Italy!

[Gumby]

We would go back to Venice in a heartbeat. We loved spending a week there in 2014.

 

[Surewhitey]

We're meeting friends in September for a couple of weeks. Amalfi is definitely a re-visit spot for us and likely Tuscany region.

 

[Dog]

DD and I will be trekking for ten days via the Alta Via 1 in the Dolomites in early September. We will have a brief stay in Venice and then head to Florence for a week. I still need to book our flights and accommodations in Florence. Any recommendations?
This trip was postponed for two years due to Covid and I’m hoping it won’t cause any problems this year ?

 

[Surewhitey]

DD and I will be trekking for ten days via the Alta Via 1 in the Dolomites in early September. We will have a brief stay in Venice and then head to Florence for a week. I still need to book our flights and accommodations in Florence. Any recommendations?
This trip was postponed for two years due to Covid and I’m hoping it won’t cause any problems this year ?

We just booked our flights with miles. AA was minimum 60k miles round trip. One stop going, non-stop coming home (DFW) from Rome. Ours dates are September 2-15... Prices seemed to jump immediately after the announced no test required...

 

[explanade]

I am planning a month-long road trip through Northern Italy to see and hike the Dolomites.

I certainly will have time to revisit Venice. Been pondering if I should delay the trip from late summer 22 to early 23 to coincide with the Venice Carnival, in order to commemorate our first visit there 20 years earlier.

Best time of the year in the Dolomites for clear weather is late AuguSt and early SeptemBer. Lowest average rainfall.

In Feb, it’s ski season in many of the Dolomites villages. I don’t know if they allow non skiers on the cable cars though I suppose you’d share. Might need snow shoes.

 

[Bamaman]

DD and I will be trekking for ten days via the Alta Via 1 in the Dolomites in early September. We will have a brief stay in Venice and then head to Florence for a week. I still need to book our flights and accommodations in Florence. Any recommendations?
This trip was postponed for two years due to Covid and I’m hoping it won’t cause any problems this year ?

Direct flights to/from the U.S. are limited to Milan or Rome. Milan may be slightly cheaper, and it's easy to catch the train down to Florence. Rome to Florence is easy by train also.

If you're flying thru another European gateway airport, many travelers fly into Pisa Airport where they catch a 1 hour train ride into Florence.

We often spend a weekend in the big cities and then head for the country. Accommodations are easiest found on Booking.com or Hotels.com for Tuscany. And virtually every farm in Tuscany and Umbria have apartments and/or rooms as a secondary source of income.

We're also very partial to the Austrian Alps--Western Tirol around Innsbruck. The region is very easy to travel around and the mountains more beautiful (to me) than the Dolomites.

 

[NW-Bound]

Best time of the year in the Dolomites for clear weather is late AuguSt and early SeptemBer. Lowest average rainfall.

In Feb, it’s ski season in many of the Dolomites villages. I don’t know if they allow non skiers on the cable cars though I suppose you’d share. Might need snow shoes.

We will be there in mid September. Average high in nearby Bolzano will be 76F (24C), and the mountains should be cooler.

We will have time to revisit Venice (last time in 2003), and also for some new places. Was thinking about Trieste, but also saw Verona. Am trying to stay longer in fewer places and not to drive too much.

 

[explanade]

We will be there in mid September. Average high in nearby Bolzano will be 76F (24C), and the mountains should be cooler.

We will have time to revisit Venice (last time in 2003), and also for some new places. Was thinking about Trieste, but also saw Verona. Am trying to stay longer in fewer places and not to drive too much.

What kind of hikes do you want to do, multi day hikes where you would go up to a mountain hut (rifugios) and spend overnight and then continue hiking?

Or day hikes along the valleys or maybe go up a cable car and walk down?

Val di Gardena is a popular destination (Ortisei) and it's near Europe's highest plateau, Alpe di Siusi or Selser Alm. I've never done it but people go up cable cars and then hike back down to the valley, though even hiking down can take a couple of hours vs. a 15 minute cable car ride down.

