Our Itinerary

In 72 days we'll be on our way to Italy. After debating whether or not to just stay in 2-3 cities for a week at a time and do day trips, we opted for the backpacking tour of Italy (sans hostels) so we could experience smaller towns in the evening. Thus, our itinerary looks a lot more crowded than we initially intended, but it is certainly going to allow us to see more of Italy!

We are lucky to have a house sitter extraordinare and a black belt to boot, who will be a guardian to our kitties and make sure our spring plants don't die. And we have friends who have agreed to be the guardians of copies of important documents--just in case. We have purchased our backpacks from REI (wait for those great sales) and hope to actually practice trekking around Bend with them packed: while we intend to store them at pensiones as soon as we arrive in each town, there will be some trekking from the train station to the pensione that we'll have to do....).

We spent winter break investigating all of the travel websites out there (from Tripadvisor.com to Venere.com, and oh so many others) in an attempt to find small pensiones that cost less than $150 a night. Since they are small, I made reservations early: the places north of Siena have a fairly strict cancellation policy (at least 2 weeks notice) but those south of Siena are happy with 1 day notice of cancellation. So we have a mix of stability and flexibility embedded in this itinerary!

I get goosebumps just thinking of being in all of these places!

• Tues, April 29th: Leave Bend at 11am in the morning, arrive Amsterdam Wed morning
• Wed, April 30th: Arrive at 11am and fly from Amsterdam at 2:40 to Venice: arrive at 4:25: Stay at Pensione Guerrato (http://www.pensioneguerrato.it/services.asp )
• Thurs, May 1: Venice
• Friday, May 2: Venice
• Saturday, May 3: Venice
• Sunday, May 4: Venice
• Mon, May 5: to Florence: stay at Hotel Enza: http://www.hotelenza.it/eng/tariffe.asp
• Tuesday, May 6: Florence
• Wed, May 7: Florence
• Thurs, May 8: Florence: Piccolo Hotel Puccini : http://www.hotelpuccini.com/
• Fri, May 9: Lucca
• Sat., May 10: Lucca to CT stop in Pisa. In Cinque Terre stay in Manarola at Maria 3, an apartment available via http://www.acasa5terre.com/
• Sun, May 11: CT
• Mon, May 12: CT
• Tuesday, May 13: CT to Siena: Piccolo Hotel Etruria http://www.hoteletruria.com/home_eng.php
• Wed, May 14: Siena (day trip to San Gigmignano)
• Thurs, May 15: Siena
• Fri, May 16: Siena to Orvieto, La Magnolia B and B, 65 euro with bath and breakfast, http://www.bblamagnolia.it/inglese/index.htm
• Sat. May 17: Orvieto
• Sun, May 18: Orvieto/ train to Rome: Hotel Trastevere http://www.hoteltrastevere.net/ --
• Mon, May 19: Rome
• Tues, May 20: Rome
• Wed, May 21: Rome
• Thurs, May 22: Train to Sorrento: Hotel Desiree (www.desireehotelsorrento.com)
• Fri, May 23: Sorrento (visit Pompeii and Naples)
• Sat May 24: Sorrento (visit Amalfi Coast/Positano)
• Sun, May 25: Sorrento (visit Capri)
• Mon, May 26: Sorrento, train to Roma
• Tues, May 27: fly home: 6:15am flight out of Rome…arrive in Redmond at 2:30pm the same day!