European vacations

I visited Verona in the context of a trip where I saw a different small city every day for a week. I feel as though my visit could not have done it justice, and it was just enough to whet my appetite to return.

Verona is wonderful if you don’t want to go to the countryside, but you also aren’t up for a big urban center like Rome or Milan. There are enough sites, stores and restaurants to keep you entertained for a long weekend and maybe even a full week.

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.

We got into our rented Volvo just outside of Venice and set out for the next destination, Lake Como. But what was the best way to get there? Nothing to worry about–we had purchased a portable GPS device, the TomTom Go, for just this purpose. Having heard many horror stories about driving in Italy, we were prepared. The GPS came equipped with all the maps of Western Europe, but the only one we were going to use on this trip was that of Italy. We programmed in our destination, and off we went. Most of the trip was on the A4 Autostrada, a superhighway with vehicles driven at super speeds. I was usually going about 87 MPH in the slow lane. Most of the cars and trucks on the road had no trouble passing me as if I were standing still. What a rush as Porsches, Audis, Lamborghinis and the occasional Ferrari zoomed on by.

Venice is one of the most-visited destinations in the world. People complain about the tourist overcrowding, but it’s not going away anytime soon…Henry James complained about the tourist overcrowding, too. How can you make the most of this magical, complex, fascinating city?

I spent most of June in Italy. I hadn’t been there since 1973, so a lot had changed. We spent most of our time in Tuscany, with the last part of the trip on Lake Garda and in Venice and Bologna.

These are some of my observations. Please note that while I make some generalizations, they are based on my own observations; I am very aware that people in Italy differ one from the other as much as people anywhere. I’m also writing separate articles on the hotels we stayed in, our experiences driving, eating in restaurants, and the … ummm … public bathrooms we encountered - stay tuned.

While serving in the USAF I was stationed in Aviano, a small town about 50 miles north of Venice, for just over 2 years (Dec’91-Jan’94). The beaches were only 30 minutes away in the summer and the ski resorts as close as 20 minutes during the winter (see my opinion titled "Skiing Heaven" for more info on some great European ski resorts). Needless to say this is one of the best assignments one could hope to get serving in the armed forces. To make things even nicer I worked 24 on / 48 off. This left me with plenty of free time for day and weekend trips as far as the train, my feet, or my car (when it was running) could carry me.

Having lived in La Madela, a small town outside of Sardinia for two years of my life, my family has made quite a few friends in Italy. To this day, I have been pen pals with my friends that I knew from my days in Kindergarten and First Grade. Now that I am married, my wife and I have had the opportunity to go back to Italy, as my family generally does every few years to visit. The best part is that, due to the wealth of one of my old friends, rarely does the trip cost us all that much. When my wife and I went together to visit my friend Paoli, we were in Italy for about three weeks. This was about a year ago, just after I got out of the military, and before my wife got in. While on our trip, Paoli, thought it would be a great idea for my wife and I, as we had just gotten married, to take a private trip to Salina, on him. I had no idea, what Salina was at that time, but man, was I thankful to him for the trip.

Milan in general

Milan is a really wacky city. When you first get there, you are sort of overwhelmed with all the noise and traffic. But, once you`ve stayed for a few days, once you get to know your way around and get a little more comfortable with everything, you may find yourself being pulled into the wonderful turmoil of Milan.When my family and I got to Milan, we had just had a stop in Verona, so we were in for a total change of scenery, and total shock. There were cars everywhere, and to make it even more overwhelming, trams go by at every space in traffic. So, it was really, a big…WOW, to me, and even a bit scary, but after we had been there for a while, I got used to everything, and got a little attached to the place.