Lot of these Dolomite valleys have deals like a pass for all cable cars for different durations.

Val di Gardena also have a program called Val Gardena Active, which you get for staying like 3 or 4 nights minimum at a participating hotel. Then you can do some guided hikes and tours, including some packages with e bikes which include rental and a guide.

But the weather is so uncertain. I've stayed 4 or 5 nights one time and only two days were clear (other days it was some heavy downpour, not just some drizzle) so I didn't get as much use out of my cable car pass or the Val Gardena Active programs.


Mid September though may be after these programs or near the end of the summer programs.

 

[NW-Bound]

No overnight camping for us. Day trips only. If we can go up an aerial tram or ski lift, then go back down on foot it will be good.

A few years ago, we hiked a trail up from Olympic Village (Olympic Valley, 6234 ft) to the High Camp (8093 ft). The tram going down was free.

The above hike was OK, but at times I thought we were lost because the trail was not marked. And not having the right shoes nor hiking poles, near the top I was afraid of sliding down on a snow-covered slope toward a cliff edge.

No, I want to go easy this time.

PS. I remember then when clambering up the slippery snowy slope on all four, asked myself if this was how my life was going to end.

 

[explanade]

One thing about the Alps compared to the Rockies for instance is that you're less likely to encounter predators like cougars and bears.

There are bears up there but not in the numbers we have in the mountains and hills of the Western US.

There might also be wild boars too.

 

[ElizabethT]

We lived in France for several years and love it still, but I have to say given a preference, I'd live in Italy; a more relaxed way of life and the food is a lot more 'simpler'/excellent. The French can be a little intense at times.

I'm smiling at this. We are in France now, in the Alsace region, and on our way to a 7pm dinner reservation, we attempted three times to find a spot to enjoy a pre-dinner glass of wine. Spot 1 informed us we had to order an appetizer with our drink (this was at a wine bar, not a restaurant), spot 2, a bar in a hotel, informed us they only sold drinks to hotel guests, and spot 3 informed us they were closed for 15 minutes while the proprietor took a smoking break.

So double drink orders at the pre-reserved restaurant it was.

 

[tulak]

No overnight camping for us. Day trips only. If we can go up an aerial tram or ski lift, then go back down on foot it will be good.

A few years ago, we hiked a trail up from Olympic Village (Olympic Valley, 6234 ft) to the High Camp (8093 ft). The tram going down was free.

Not Italy, but this reminded me of trip in the Tatry mountains in Slovakia. There were three of us and we went up the mountain in a funicular for a reasonable amount, under 20€ total.

We hiked to across the mountain, about 1.5-2 hours and then went to take the gondola down the mountain. 30-40€ per person. I was tempted to walk down, but ended up buying the tickets. I’ll check in advance next time. Lesson learned!

 

[NW-Bound]

Not Italy, but this reminded me of trip in the Tatry mountains in Slovakia. There were three of us and we went up the mountain in a funicular for a reasonable amount, under 20€ total.

We hiked to across the mountain, about 1.5-2 hours and then went to take the gondola down the mountain. 30-40€ per person. I was tempted to walk down, but ended up buying the tickets. I’ll check in advance next time. Lesson learned!

Was it because you were too tired to go down, or because the path down was a different one and harder? I assume that the funicular up and the gondola down are two different ones.

At the Olympic Valley, they did not bother to check tickets on the way down, because very few would hike up to take the tram back down.

The tram travels over a steep slope and was relatively short. The trail going up was circuitous and going over a different path, and of course not as steep. Most tourists did not even know there was a way to hike up. We were just lucky, or unlucky perhaps, to happen to learn about it.

 

[NW-Bound]

... given a preference, I'd live in Italy; a more relaxed way of life and the food is a lot more 'simpler'/excellent...

Time to post again an Italian hit song.

 

[pacergal]

My DB and his wife are heading to Rome in a few weeks.
Hopefully, the flights are not caught up in all the canceling going on.

Italy is on our bucket list sometime in the future a few years.

