I went to Italy with my mom, brother and his’s family in April. We started in Florence and visited Siena, Bologna, Venice, Padua, Lake Garda, and Milan. I’d been to Florence, but the rest was new to me.
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My favorite new things were the cathedral in Siena, a restaurant in Bologna, seeing Venice, and the cemetery in Milan.
The cathedrals we saw are very impressive: stunningly large and ornamented, often with museum quality art, sculpture and frescos. They are just so much larger and more elaborate than the rest of the city, and it must have been even more of a contrast when they were built.
Venice was an interesting mix. Sometimes it felt over-hyped and over-priced with too many people chasing the experience. But I was also able to see why it is so popular. The canals are picturesque and the level of development and luxury in it’s prime must have been incredible. It has a certain look and ambiance that is pretty unique and the light off the lagoon is a bit different.
Milan was more like a modern city than the other cities we visited (at least the parts of each city that we were in). It felt bigger, less touristy, and more commercial. The cathedral there was very impressive and we happened to catch a big soccer celebration. My favorite site there was the Monumental Cemetery which felt like a closely packed cemetery where nearly all the graves are elaborate. The place is very large (60 acres) so we didn’t nearly see everything. The graves are from late 1800s to today and the art styles are quite varied.
The weather was mixed with mostly clouds and a few sunny days. We had some rain, but nothing bad. It was a little cool, but I think close to normal for the time of year we visited.
We were not on a tour and had pre-planned most of the trip. Hotels were reserved, about 2/3 of the restaurants were reserved, and we’d pre-booked tickets to many sites.
We were there a little before the peak of the season, and it wasn’t too crowded, but there were lots of sites where you had to book in advance and even more where not pre-booking meant standing in a long line. Having to pre-book tickets makes it much more difficult to plan a trip and also limits spontaneity and exploration. We didn’t leave enough time for the sites in Padua and had to rush between them to make our reservation times and it would be great to be able to rearrange plans based on weather or mood.
The crowds themselves were only a problem in Venice on the grand canal ferry. There were so many people that you could not count on being able to catch an (already slow) ferry without a significant wait. It made the ferry system basically unusable for getting around the main island.
There have been some stories in the news this year about how there is a backlash to tourism in Italy. I certainly never felt any hostility and there were lots of very kind and/or helpful people. But I did get a sense of tiredness or lack of patience occasionally. One thing that probably helped is that Ryan speaks Italian and was able to get past the language barrier.
Mom got food poisoning (or something) that developed into pneumonia and she went directly from the flight home to the hospital. She also ended up missing almost half the trip due to the illness.
So it was a trip with lots of ups and downs. Lots of great sites and family time. I don’t know that I’d change much if planning it again. Probably one fewer city: moving hotels a lot is a pain and I think a slightly slower pace would have been better.