli on the Ligurian (northwest) coast. You'll have to go to the banks, with their quixotic and individualized banking hours. Happily, most people in the banks speak English.

ATM's are everywhere in major cities - that will reduce the amount of cash or travelers' checks you take with you.

WARNING: AT THIS WRITING (March 13, 2008), MANY AMERICAN BANKS WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO USE YOUR CASH/DEBIT CARD IN OVERSEAS ATM'S BECAUSE OF THE VAST AMOUNT OF IDENTITY THEFT FRAUD BEING PERPETRATED BY CROOKS FROM RUSSIA TO AFRICA. CHECK WITH YOUR BANK - SOME WILL FREE UP YOUR CARD FOR THE TIME OF YOUR STAY. IF IT WILL NOT, TRAVELER'S CHECKS MAY BE YOUR ONLY OPTION.

Use your credit cards; they'll generally have a better rate of exchange than cash conversion machines, banks, hotels, etc. And it's a lot easier to contest a falsified charge (as happened to Russ with a Hertz in Dublin) if you haven't forked over cash.

AIRLINE RESERVATIONS

Use a travel agent to make reservations and get tickets for any flights between European countries (often paper tickets are required) The reason is simple: flight times and flights in Europe change constantly. In 2004, our flight from Venice to Rome changed schedules three times, at one point moving four hours later and necessitating a switch to a different flight. It would have been almost impossible to detect these changes, much less deal with them, if we'd been dealing directly with AirOne, an all-Italian airline.

We tend now to make our own reservations and electronic ticketing between the U.S. and Italy, because we make our reservations nine months or more in advance and have shopped the Internet exhaustively for the best rates. For your first time, you may want to do your shopping on the web, but then ask a travel agent to look for a better price and book it.

When we went to Italy in September of 2005, Russ made our reservations the previous January. Business class tickets from Chicago to Fiumicino that (he checked) later went for $6,700 in he got in January for $2,300 - and we got better seats.

EXAMPLE: For the heck of it in revising this page, on March 13, 2008 (later than we'd normally plan for a fall trip) Russ decided to find the best deal on coach and business/first class flights to get us from Los Angeles to Rome in late September.

The results of this current search (using coach fares)?

FROM LAX TO ROME:

September 11, returning September 25: $1,269
June 11, returning June 25: $1,101

COMMENT: The pressure of the plummeting dollar has forced airlines to cut rates in some areas, and to reduce flights that once would have been bargains. Business Class rates for the above flights, for instance, would be $3,600 in both June and September, and far less than the $6,700 of 2005.

STAY TUNED: WE'LL CHECK THESE NUMBERS EVERY MONTH.

We recommend strongly that, if you cannot get a direct flight from your home city to the first Italian city on your itinerary, you make your connection through another American city. If you fly to Paris or London or Frankfort, you will probably arrive in Milan or Fiumicino (Rome) in the late afternoon, meaning you'll arrive in the city itself with virtually the whole first day gone. Flights from JFK, Chicago, Philadelphia, Cincinnati and Atlanta arrive in the morning, giving you a whole day to enjoy. Flights from Chicago and Atlanta may be more expensive than nonstops from JFK, but you may save money getting to one of those two airports, depending on where you are. We sometimes fly from Burbank near our home to Chicago's Midway on Southwest, then cab it to O'Hare for American's flight to Rome. The cost is about $150 more, but we don't have the horrors of LAX to go through, coming or going.

HOTEL RESERVATIONS

Unless you're going luxury class or have friends in Italy, if you're picking the hotels yourself, MAKE ALL RESERVATIONS YOURSELF, not through a travel agent. We know we'll get objections, but doing it yourself is the most effective way. If the first place is booked, you can immediately decide on a second choice, making any needed changes in your itinerary.

Fortunately for that process, the days of writing out some phrases, setting your dictionary close at hand, taking a breath, and dialing the telephone are over. It's all fax and email now. In 2000 and 2001, after our trip in September of 2000, we said that we preferred fax because email hadn't proved reliable. Now, back from our May/June 2002 and our June 2004 and September 2005 trips, we're happy to report that email is alive and well. We didn't use any faxes, and just one hotel, a snooty one in Helvetia on the coast (See Places Not to Stay), failed to respond to our email within 48 hours.

