Booked Italy for October/November 2010

I have now booked flight, hotels and rental car for Italy in late October/early November 2010. This of course will coincide with my 40th birthday and I am doing 2 full weeks. I will spend the beginning and end in Rome and I am going to fly down to Sicily for about a week where I will stay in Palermo and rent the car to drive around the island. I am not a fan of driving during my vacations but there really isn't anything for it but to do that on Sicily as far as I can tell.

The location is chosen strategically to be someplace warmer during the time of year for my birthday. While I enjoyed Sweden it was a tad cold. I am not averse to continuing to go to colder places but they have to be open as well and a moderate amount of sites in Sweden were closed though I did manage a full itinerary. I figure more northerly places will have to be chosen for spring/summer trips in general in the future.

I am going to be flying through British Airways. I wasn't going to purchase anything before the Japan trip but the airfare is at a price that I suspect I won't be able to beat. I purchased through Orbitz though so if BA lowers their prices for my flights then I will be able to get some money back. The pricing is about 200 less than the best price I saw for the same trip last year (which is what prompted me to get Macchu Pichu in in 2009 instead of Italy).

For hotels I have booked Hotel Milo Rome for the stay in Rome (obviously). Found the place through Kayak but booked directly through the hotel's website rather than through anything external. The benefit is not charging the credit card until I get done with the stay. The negative of course is I will be held slave to the exchange rate variances from now until then. I have to assume that as long as Obama is in office the value of the dollar will continue to tank as he builds up more deficit. Anyway, for the stay in Palermo I am using the hotel Albergo Atheanaeum which I booked through Hotels.com because well I didn't find the direct site before I booked as well as the fact that I was able to save 20% by booking more than 5 days and I also used my Hotels.com welcome rewards free night one one of the nights. I had managed to gather enough nights booked through them between the Sweden and France trips. So basically I managed to get the room cheaper than I would have directly but I also had to pay the cost up front. At least it wasn't very expensive. So far that means I have paid up front for the Palermo hotel and the flight.

One Month to Go or So and a Kyoto Link

We have just about a month before the Japan 2010 trip kicks off. By Saturday there will be only 4 weeks and counting. Those of us who are going are getting together today to discuss the plans for the trip. I have the itinerary I would like to work with already planned out but I want to run it by them before it is finalized (obviously it will change as needed while we are there but I find it is best to work with reasonable plans ahead of time). I still have to order the limo to the airport through Flightline and notify the bank that I will be out of the country in Japan for the two weeks of the trip. Those are the two main details left to handle before we actually depart.

I think the sakura timing is shaping up to hopefully give us a few days of full bloom in either location. It seems the cherry blossom season has been continually getting earlier and earlier. Still we are going to enough locations we'll manage something. Our Kyoto timing seems to be the best of the lot. Either way we will not get through the trip without seeing some of them and hopefully we will be able to see the Japanese frenzy about them directly. I am curious about that as much as hoping for some incredible picture opportunities on the trip.

One thing I have posited to the group as a potential day in Kyoto is Toei Kyoto Studio Park. It is a theme park that is built on the backlots of the Toei Kyoto Studios. A lot of samurai era films are made by Toei as well as a few modern things you'd probably recognize like the Power Rangers. It appears to welcome foreigners and the website even has a suggested path through the park for the gaijin who go. I know it might be a fun or at least goofy day but it is a matter of the time we have to do it. I also found a half day afternoon tour of the studio escorted by someone in Japanese through this site. I suspect it is a bit cheaper to get in and do it on your own but it might be worth it to have the guided tour.

Information from the Kyoto Imperial Palace

Aside from the tour I found this information on the website. We are leaving Kyoto on the 7th but if we didn't get enough from the tour we can run down and visit the palace again that morning as they are opening the doors to the general public!

The Kyoto Imperial Palace will open its doors to the public as follows.

(During the period, no in-advance applications are required. Admission is free).

1) Period of opening: 5 days from Wednesday April 7th until Sunday April 11th.

