In April we, along with my sister and brother-in-law, went on a two-week trip to Italy and Greece. It was our first time in Southern Europe, and it was incredible! We learned so much about European travel on this trip (some of it the hard way), and had many new travel experiences! So.. read on to learn from our experiences (and mistakes)!
We visited Italy first, in the last week of April. It was our first long flight (12 hrs) with our daughter, who at the time was 18 months old. Taking a toddler on an airplane is an experience in itself, which you can read about in my previous blog post, https://www.bisconerstakeontheworld.com/post/tips-for-traveling-long-haul-on-an-airplane-with-an-infant-toddler .
Since It was still spring, it rained most days in Rome, but not the whole time. It would sprinkle here and there, and there was a single downpour one day that lasted several hours, but got very sunny afterward. We chose late spring because, in my research, most said it was too rainy and cold in early spring and much too hot even in early June. Overall I would have chosen this time again, even with the rain, because the temperature was still really pleasant, 65-70 F or 18-21 C. Also, there were crowds in major cities but not completely overpopulated yet, which is what I've heard happens in the summer.
ROME
We arrived on a Saturday night and hit the streets of Rome first thing in the morning. I have the belief that a moderate amount of activity (staying busy but not totally overwhelmed) is the best way to combat jet-lag. It worked for us, because we hit the colosseum right away and were feeling well most of the day.
There is SO much to see and do around Rome, but we only had 3 days, so we were picky with our schedule. We wanted to hit the highlights but also do some random things that aren't as typical. Here's a list of things we did around Rome:
- Borghese Museum
- Colosseum
- Roman Forum
- Aquaducts Bike Tour
- Spanish Steps
- Trevi Fountain
- Mamertine Prison
We stayed near the Spanish Steps in an AirBnB which turned out to be the absolute best location to stay. Although it is north of the Colosseum (about a 20 min walk), it is SO central to everything else and you can quickly walk anywhere. However, some metro stops including Spagna (near the Spanish Steps) were closed indefinitely at the time we were there, so we had to walk 10 mins or so to the Fliminio station at Piazza del Popolo. I recommend taking the metro when visiting locations more than a 20 min walk to your destination; it isn't the newest or most expansive metro service but it's easy to use and cuts down on travel time.
I highly recommend our Airbnb, and would stay there again on another visit.
We loved the Borghese Museum & the gardens that surround it; the gardens are like an oasis in the middle of a big city and a nice break from the hustle and bustle.
The best way to do the Colosseum is to buy a reservation with audio-guided tour ahead of time. We didn't want to schedule a personal tour-guide because there's not much flexibility with that, and we have a toddler who likes to run around and do her own thing. The audio tour was great! We purchased tickets through getyourguide.com which is a great resource for any tours in major cities. We did the Colosseum, Roman Forum, and Palatine tour with audioguide for $100 for 4 adults. Here's a link to get tickets for the tour we did: https://www.getyourguide.com/rome-l33/colosseum-roman-forum-and-palatine-tour-with-audioguide-t212385/?referrer_view_id=ff41fcba8d2c110f430408f4fe601cdc&referrer_view_position=2
LISTEN UP! There are many different lines at the Colosseum, and it can be very confusing and somewhat chaotic. Also, there are many "private" tour guides that will shout at you and try to get you to come on their tour. Although many of them may be legitimate, be wary of anyone selling you a tour on the sidewalk with skip-the-line access for cheap; it's probably not what they say it is. It's best to buy tickets ahead of time so you don't have to wait in too long of a line and try to figure out if you're buying from a legitimate vendor. The "main" entrance is for purchasing tickets if you haven't already and was about 2 hours long when we went. Beware, though; theres also a fairly long line to get tickets even at the pre-reservation desk (which is across from the colloseum, not part of the main entrance), or "will call" as some know it. So even though we purchased tickets ahead of time through a legitimate vendor, we still had to wait in line to pick up our reservation. When you do this, they give you a time to come back, usually within about an hour or two, and makes your ticket valid for 3-ish hours starting at that time (they give you a window of time to turn it in). So we waited in line for our reservation and then visited the roman forum (you can go at any time as long as you have a ticket) as we were waiting for our scheduled colosseum time.
Here's a map of where to wait in line and get tickets, as it's entirely confusing.
The Colosseum and Roman Forum's historical value is incredible. It's one of the oldest establishments I've visited, and it's amazing to see architecturally what they were able to do with so much less resources than we have today.
The Roman Forum was the heart of the Roman Empire at it's peak, where lawmakers and senate held it's proceedings. Most of it lies in ruins but the guides will explain at every location what once stood there. It is just kitty-corner to the Colosseum and, like I said earlier, you can purchased packages for both and save some money. We visited the Forum while waiting for our time slot to return to the Colosseum after turning in our reservation, and it worked out well. I advise doing this to cut down on waiting-around time.
