Traveling to Italy

Decided to tour Italy a bit? Florence and its magnificent buildings and gardens are a must. First of all you need a hotel room. Book in advance if you intend to go during summer or high season in general. The city centre is quite concentrated so you can walk everywhere. You may choose among bigger hotels that look like museums themselves and are obviously more expensive, or you can try and reserve a room in a historic building with traditional wooden furniture or alternatively enjoy your holiday by lodging in more modest structures or family run B&Bs that will offer you better rates and yet an impeccable service.

If you have done all the above mentioned steps you must now be in Florence! Good. Michelangelo, Dante, The Uffizi, The Duomo etc are one of the main reasons, if not the only one, you are here but…..there is another reason just as important. You are a traveller who wants to know and feel the life style and the tradition of the city? Therefore Mc Donald’s is not for you. Here is a list of what you can’t miss: Pappa al Pomodoro, cooked with bread, tomatoes, olive oil, basilico. Perfect in every time of the year. The famous Fiorentina steak is made with Chianina meat. Chianina is an ancient traditional breed of beef raised in Valdichiana, an area in Tuscany. It’s said that even the Romans would offer only white big beefs to the Gods as sacrifice. The same beefs that are apparently the ancestors of the Valdichiana beefs. In order to really appreciate this dish, you should be a rare meat lover. In fact, being the T-bone steak quite high (3 cm approximately), it must well done on the outside and rigorously rare in the inside. Fiorentina tripe is another unmissable dish, tripe with parmesan cheese and tomato sauce. Pappardelle alla lepre; pappardelle is a kind of pasta dressed with hare sauce traditionally cooked in the hare blood. Delicious! The Ribollita is the left over of a bean soup warmed up adding lots of scents. Fagioli all’uccelletto, an interesting combination between beans (fagioli) dressed with sausage sauce. All this delicious food accompanied by just as delicious Tuscan wine. I bet I gave you one more reason to visit this splendid city!

Florence is conveniently reachable by plane from abroad and by train from any Italian major city. The airport is located further out so you will have to take a taxi or a bus into the city. If you are travelling by train instead, you will notice that as you get off your train, you are already in the city centre. There is a vast choice of hotels and guest houses central and affordable. You tour of Italy is definitely not complete if you haven’t been to Florence.

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"Old Europe" is different than the US. Each tiny village, in every country, can have a profound history vastly different than its neighboring village. For example, in Italy (which only became a country 130 years ago), there may not even be a common language between villages among the old-timers, so you know that there wasn't much else shared. Each place is unique.

I think people travel to understand better understand their own cultural experience by seeing the parallel lives being lived elsewhere,

You can get that understanding even by "triangulating" between cities in a region or country. You won't need to endure the rigors and frustrations of long bus travel to do it. You don't need to work so hard!

And you will make your travel money go further in smaller towns. So if you hit a snafu enroute, relax and enjoy whereever it is that you end up.

"We're not here for a long time; we're here for a good time."

Lisa
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Well i go often to Rome. I am from Cremona, a little city in northern Italy, but I'm in love with Rome! To visit Rome you would need 1 year 😊). Anyway at least 7 days. I usually go to a little pretty guest house/Bed & breakfast close to Termini station the name is "A casa di Mei", I think you can google it. Reply to this

regarding the apartments in rome i've tried www.theapartment.it, the apartment is called palazzi dei mori, is in trastevere! nice location but a little bit noisy. Reply to this

Hello Margaret 😊

I moved this to the Other Links forum, because it will attract SPAM if it remains in the Europe forum. Sorry to inconvenience you like this.

Mel Reply to this