Some Italy Information

As I have posted already, I am heading to Italy for my 40th birthday in late October, continuing into early November. Part of my trip will be centered in Rome and some of it will be spent in Sicily. The choices are partially practical and partially for continuity sake. That is, it is practical to visit Rome on my first trip to Italy. It is also practical to be visiting Sicily as it is late in the year and it should be warmer in Sicily (certainly warmer than Sweden was...). The continuity aspect falls from the idea I had stated early in my travel portfolio I wanted to visit all of my heritage locations. I have already visited Canada a long time ago. I visited Sweden and France (to drag the French Canadian back to the homeland) and that left Sicily where the Italian half of my family is actually from. I think it makes us not really Italians but who is keeping score on that? In any event this trip will finish off my known bloodline visits and I can move on to other countries from there (aside from Japan, which fell outside the course and Denmark which is/was an easy visit due to George).

So of course I have started to do my actual research and planning for the Italy trip. I am mostly certain that for this trip I am not going to purchase a rail pass. I have already reserved a rental car for the Sicily portion of the trip. I am spending 5 full days there. I have reserved flights back and forth from Rome to Palermo. It is not practical to drive from Rome or take trains as the trips are in the 10+ hours range and that is too much time wasted in transit for me on a vacation. The plane rides will be an hour each. I am sure they will be on tiny turboprop type planes but all is good. I have heard tell that I am going to have nightmares driving in Palermo itself but I am hoping to do most of my driving out of the city in the early morning and then back later in the evening past the rush hour times. I am sure it will still be horrible but I guess at least I am from Massachusetts and should be prepared for the jerks and psychos to some degree. I understand that Italians are a whole new level but such is the way of things. In general it looks like the furthest points from Palermo are about 3 hours and change and I am willing to drive 6 hours in a day to visit the right places. I do usually enjoy the concept that my vacations help me escape from having to drive but Sicily and Italy present issues where reports are that most public transit can be quite unreliable. I suppose I won't know until I get there, but better to be safe than sorry. I had my battles with French rail and bus systems and I lost a couple of them in the course of having to spend more money than I wanted to and failing to reach one intended destination and I am not prepared for Sicily to turn out to be a losing battle. In Rome I am going to have to rely on transit because I am not driving there. They say you have to have nerves of steel to drive in Rome and I am not willing to work up my road rage on a vacation that badly. Plus the main subways are supposed to be reasonably reliable and I have the ability to walk to a lot of the major things to see from hotel. Especially as far as I walk.

Speaking of major things to see. I am of course going to see the Vatican during my visit. I suppose as a reformed Catholic (read as atheist) it seems blasphemous for me to go there but truthfully Catholicism is a part of my upbringing and more so it is a major reason I am an unbeliever so it makes sense to see the head of the serpent so to speak. There is sure to be a vast amount of opulence all collected from the from the teaming masses that were and are willing to accept the Catholic way. I won't get into the religious debate here, but it is fairly tough for me to skip the Vatican while visiting Rome. As it is, it appears they will be collecting approximately $45 from me for the tours. Ah well...

Another important visit is the Appian Way which is apparently best visited on a Sunday because they close off all the streets to cars and make it a pedestrian only park. The park itself seems very large and they suggest it will take a couple hours to get through all of it. I have reserved my Sunday in Rome for it. That would be my first full day in Italy. I am sure it will be an interesting start.

What I have found interesting about researching Italian tourism is that unlike other countries I have already visited, I am having a tough time finding official tourism web pages. I am usually good at combing the internet for such information but Italy seems to evade me. I am not sure but I assume the Italians have a different method of handling tourism than other countries. It appears to be less governmental and more commercial (in some respects I guess it makes sense but it leaves you reading a lot of prepackaged tour company information rather than truly useful information). For the record the Rome Tourist website doesn't really seem to be geared towards tourists as much as tour professionals. There is information there but I expected much more based on say Paris or Stockholm's websites.

A couple sites that I have found that are at least useful in learning and preparing are Italy Heaven which appears to be geared towards Brits. I had to do some digging to find their Sicily Guide so I figure that should also be linked. Also there is Palermo.com which is geared towards the capital city of Sicily. A site with some information is ItalyGuides.it which has interactive maps and some audio guides, it's not the best but reasonable. Also I have Sicily for Tourists which has some good information and a few itinerary suggestions and Best of Sicily which at least has a nice FAQ.

For the record, here is Leonardo da Vinci Airport. Also, though I am not expecting to buy a rail pass there is ItaliaRail.com.

I am fairly certain I will be staying very local to Rome when in Italy proper. There are a couple short ride day trips I am considering but for the time being it does not seem cost effective to purchase a rail pass, especially where I would need to use at least 3 days worth of train riding to make it valuable as that is the minimum size pass that can be purchased (at least they are not consecutive days). In some respects this will leave me another time to visit Italy so I can go to places like Venice and Pompeii (which of course are not near each other). I am leaving myself around a week to do Rome proper and by what I have researched it seems like it is not too long a span for the Eternal City. I guess time and the trip will prove that one out.

I had already linked my hotel choices. I found additional reviews on the Hotel Milo which prove out what I guess I expected which is that it has a reasonable location for getting around the city due to its proximity to the Roma Termini but is not a spectacular hotel if you are looking for luxury. It will apparently be noisy in the region and the location is not great for restaurants as most are tourist trap places (expensive, not good food). It was stated if, like me, you are looking for a serviceable hotel to just sleep in (or to spend a quick turnover stay) then Hotel Milo is good for you. For the Albergo Athenaeum, which I chose for a couple reasons, I have only found a couple non-professional guest reviews but they suggest what I had hoped for, which is that it has free parking for guests and is right off the hightway A-29 about a half a kilometer so it should provide easy ability to get in and out of Palermo to visit the rest of the island, hopefully without pounding my head against the steering wheel through too much traffic. Overall the review said it is a clean and modern hotel as well. Hopefully it works out well enough.