2) Hours of opening: From 9:00 A.M. through until 3:30 P.M. 　　(Visitors are requested to leave by 4:15 P.M.)

3) Visitors are requested to go in by the Gishumon Gate and go out by the Seishomon Gate.

4) For the preparation and the cleanup, the regular Imperial Palace tours on Tuesday April 6th and Monday April 12th will be suspended.

Location, Location, Location

When we chose the Villa Fontaine Hamamatsucho it was partially for price and partially for the location. I knew it would be sort of close to where we were at the Shiba Park Hotel.

For the record we decided not to go back to the Shiba Park for a couple reasons. One, Marina is no longer working there. If she were we probably wouldn't have anyway to try to make it easier on her since we consider her a friend and not just the hotel manager. But there is no allegiance to Shiba Park though we did like the location. The second was that it was more expensive than the Villa Fontaine. I figure if we can reduce costs as the exchange rate is bad it will at least save us some money. I have always said you spend what you need to on vacation. But you don't need to spend a lot just because all the same...

I took a look through google maps to see where the two hotels were in relation to each other and it appears it would be about a 10 minute walk to get from one to the other. That was also good news to hopefully finding some of the places we went to eat when we were there last time that we would like to go back to. Most of those places are along the walk between the two hotels. It should be maybe a 5 minute walk to get to Kirin City or our favorite shouting restaurant (I know Kirin City is still there from their website Kirin City (trust me it is in there, I did the digging) but I really hope the shouting restaurant is still there too. I know a lot can change in 2 and a half years.) as places to eat again.

Remembering how long it took to get to the Tokyo Tower I think it might be about 20 minutes walk or maybe a bit shorter if we don't have to wait too long for traffic lights. Also Roppongi should be about 35 minutes away on foot.

I am sure there is not going to be too much around the hotel itself but we're literally a few minutes from a main street filled with stores and restaurants and probably no more than 5 minutes from the same subway station we used last trip (Daimon) and it looks like there is a Hamamatsucho station that is maybe the same distance away. We also won't be too far from the JR station that we can use our passes to get around Tokyo with. This will save us some little bits of money that we spent on the subway during the last trip. JR does travel around Tokyo but maybe some of the stops aren't as convenient location wise as the subway itself. Plus we are going to have to take the subway once or twice so we all get the experience.

Kyoto Imperial Palace Visit

I have just booked our group a tour in English of the Imperial Palace in Kyoto. It is basically similar to what we did with the Tokyo Imperial Palace during the last trip but a bit shorter. I suspect that they will have a Japanese speaking guide and we will get headsets and maps that help us to follow along in English. I doubt we will have an attendant like the poor little man that was on the Tokyo tour.

I booked the tour for April 1 at 10 am. We arrive in Kyoto on the last day of March and will have to figure out what we need to do to get to the palace gates at some point during that day so we don't have difficulty with it. Our hotel is supposed to be right in the area where the palace is though so I am hoping we can just walk to it without issue. The tour is one hour long and we need to be there 10 minutes early (The Japanese are very much sticklers for time).

The website is basically the same as it was back in 2007 but they updated the pages and the initial link is now broken. The new link can be located here. There are links for both of the Imperial Palaces as well as a couple other Imperial Villas and the Sento Imperial Palace which I will have to do research on for another trip.

I think this could be a good highlight of the Kyoto stretch of our stay. I would be most happy if the compound has cherry blossoms in full bloom while we are there.

Rail Passes Purchased

We, well most of us, Brien is supposed to do it today, have purchased our rail passes for the trip. 2 weeks this time for Green Car of course. The value of the Green Car cannot be avoided and though the price is significantly higher in up front cost having a wide seat with no smokers and a quiet car is so very worth it. Plus we never ran into a point where we couldn't get a seat on a train. This is the last significant step before the trip itself which is just over 7 weeks away at this point.

Just wanted to update this post to say we've all already received our rail passes for the trip.