Italy Itinerary, October 2017

Here is the short itinerary version of our Italian adventures. 14 nights, 15 days all together.

• Fly to Rome-drive to Tuscany

• Stay in Tuscany (San Gimignano) for one week

• In Tuscany (from San Gimignano)

  • Day #1 visit Florence

  • Day #2 Lucca and Pisa

  • Day #3 Volterra and San Gimignano

  • Day #4 Siena

  • Day #5 Florence again

  • Day #6 Cinque Terre

  • Day #7 Heart of Tuscany

• From Florence to Venice by train. Stay in Venice for 3 nights.

• From Venice to Rome by train. Stay in Rome (Vatican) for 3 nights.

Why Italy? First, it was on our to do list. Good reason, right?! During our first Italy trip back in 2013 we only visited Milan and Rome. This time we experienced more of Italy by exploring Tuscany, cinque Terre, and Venice.

Great airfare prices was another cause we chose Italy. We flu from Seattle with very short stop in Frankfurt, Germany. 14 hours total for an international flight sounds very reasonable to me. Thanks to our Seattle friends who are always willing to take us to and back from the airport when we depart from Seattle.

We are taking the advantage of no school for Ashley for a little longer and enjoying traveling off season whenever possible. First part of October happens to be one of the best times to visit Italy. Less crowds and the weather is still great.

We landed in Rome around noon, picked up car rental (prearranged which is highly recommended), and headed to Tuscany. It was about 3 hours drive to San Gimignano. We chose to stay in San Gimignano as it is kind of a middle point between all the cities we wanted to visit. It was 30 minutes to an hour drive to most of the destinations on our list. The furthest was cinque Terre which took  2 hours but all we had to do is to get up earlier and do less talking at the breakfast table. We had plenty of time for that on the drive.

San Gimignano is located about an hour away from Florence. We planned to spend more time in Florence than in other cities. Florence was also our dropping off location for the car rental which was next to the train station from where we headed to Venice beginning of the second week of our trip.

We had no car for the rest of the trip. No car needed in Venice, boats do the job. In Rome, the last days of our trip, we used subway to get around and then taxi on the way to the airport as we had to be there very early in the morning.

If God lets, in the future, we would love to visit Pompeii, Sicily, Italian Lake District, Naples, and, of course, the Amalfi coast.

No regrets once again. Feeling undeserved and blessed to be able to see God’s glory and His mighty hand all over the world.

Well, done with Italy, for now, and on to counting down weeks to our next trip. About eight weeks left. Ukraine! Can’t wait!!!