Final plans

Yesterday we visited Becky Donaldson of The Travel Connection in Aurora for our final details for our trip.  Amazing...our hole life for a month in one fat envelope.  We'll have to guard it with our lives.  She answered all the questions we could think of and explained what charges were still to be paid once we arrived.  Some of the taxes need to be paid in Italy and cannot be prepaid.  One of the tours we wanted was better selected on site because of frequent cancellations ( the tours don't always fill up).

One question we have is about cell phones.  Our phones definitely will not work in Italy.  She suggested www.callineurope.com.  We will try calling them Monday.

Our trip starts Tuesday, May 1 out of Cleveland to Newark.  Then a four hour layover and then an eight hour flight to Rome arriving at around 7am Rome time (1am our time).  I hope we can get a little sleep on the plane.  We get picked up at the airport and delivered to our apartment and then the fun begins!  

Getting Close

Two weeks to go.  Molly will be taking care of Max, Georgie (next door) will be cutting the grass, and Emma Lee will take us to the airport.  We are stopping the paper and mail, and all the bills are being paid through our banking service.  We have also bought some Euros to get us started.  We are planning to use credit cards for most  purchases and ATM machines for cash.   I will look into getting a phone in Italy.  If you have a better idea, let me know.


Passports are ready, and we are storing stuff we will be taking in the bedroom as we think of them.  If you have any suggestions, email them or post them here.

Get them passports!

Hope you have your passports procured. My friend and I were going to go to Vancouver B.C. this past summer. We both applied for our visa about the same time. I received my visa in about 2 weeks, my friend's took over 2 months and countless phone calls and extra paperwork before he received his.

Of course, by this time our window of opertunity for the trip passed and we did not go. We will go sometime next summer...hopefully. We also intend to go to Mexico, to the Mayan temples, December 21,
for the end of the world. There will be millions of people from across the globe. Hundreds of religions, cults and cultures amassed in one tiny spot. It should prove to be very interesting and intense.

Looking forward to following your adventure.

Planning the trip

OK, let's see how this blog thing works.

We're getting ready to travel!

Pat and I are in the early stages of planning for a trip to Italy.  We have sought the help of Becky Donaldson at Aurora Travel to help with the planning ... booking flights and excursions, and finding  housing.  Right now we have tickets on Continental to Rome and back from Milan, and we have booked apartments in Rome and Sienna for the first three weeks and hotels in Venice and Lake Como to finish our trip.  She is also booking us on a few tours.
Much of the time that we are there we will be freelancing...walking, taking the local transportation, and driving to wherever we find attractive.  For sure we will be visiting the usual tourist attractions, but we also want to feel free to wander about and see the real Italy and the real Italians.  We have been practicing our Italian, and we think we can get along OK, as long as we have a good reference book, and I look forward to talking with the natives.
Today we investigated converting the electrical power, which is 220 volts in Italy, to 110 volts that is needed to charge our computer and cameras.  The nice part is that the cameras and Pat's hair dryer will work just fine on 220 with just a plug adapter.  However, it looks like we will have to seek some professional help with the computer.  All of the conversion equipment we found so far says not to use with electronic equipment.
We also experimented with luggage.  We each took out enough clothes for seven days to see how it would fit in our suitcases.  It looks like we will be able to fit everything we think we will need into luggage we now have.  More later.