I traveled to Italy August 1998 using Archers www.archerstours.co.uk to navigate a tour across Italy and translate for us English speakers. Archers only book directly, they do not work through travel agents and they are cheap.
by Dick Adler
Tuscany is the tableful of middle-aged, middleclass Brit bikers at a little trattoria in Radda, chortling loudly over their designer pizzas. Umbria is the slightly weird restaurant on the road from Izzalini to Todi, where the neighbors gather to fuss over increasingly rare bambini and the Addams Family-style servers casually plop down plates of homemade ravioli stuffed with local truffles.
After living near to Perugia for 8 months, I consider myself an expert on the city and the region…and I love this city! Granted, I did not go to Italy as a tourist, so my experiences were a little bit different. I lived in Italy for 18 months and Perugia was my favorite city, for a few reasons. When I picture Italy, with the cobblestone, narrow streets, and elaborate piazzas, Perugia is what I think of. The entire area is rich with history and culture with Assisi and Bastia Umbria only a 20 minute drive away. There is a yearly chocolate festival in the early fall. This is quite the experience, complete with full-size sculptures made out of chocolate that they break apart at the end of the festival. People will stand there and fight for the chocolate as the sculpture is destroyed. Yes, the chocolate is that good. You can also visit the Perugina chocolate factory to see how the Perugina chocolate got its start. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Perugina chocolate, look for Baci chocolate in America. The brand is Perugina. Baci is probably their chocolate that is most widely circulated.
There is also a very large Jazz festival in the summer that attracts musicians from all over the world. It lasts for almost an entire week.
Properties
City
Assisi
Region
Umbria
Country
Italy
World Region
Europe
Details
Of Umbrian origins, this settlement became a Roman municipality under the name of Asisium. Bishop Rufinus evangelised to the inhabitants in 238 A.D. In 1316, Assisi enlargened its town walls, incorporating the convent and church of St. Francis, the Benedictine convent of S. Peter and the town quarter Borgo Aretino. The decline of the town began after the Black Death in 1348.
My wife and I celebrated our thirtieth anniversary with a trip to Italy. We stayed in Rome for a week before moving on to other parts of the country.
We decided not to do Italy through a tour but rather on our own. We used the internet including Epinions and Fodors and Frommers guides as our source if information in planning. Going to Rome on our Rome was an excellent decision!!
FLYING IN
We flew in Alitalia. It was fairly comfortable ride in coach. At the airport we found getting around easy. There were some signs in English and those in Italian certainly were easy enough to understand as to what they meant.
It has always been one of my dreams to visit Italy. Last summer, I decided I was just going to do it. I booked an Insight Vacations (www.insightvacations.com)Tour and loved it all. I went with a friend of mine. We both fell in love with Italy as soon as we arrived in Rome. We were there a day early before our tour started which was great. We were able to rest, and went on some short tours that we booked from our hotel. We tried to find a tour that we could go on that wouldn’t cover the same thing. For our mini-tour, we chose a tour that took us to the Roman Forum and the outside walls of St. Peter’s Basilica. Good thing we took that one because our Insight Tour just drove by the Roman Forum and we never went to the outside walls.
I promised you I would give you the details of my fourteen day jam-packed trip to Italy so here it is. This is a continuation of the Number 1 Way to Ruin Your Italian Vacation epinion that I wrote a couple of months ago. In that review, I detailed the problems I encountered with taking a tour with Trafalgar Tours. In that review, I wrote all the bad about my trip. I will focus on the good parts of that trip in this review. At least I will try to. Note that this review is very long. This review will start after the fourteen hours of flying time.
Just one and a half years ago my wife and I celebrated our thirtieth wedding anniversary by taking a trip to Italy. After spending a week in Rome we rented a car and spent a week in the Tuscany area. It was wonderful!!
WHAT’S DIFFERENT ?
The first place I compared it to, being from NY, was the rolling hills of the Hudson Vally. I have written reviews of this area because of its beauty and what it has to offer. One striking difference between Tuscany and the Hudson Valley was where the towns are. In NY most towns are built in the valleys or foot of the hills. That is where the rivers and streams are.
I took a EF Tour through my local high school, (I am a college student but I graduated from the high school and my sister goes to this high school and she went with me) for Spring Break. An EF tour is a great way for a kid and their parents to get to see Europe. It is fairly priced less than 2,000 for a 10 day tour that includes airfare, hotels, transportation from city to city, and breakfast and dinner. All you need is spending money.
"Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. Where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master; grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life."
