Patti and I took an extended family 2-week vacation trip to Italy. The group on the trip consisted of Patti and me, our sons Alex & fiance Laura (from Brooklyn, NY), and Ben & his friend Jack (from San Francisco), Patti's brother, Arthur & partner, Wilma (New Haven, CT), Arthur's two sons Jon & his wife Megan & sons Jonathan & Jack (from Sutton, MA), and Eric & his wife Marina, & their 15-month-old daughter, Anya (from Queens, NY). Two huge events have happened in Italy since we were there: In 2019 Venice was horribly flooded In 2020 the coronavirus pandemic sickened and killed a lot of people We were lucky to see the country before these occurred. This trip was very well organized by CIU Travel (Concierge in Umbria on Facebook) and we didn't have to make any arrangements while traveling. We had guides and tours in most of these locations, and most traveling was done by vans with hired drivers. We had hotel reservations in every location we visited so basically all we had to do was show up. This trip was financed for all us by Patti's late brother, Ed, who died of Pancreatic Cancer in 2015. We honored Ed on this trip. We boarded our dog, Casey, in a kennel while were away. They posted photos of her playing on their website but even though we had Internet access in Italy we didn't know to look. She is part of our family so it would have been great to see her!

See the photos

Rome (map)

We spent our first 5 days in Rome (Roma) and the vicinity. We stayed in the Hotel Artemide on Via Nazionale (Google view), a good central location. The first day we had a walking tour that included stopping for gelato (we had a lot of gelato on this trip!) and at a cheese shop for lunch. Then we toured the Vatican, Forum, Colosseum as well as roamed around the city and saw many other sites like the Villa Borghese park. On the 4th day we went to Naples for pizza (where it originated) on the way to Pompei, which we toured and I learned that though the ancient Pompeii was destroyed by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD it wasn't until the 1700s that they discovered the ruins and learned it was a true story, not a folk tale as believed. I took few photos but the salvaged Pompeii ruins are incredible.

Florence (map)

We went to Florence (Firenze) for several days, where we stayed in the Antica Torre hotel (Google view) on the Arno River. We did several tours including the museum where we saw Michelangelo's The David Statue and where Michelangelo had lived (he split his time between Florence and Rome, and though the Pope and other's kept trying to make him a painter he insisted he was a sculptor). The David statue was located outside in the Piazza della Signoria for 300 years and moved indoors to the museum in 1873, and a copy was put in its place in the piazza (which we saw). We also saw the building that had been Leonardo da Vinci's studio where he painted the Mona Lisa. We took a side trip to a Tuscany vineyard for lunch (and wine).

Venice (map)

We went to Venice (Venezia) for the last 4 days, stopping along the way at Bologna for a planned, fabulous lunch. We stayed in the Ruzzini Palace hotel (Google view), which is on a canal and we got there by boat (there are no cars on the roads in Venice, which are narrow, winding paths). Patti and I got totally lost, asking directions and ending up in the same square 3 times, before we were helped ("rescued") by a couple from Iowa we met (Randy and Kinga, with whom I've stayed in touch on Facebook—Kinga is a college professor). We were lucky that we saw Venice when we did. 18 months later, due to sea-levels rising as a result of climate-warming it is totally flooded and we couldn't have had the wonderful visit we did. We were there on July 4th, a big holiday in the U.S. but in Italy it was like any other summer day. We went to the islands Murano (blown glass) and Burano (colorful houses). When we were there it was sunny and the streets were dry, but since then I have seem them get lots of flooding, and it flooded so bad in November, 2019, the mayor declared a state of emergency and blamed the flooding on climate change.