1990 - Honeymoon in Italy
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| 1990 - Honeymoon in Italy
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 Introduction Places to Visit Timeframe Transportation Planning Itinerary Lodging |
Our first trip together to Europe! We decided to limit ourselves to Italy for the romantic honeymoon we had always dreamed of. Sqeezing a little bit of many places into our tight schedule, we visited Bellagio on Lake Como, Vigiljoch in the Alps, Venice, Rome, Tuscany, Viareggio on the Mediterranean coast, Sestri Levante on the Riviera and finally Zürich. Early September.
Italy: Bellagio (Lake Como), Italian Alps (Vigiljoch), Venice, Rome, Colle di Val d'Elsa (Tuscany), Viareggio, Sestri Levante.
Switzerland: Zürich.
We went in early September. Overall we had nice weather with intermittent showers (more like downpours) that were gone as quickly as they had arrived, leaving a clean crispness in the air. It was hot and humid in Rome.
We flew into Zürich because we flew SwissAir (it was a partner on our mileage program) and picked up our rental car there. From there we drove down through the St. Gotthard pass and into Italy, after having stopped to have lunch in Zürich with my sister and cousins who just happened to be there at the time. We then drove on to Italy. On our return we drove back to Switzerland, staying our last night in downtown Zürich so we could get up at a decent hour to return our car and get to the airport in time.
Because we were married in June but postponed our honeymoon until September to take advantage of better weather and fewer tourists, we had plenty of time to plan. The first task was to book our flight reservations. Actually, this was the driving force behind our timeframe, because by the time we called to book in April, all frequent-flyer seats for late June were already taken. The first good two-week span we could get was in September, which turned out to be perfect.
Flight dates established, we then set out to decide where we wanted to go and what we wanted to see. I (Beth) had been to Italy before and was eager to show Les some of the places I had fallen in love with on visits past, so Venice and Rome were the first two places listed on the agenda. With those two places marked on the map along with our arrival/departure city of Zürich, we filled in the remaining days of the trip with areas of interest within the general cirlcle made by connecting the three. We picked Lake Como because we needed a place to rest for the night after driving down from Switzerland, knowing we'd be leaving Zürich after lunch. Then we decided a few nights in the Alps or Dolomites would be nice on our way to Venice, but chose to drive the Venice-Rome route all in one day rather than do another one-nighter on the way. Between Rome and the Riviera lies the beautiful hill towns of Tuscany that I wanted to be sure we experienced. I had been to Siena and loved it, so we added a night in Tuscany to our itinerary. We chose to skip Florence on this trip because we just didn't have the time, and because we felt that Florence and Rome on the same trip would be too much sensory overload. Finally, we decided to make our way back to Switzerland a little easier by staying one night on the famed Italian Riviera, then a final night in Zürich itself in order to get to the airport on time the morning of our departure.
Once we had the general idea of the areas we wanted to visit, we went out and bought guide books. The two that we ended up using were Karen Brown's guide to Italy and one called the Charming Small Hotel Guide to Italy. We liked both of those books very much and have used them ever since - we're now on our fourth edition of the Charming Small Hotel Guide (CSHG) to Italy. We've also acquired other books in the CSHG series for France, the UK, and Germany.
Most of our hotel reservations were made by post. We sent off letters to every hotel we could find that sounded nice and was in our price range to see if they had availability. We received positive replies from almost every one of them, so we either called or wrote back to the ones we chose, confirming the reservation. A few places required a deposit but most of them said the reservation was enough to hold the room. None of them wanted a credit card to guarantee the room.
We found out later that some of them viewed our original letter as a reservation and held rooms for us even though we never came back and said, "Yes, we want it." Our first lesson in how the European systems differ from our own. At least we weren't required to pay them anything for the misunderstanding.
We booked our car reservations over the phone, through a company called Europe Car. We got what seemed like a good rate at the time, but after we returned we ended up getting two extra bills from them for various extra charges (rate fluctuation mostly) and it ended up being not a good deal at all. We were able to contest one of the charges because it was made without our authorization, but were stuck with the other one because they used the blank charge slip that we had signed and left with them as a required deposit when we rented the car. We forgot to get it back when we turned the car in. We'll never make that mistake again - it cost us about $150.