 

[explanade]

Regarding living in Italy, I think they do offer a retirement visa. But again, you may be making yourself liable to a lot of taxes.

A lot of small Italian villages are offering €1 homes -- now with stipulations that you must spend a certain amount to renovate and inhabit them.

But they're often places which have been depopulating for years and they're not in optimal places or near places that visitors are interested in.

 

[tulak]

Was it because you were too tired to go down, or because the path down was a different one and harder? I assume that the funicular up and the gondola down are two different ones.

Yes, the funicular and gondola are two different routes. We’d have to hike back an 1.5 for the funicular and we didn’t feel like hiking down. So I paid for the gondola.

That was the original plan, but it never occurred to me that the gondola would be that expensive.

 

[explanade]

Yes, the funicular and gondola are two different routes. We’d have to hike back an 1.5 for the funicular and we didn’t feel like hiking down. So I paid for the gondola.

That was the original plan, but it never occurred to me that the gondola would be that expensive.

That sounds like Pilatus near Luzern.

 

[rodi]

We have tentative plans for 3.5 weeks in Italy in Spring 2023

- Visit hubster's second cousins in eastern Sicily, then a few days in Palermo... Ferry to Genoa where we'll settle in for a week in Cinque Terre, hiking the trails there. Over to Florence, then up to Venice, end in Milan.

Ironically, I had google remind me today that 7 years ago today we were in Sicily on the start of our 9 week Europe trip. Here's a picture with the cousins in Riposto.

 

[Bamaman]

Resident Visas to allow you to move to Italy, or most EU Countries, are not easy to get. Mainly limited to students and people working there temporarily for large companies. And the old Schengen Agreement is closely followed.

Purchasing real estate in Italy is not easy. They don't allow you to change the footprint of a house. And reconditioning 300 year old homes is also very expensive--labor intensive.

Europeans don't want rich Americans to move over there and run the house of homes into the stratosphere. Homes in Europe are already extremely expensive. And governments don't want to pay big money for retiree healthcare in their national healthcare programs.

 

[Chuckanut]

Purchasing real estate in Italy is not easy. They don't allow you to change the footprint of a house. And reconditioning 300 year old homes is also very expensive--labor intensive.

.

emphasis added....

Several years ago I spent a few hours in a medium sized town in Italy sitting at a cafè watching workers restore an older building. I remember thinking that the many of the trade skills needed were quite a bit different from those needed to restore the wood-frame, stucco or plank siding homes where I live. These guys were dealing with rocks and stones held together by deteriorating cement of some sort. None of the existing exterior walls would withstand an earthquake so a new rebar 'net' had to be attached to the stone walls in the hope that it would keep them from crumbling in an earthquake.

 

[Freedom56]

With all this talk about Italy, we are going to work in a short trip to Stresa Italy and the Borromean Islands. It's only 2 hours 21 minutes by a direct train from Lausanne Switzerland or a 3 hour drive. We haven't been to Stresa since August 2008 during the financial crisis. Back then the world was in shock (kind of like now). We drove down and there were very few cars on the roads and almost completely void of tourists. The Euro to dollar exchange rates was 1.52 USD to 1 Euro. The exchange rate is much better now.

 

[DrRoy]

We just spent 11 days in Italy following a Danube cruise, but it was all in the Dolomites.

 

[Freedom56]

We just spent 11 days in Italy following a Danube cruise, but it was all in the Dolomites.

Once again, you take great photos. They are always well composed and exposed.

 

[Rianne]

emphasis added....

Several years ago I spent a few hours in a medium sized town in Italy sitting at a cafè watching workers restore an older building. I remember thinking that the many of the trade skills needed were quite a bit different from those needed to restore the wood-frame, stucco or plank siding homes where I live. These guys were dealing with rocks and stones held together by deteriorating cement of some sort. None of the existing exterior walls would withstand an earthquake so a new rebar 'net' had to be attached to the stone walls in the hope that it would keep them from crumbling in an earthquake.

One reason Venice is a marvel considers it is 1200 yrs. old and most of the current buildings are 800 years old (set in the water!)