After the Colosseum we didn't have much on the schedule so we just walked around the city and did some food sampling. Unpopular opinion here: I'm not too fond on Roman-style Italian food. There, I said it it. I guess I'm used to "American-Italian" food or something, because I was expecting new dishes that I hadn't had before with loads of flavor and variety; but I was wrong. I found it to be pretty bland and disappointing. Traditionally, roman pasta has little sauce, if any, (they say sauce is a "garnish") so that the pasta itself is the main show. Also, literally all I could find for cafe-style food was pizza and sandwiches. Thats it. I was so sick of bread after leaving Italy, believe it or not. However, with that warning, we did have a couple of decent dishes and I was really digging the abundance of prosciutto on literally everything (melon, pizza, sandwiches, pasta). And of course, the gelato didn't disappoint. Yum!
The next day we decided to book an E-bike tour of the outskirts of the city and ancient aqueducts. This was absolutely the highlight of the trip for me, even with the rainstorm we got stuck in in the middle of it. The E-bikes are SO easy to use, I feel like it wasn't even really exercise at all. Anyone can do it. They even have bikes with kid's seats on them, so it's a great activity to do with little ones! We booked through TopBike Rental & Tours for 55 euro per person, which was definitely worth every penny.
Our guide Diego was so knowledgeable and very kind (especially when we got caught in the rain, he kept apologizing and such and we had to keep reminding him it wasn't his fault). He made it a great trip! You have several stops along the way including a few ancient sites and a cafe, which had excellent coffee and sandwiches. You can see in our video (at the top of the page) that we got caught in the rainstorm right as we were reaching the cafe and had to wait it out for a bit, but it was still wonderful.
You can book here: https://www.topbikerental.com/nuovosito/eng/tour-rome/ancient-appian-way-catacombs-and-roman-aqueducts-in-rome-italy
That evening after warming up with hot showers after the rainstorm, Kyle and I set out to visit the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain. The views from the Spanish steps are breathtaking at night and Trevi is absolutely beautiful when it's lit up. We grabbed some gelato and a Nutella crepe from the Trevi Cafe around the corner and sat at the fountain. It was a wonderful Roman evening!
We also visited the Mamertine Prison while were in Rome. This lesser-known place has great historical and spiritual value; it is the prison in which the apostles Peter and Paul were documented to have been held before their executions. It is said that Peter used the natural spring in the dungeon to baptize guards and prisoners, and the spring still flows today. It is so awe-inspiring to be in the same room that they once were! The dungeon is still completely intact and, although they built stairs for visitors, the hole in the ceiling in which they lowered prisoners down through is still there.
The Church of Saint Joseph of the Carpenters was built above it, as it is considered Holy ground, but the dungeons are now a museum that you can access through the side of the church. It is just on the opposite side of the Roman Forum, near Campidoglio Square. We walked around for 20 minutes trying to find it; the entrance is a little hard to find, so below is a bird's eye of the buildings. You can get tickets when you go; no need to by them ahead of time, as it is not a very popular visiting site.
That was all for Rome, and we planned on traveling north for the rest of our week in Italy. Next we visited Florence, Pisa, and Bologna.
We left bright and early the next morning to catch a train to Florence. The metro is connected to the train station, so it's easy to hop on and end there. However, that was the only easy part, getting there.
My first piece of advice about the Termini train station: DO NOT underestimate how big this station is and how much time you need. We did, and we ended up missing our train, even with giving ourselves almost an hour to navigate the station. This place is HUGE (the third biggest in Europe), and very CONFUSING. Treat it like an airport; you need about that much time. Also, the signs were not clear and there wasn't a electronic departure board on any of the levels until you get right up to the platforms, so we had no idea where we were going. All the (29!) platforms are in the same place (right next to each other), which I didn't assume, so I was looking for signs to different platforms.
We purchased tickets ahead of time, so I had them on my phone. Our tickets didn't say which platform, only the train number and departure time, so you don't know until you get there and read the board. We though asking for directions would help, but we were wrong. We were told the wrong platform twice. It was only when I looked at the ONE departure board myself that I figured out where we were suppose to go. For once, asking for directions actually hurt us, because like I said, we missed our train (by about 2 minutes). Also because we purchased our tickets online, they were " super saver" tickets so they could not be exchanged. I didn't read the fine print. We had to completely re-purchase new tickets after we missed it. Learn from our (very frustrating) mistakes!
We finally got on the new train 30 minutes later and had a very pleasant, very short hour and a half ride to florence on a high-speed train. Other than the nonsense at the station, I would definitely recommend the high-speed trains to get to different cities.
Florence
- Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (Il Duomo)
- Galleria dell'Accademia
We didn't have much on our list for Florence. Most can spend many days here, but we were limited on time. We were really just passing through Florence because our main destination was Bologna. My sister has some friends from back home in Texas that have lived in Budrio, a small town on the outskirts of Bologna, for years, and we wanted to spend some time with them getting to know smaller, more local parts of Italy.