All in all we feel like we did a pretty good job of planning, and the trip went fairly smoothly because of it. We learned a few lessons that we would take advantage of on later trips and also share with you here on these pages. We didn't try to cram too much into our limited time, yet made the most of every day we had in beautiful Italy. Our original plans ended up changing only slightly as Rome was too hot and we left early for Tuscany, changing towns because our original hotel was not available early, and we squeezed another one-night stay into the itinerary in Viareggio, a town on the Mediterranean where I stayed for a month studying Italian the previous year. Not only did good planning make the trip less stressful for us, it also extended the enjoyment because we had a lot of fun in the planning process.
This is a brief listing of where we went and when. For a description of how we spent our days, read the trip journal.
Day 1 Sunday: Arrived in Zürich, spent the morning in the old town, then after lunch drove to Bellagio on Lake Como, finally arriving at our hotel around 10:00 PM.
Day 2 Monday: Morning in Bellagio, then drove to Lana in the Alps, and took the cable car up to our hotel in Vigiljoch.
Day 3 Tuesday: Day trip from Vigiljoch to Dolomites.
Day 4 Wednesday: Morning in the mountains, then drove to Venice.
Day 5-6 Thursday-Friday: Venice. The perfect honeymoon city.
Day 7 Saturday: Morning gondola ride, then drove to Rome.
Day 8-9 Sunday-Monday: Rome.
Day 10 Tuesday: Drove to Tuscany, then explored hill town of San Gimignano.
Day 11 Wednesday: Day trip to Siena, Volterra and Colle di Val d'Elsa.
Day 12 Thursday: Tuscany to Viareggio.
Day 13 Friday: Viareggio to Sestri Levante.
Day 14 Saturday: Sestri Levante to Zürich.
Day 15 Sunday: Zürich to San Francisco.
| Bellagio Hotel Florence*** | Charming old hotel on the lake with a nice jazz bar off the lobby. Would we stay here again? Definitely | Piazza Mazzini, 46 Bellagio 22021 (Como) Tel. +39 031.95.03.42 Fax +39 031.95.17.22 hotflore@tin.it |
| Lana/Vigiljoch Hotel Vigiljoch*** | This fantastic mountain inn accessible only by cable car has, alas, closed its doors as of November, 1999. This was our first visit of six. Would we stay here again? Definitely (if we could) |  |
| Venice Pensione Seguso | Somewhat run-down hotel on the back side of the island across the Accademia Bridge from the main island. Terrible breakfasts. Would we stay here again? No | |
| Rome Hotel La Sistina**** | Modern hotel at the top of the Spanish Steps. Soft beds but great bathroom. Would we stay here again? Maybe | 00187 Roma - Via Sistina, 136 Tel. +39 06 4744176 - 4826146 Fax +39 06 4818867 Sistina@leonardihotels.com |
| Colle di Val d'Elsa Villa Belvedere*** | Restaurant with rooms in an old villa in the Tuscan countryside. Would we stay here again? Yes | Via Senese, Localita Belvedere Colle di Val d'Elsa, Italy 53034 Phone: 0577-920966 |
| Viareggio Grand Hotel Excelsior**** | Large hotel overlooking the sea, with good beds and good bathroom. Would we stay here again? Maybe | Viale Carducci 88 Viareggio, Tuscany 55049 Italy |
| Sestri Levante Hotel Residence Miramare**** | Small, modern hotel on a secluded bay. Very nicely decorated and friendly staff. Would we stay here again? Yes | Via Capellini, 9 Sestri Levante (GE) Tel. (+39) 0185 48.08.55/6/7 Fax (+39) 018541055 info@miramaresestrilevante.com |
| Zürich Hotel Kringli | Small quaint hotel in old Zürich. Would we stay here again? Yes (if we had to stay in Zürich ) | |
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Last modified: 04/08/2004 05:08:37 PM
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