Another, maybe sneaky note: we included in our email requests for accommodations the shot of the home page of this website, with Travel Italy on it. This may have impelled some hotels to respond more quickly.

We had previously recommended faxes because the response fax was then a viable document. We needed ours at Locando del Sant'Uffizio because our reservation had been lost. Now, we just print out the email. You may need it. (See Warnings page.)

SEND YOUR RESERVATION REQUESTS IN ENGLISH. It's far better to trust their English than your Italian, and dates are universal. (Well, except for the month/day thing.) And the printout can be passed on to someone whose English is good. If using a fax, put your email address on the fax; it's easier and cheaper for them to respond that way.

Nowadays, a majority of hotels have online reservation forms, BUT BE CAREFUL IF THE FORM IS THROUGH A BOOKING AGENCY AND NOT THE HOTEL'S OWN WEBSITE. It's easy to tell. Look at the URL (web address). If its www. and then the name of the hotel, you're okay. Otherwise, it'll be a booking service. We recommend www.hotelsabroad.com and www.booking.com; we do not recommend venere.com.

DON'T BE AFRAID TO SEND YOUR CREDIT CARD NUMBER. Well, don't be any more afraid than ordering books or linens or cameras online. We assume you're planning to stay in reputable places which have more to lose than you do. And it is usually the only way you can secure a reservation. (Some hotels may insist that you fax a copy of the front and back of your card; it should be as safe as trusting the hotel with your credit card when you arrive.)

WE TRUST YOU DON'T NEED THIS ADVICE, BUT DON'T GO WITHOUT RESERVATIONS.

When you were young, with a knapsack and little cash, it was adventuresome to hit the open road. As a grownup with an irritated spouse or tired kids, looking for a place to stay at nine o'clock at night can seal one's fate. This is the voice of experience speaking, and frightening anecdotes about the Black Forest, Munich, Nice, Amsterdam, and divorce are available by email.

RESTAURANT RESERVATIONS

Ask (email or fax) the concierge at the hotel you'll be staying in to make your restaurant reservations for you. They speak the language; they know the people in the restaurant. It's what they do. But be sure to confirm those reservations when you check in. At places like Le Sirenuse and Hotel de Russie, they will already have done so.

The above advice applies primarily to three, four, and five star hotels. If you're traveling on a tight budget, you can do as well by telephoning the restaurant (from here or there - remember "Parla inglese?") on your own. Most one and two star hotels, and even some three's, don't have full time concierges, and your request will wait till a front desk clerk can get to it.

IF YOU'RE NOT DRIVING

AIRPORT PICKUP: Although the cabs at the airports in major cities are reliable, you may prefer to arrange for a car to pick you up, especially between June 1 and September 1. Do not arrange this on the Internet (see Warnings page). Arrange it through your hotel or travel agent. (Exceptions will be for our recommended limo service in Positano, which can pick you up at the Fiumicino airport or in Naples.)

EVEN IF YOU PLAN TO DRIVE: A car and driver may be the solution for two other items: sightseeing in a major city (there are no square grid cities in Italy - you will get lost - you will go the wrong way down a one-way alley) or when you think you need a rental car only to get from the airport to a city some distance away. As reported on the Cars and Driving page, we rented a car in 2002 at Fiumicino (Rome) Airport just to get to Positano on the Amalfi Coast, 200+ miles away. We did not use the car there. We were there a week. The total cost was $900. In 2004, with three of us, so that we needed a larger car, the cost was $1,300. In 2005 we had Positano Limo service pick us up and take us back. The total cost was $500, hefty, but a lot cheaper.

ITINERARIES

One of us used to be the kind of person who wanted to cover at least 500 miles a day in the U.S. before the Interstate. Don't ruin your investment, vacation, and memories by planning too ambitious an itinerary. Here are our rules of thumb.