Once we got into Florence we picked up a pre-booked rental car at the Santa Maria Novella station, where we got off our train. There are several rental car sites there at the station, but we booked Hertz and it was off-site (even though it was only a ten-minute walk). After picking up our car we headed to a parking lot near Il Duomo, as that was our next destination. Our plan was to just do a couple things in Florence and head to Pisa that afternoon, which we accomplished.
The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (Il Duomo) was totally unexpected for me; I was instantly in awe and in love with this medieval cathedral. It is MASSIVE, and waaay bigger than the Notre Dame (in my opinion, it just FEELS bigger). It is 115 m or 377 feet high compared to Notre Dame's 96 m or 315 feet high. Pictures don't even do it justice, you have to stand in it's shadows for yourself to realize just what an amazing piece of architecture it is. It towers over the whole city. and you can't even get the whole thing in a picture unless you're at a very far distance. In our video above you can see how massive it really is when we have to do a panoramic to get it all in.
It was one of my favorite sites in Italy, even though I wasnt even planning it. My sister had told me about it so we "dropped by" on our way to see David. I'm SO glad we did. Next time I would like to go inside; since we were just dropping by, the line was too long to enter.
After Il Duomo, we walked just 5 minutes down the street to the Galleria dell'Accademia, home of Michaelangelo's David. Two weeks before our trip I tried to purchase skip-the-line tickets from multiple vendors, but they were all sold out; BUY TICKETS WAAAY AHEAD OF TIME. We decided we didn't want to stand in the 2 hour (yikes!) line with a fussy baby so we had to pass it up, sadly. Lesson learned. Even with missing David, however, we loved our very brief visit in Florence because experiencing Il Duomo made it much better than expected. We grabbed some coffee and a bite to eat, headed back to our car, and started our short drive to Pisa (1 hour).
Pisa
We had to visit Pisa to get that goofy picture holding up the leaning tower, of course! Pisa was such a charming town though, and there were restaurants everywhere. We had a hard time choosing where to eat dinner, they all looked so great! This was honestly the first time we felt like Italian food was living up to our expectations (just a little), when we got out of Rome. We spent several hours there and then headed to our bed and breakfast in Bologna.
Bologna/Budrio
- FICO eataly world
- Food Tour
Bologna is known as the food capital in Italy to most. I had no idea until I started doing research on what to do there after we had decided to visit friends. I had never heard of it and certainly wouldn't have chosen it otherwise, but I'm so glad we did!
Our b&b, Casa Nora, in Bologna was absolutely ideal, and so picturesque. I was OBSESSED with it's interior design (hence all the pictures I have to share)! Although it wasn't in the true "countryside", it felt very much so. I would highly recommend it, and stay there again in a heartbeat! The owner inherited and restored the bnb, and it's absolutely beautiful. His wife is a baker too, so having multitudes of fresh baked goods every morning wasn't bad either! The poplar (known as Cottonwood back home in the states) trees were in full bloom and Delaney was thoroughly confused but enjoyed playing in the "snow" nonetheless.
We stayed here the last 3 nights of our week in Italy.
Most of our time in Bologna was actually spent hanging out with our friends in Budrio, a small town on the outskirts of Bologna. We attended a festival one day in Budrio and FICO in Bologna the next. At the festival we had sooo many homemade Italian dishes, I was bursting! The wine was excellent as well, as expected. It was nice to get some local hospitality and perspective in a casual setting like we did; I would find an italian family and eat with them if you can! In our video you can see that Delaney was ecstatic about the live music, which wasn't in short supply at the festival.
FICO Eataly is the largest food park in the world; it's much like the indoor public markets back home in the states like Seattle's Pike Place, Napa's Oxbow, or Atlanta's Ponce City, but on a much larger scale. Theres dozens of restaurants, markets, bookstores, and museum-like informational activities. They also have classes and workshops available to learn about all kinds of things like Italian wine, cooking Italian dishes, etc. All of their product is local, fresh, and farm-to-table. We had a blast there, and ate our fair share of food! There's even a huge grocery store at the end with everything imaginable, and they will ship right there to your home!
Bologna (baloney) sausage and Bolognese sauce both originiated in Bologna, which isn't in short supply!
The next day we had to say goodbye to Bologna but that meant saying hello to Greece! We turned in our rental car and flew out of the Bologna Airport and enjoyed a quick flight to Athens (after a three hour delay though, of course). Delaney was wiped out and pretty fussy at this point but we survived, and got to relax once we got to Athens.
... and that was our time in Italy! I hope you enjoyed this post and most of all, that it was a help to you! Let me know in the comments what you enjoyed most or learned from this post, or what you experienced when visiting these places; I would love to hear it!
Also, stay tuned for my next post on visiting Athens and Santorini, Greece!
Ciao Bella!
Kaci xxx