Sunday Adventures: Italian Escapades
This Sunday I’m dreaming of warmer, sunnier places. Although it’s not #throwbackthursday, or #flashbackfriday we’re still going to travel in time to 1. Warmer weather, and 2. Sunshine in the Summertime.
My Italian Adventures: June 2018
Sunshine in the Summertime. This summer I flew to Italy with my friend. It was my FIRST ever trip across the pond. While I hope it wont be my last, I do hope my next international trip will be smoother than my last.
Our Italian Adventure started with budget friendly tickets and Airbnb locations. One thing I will never do again.. buy cheap flights through third party sites. While I appreciate the cheaper tickets… the hassle of immigration and passport validation was just not worth the headache. The reality of my international flight was the first budget airline was delayed. Like a lot delayed. Which I learned was a typical problem experienced with that airline. But it also meant that with my third party not accepting my passport online before my flight that I was denied access to my initial flight, that I would have missed anyways. To end the fun our phones didn’t hook up with the carriers in England. What a mess.
Here are my Italian Adventure DOs and DON’Ts:
DO: Save money on travel costs
Educate yourself on what it costs to fly to the country, state, or adventure that you plan on booking. Make sure to time the purchase of your tickets to when it’s cheapest to fly. For flights from the USA to Europe you’re looking about 3 months in advance to find the best prices. However, I’m loving my new app that tells me the trends for prices from specific airports on specific dates. Hopper. It’s a great app to monitor flights so that you can make sure to buy tickets at the right time.
DON’T: Buy tickets through shady sites
I learned my lesson of using unknown sites. Hopefully you don’t have to learn the same way. I bought my tickets… and while they got us to Italy… they weren’t without complications. I would have rather purchased different flights if I knew then what I know now. Be smart. Do your homework, not only on the flights, when to buy, but also which sites to use.
DO: Plan ahead
If you know where you want to go, and what you want to see it makes the trip easier to plan. Our Italian Adventure was a mixture of plan ahead and spur of the moment. Our trip had planned stops along the way. We planned to visit Milan, Venice, Florence, Pisa, and Rome.
I really wanted to see the Last Supper which is located in Milan. We bought tickets for the Last Supper for our only day in Milan. It was worth the price and the troubles of making our trip to Milan.
While the Last Supper has been restored over the years… the feet have remained untouched. It’s pretty cool to see in person… But you’ll notice that not all of the feet are easily seen in this picture. (*Excuse the poor resolution, I took all my photos with my iPhone*)
Our next stop was Venice. I had looked ahead and found that a bus from the airport was the only way to get to Milan. From there is was just a couple of steps away to pick up our AirBnb keys and then we walked down the road to get to our 8th story apartment. Darn,… I should have packed lighter!
The remainder of our travels were with the trains. We booked flights to get in and out of the country, but planned to use mass transit to get around Italy. I learned about train travel through Europe by finding bloggers off of Pinterest. I didn’t book my train tickets ahead, but rather purchased each one right at the train station. It was easy, in English, and quick.
DON’T: Forget the directions!
One thing we did NOT do right was obtain directions to each location before… we lost the free WiFi. PLEASE, PLEASE do what we didn’t realize we should do right away. We had free WiFi at our Airbnb’s (Something I checked before booking each) and could have looked up our directions from Airbnb to train station to next Airbnb. We forgot to do this prior to losing our free WiFi when we got to Venice we had no idea where to get to next. From that experience we learned to screenshot our directions in order to find the next step.
DO: Enjoy the sights, the seas, and the flavors.. of gelato!
One of our favorite things to do as we traveled throughout Italy was enjoy every single gelato we could get our hands on. While I opted for the sorbetto in a cup, my travel mate opted for trying out a new gelato at each stand in a cone. I saw a few places with gluten free cones… which made us stop even if we already had our awesome gelato for the day.
DON’T: Forget about your allergies while traveling abroad
One of the things I had to work hard to manage while traveling was eating within my diet. The few times I strayed I DEFINITELY paid the price. Something I’m sure my travel buddy wishes I didn’t… specifically when we had to share the toilets. 😆
DO: Document your life
We also made sure to take loads of pictures. We spent 12 days traveling together. We made sure to document our travels both together and apart. I loved the pictures from Italy. But I loved the once in a lifetime experiences more. Riding in a gondola with friends in Venice, walking the mile high staircases of Florence, finding the perfect pose in Pisa, and reminiscing in Roman Ruins.
One thing you will never forget are the moments you created by traveling. Don’t forget to enjoy the moments, don’t get too busy just creating them. LIVE THEM.
What are your Italian Dos & Don’ts?