RULE #1 - NEVER PLAN TO COVER MORE THAN 150 MILES A DAY IF IT'S ALL ON THE AUTOSTRADAS.
Russ's exception: Sometimes you plan so that on one day you're covering a lot of previously viewed territory to make a plane. In that case, you can cover a lot of ground IF the autostrada is not clogged or tied up with repairs.

Italy's main cities are relatively far apart, by European standards, and the intervening roads are crowded with trucks, salespeople, and tourists who don't know how to drive. Between entering the autostrada, taking tickets (see Italian), paying tolls, and getting gas you'll burn 3 hours to cover 150 miles on the autostrada, a lot more time if there's an accident, construction, or rain. (Much of the autostrada is only two lanes. Anything can create chaos. We spent 20 minutes crawling past a truck clipping hedges in the middle of one autostrada.)

RULE #2 - NEVER PLAN TO COVER MORE THAN 80 MILES A DAY ON ANY OTHER KIND OF ROAD.

Italy's small roads are two lanes (one each way) with miles of no passing sections. Whether in season or not, you can easily take 3 hours to go 80 miles, since much of it will be through towns crowded with traffic and intersections where the signs will be confusing and you will get lost and have to make a u-turn at least 3 times.

However, signage is better in the small towns than in the major, tourist-driven cities. Go figure.

THEREFORE, if you get up no earlier than 7:00 and take your time (remember, you're on vacation) and eat some breakfast and dawdle over the cafe latte (sorry about the lack of accent marks), and pack leisurely and take a last stroll around the grounds, you'll get on the road by 9:00. You'll need a half hour to find the restaurant we or someone else recommended for lunch, more if you didn't learn enough Italian. You'll need at least an hour to an hour and a half for lunch.

You want to see something during the morning, and that hill town in the afternoon. And there's shopping. And pastries. And getting to your hotel with plenty of time for the pool and the town and the bar and a shower and pictures, and . . .

Heck, maybe you ought to limit yourself to 40 miles a day!

Next time we drive through the countryside, we're going to drive less than we did in Itinerary One (see Itineraries) where we covered 1200 miles in 13 days, with 2 3-day stays (Rome and Lugano) and wish we'd covered less territory. Italy is easier to drive in than France (French drivers), Germany (German drivers), or England (wrong side of road).

RULE # 3 - IF YOU'RE DOING A GENERAL, FIRST-TIME TOUR OF PART OF ITALY, 3 DAYS IS ENOUGH IN ANY ONE CITY.

No, you can't see everything, but you'll see enough, especially if you're traveling with children or easily bored adults.

RULE # 4 - FOR DRIVING TOURS, PLAN TO SEE HALF OF WHAT YOU FIRST THOUGHT YOU'D BE ABLE TO SEE.

If you're going, say, from Florence to Rome to the Lake Country in two weeks, you won't be able to see Lucca, Turino, or Siena (or any other three desirable locations within that triangle). You can see two hill towns, Pisa, and one other location; but distance covered is inversely proportional to sites seen.

If you're going to Rome and want to stay on a Lake, you have to leave out two of the following: Milano, Bologna, Firenze.

If you're going to Milan and want to stay on a Lake and see some hill towns and Florence and Turin, you can't see Rome.

All the above are subject to exceptions, we suppose, but we'll need proof (submission of an itinerary and written statement from the spouse that it was fun) before we'll alter these postulates.

IF YOU'RE PLANNING AN ITINERARY AND WONDER HOW STRENUOUS IT WILL BE, USE THE CONTACT US PAGE TO EMAIL US AND WE'LL HELP YOU OUT.

RULE # 5 - NEVER VIOLATE RULES #1 OR #2.

ADVICE FOR TWO-WEEK TRIPS (IF DRIVING):

Trip 1 - General tour of north of Rome, say Milan to Venice to Florence to Pisa and back.

Trip 2 - General tour of Rome and Naples and Pompeii and Amalfi Coast

Trip 3 - Tour from Alps to Venice to Bologna and maybe a couple of days in Rome

Trip 4 - One week in Tuscany (or other area), one week on Amalfi (or other) coast.

PLANNING AHEAD

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