nparmelee

When we stopped at La Spezia it was a tender, we walked about 2 minutes to where the ferry was and took the ferry up to Monterosso and then hiked back to Vernazza and had a lovely lunch and then trained back through the other villages and to La Spezia and walked back to the tender. We loved it! Weather and sea conditions are factors for the ferry, it was quite a ride for our stops along the way to Monterooso, but great photos! You can make the Cinque Terre as long a day as you want it to be.

You mean Hollywood fudged something? :eek: No! :rolleyes:

We've been to Ravello twice as well and also love it. It is above Amalfi and not on the coast directly. There are some nice ceramic shops there.

We did the reverse, took the ferry to Monterosso and then hiked to Vernazza, had lunch, trained between the rest of the towns. I believe the pathetic from Monterosso to Vernazza is still closed after last falls rain damage, but the train back between the villages would still work. You would have time to stop in each village.

A lot of people don't realize that quite a bit of Alaska is categorized as rainforest and can get rain every day. Like anywhere, plan for layers.

For food - We walked over to the old fort after enjoying the old town and had a wonderful meal at Orhan restaurant. Great view of the little harbor there and watched an older man bring in his catch for the day and tie off for the night. Just overall a wonderful experience. A lot of the restaurants along the area looked nice but also more touristy. Orhan really was great and the owner even sat and had a glass of something with us at the end of our evening.

FCO is tough, there are days when people on a 10:00 am-ish flight say it takes them almost 2 hours to get checked in and that they were afraid they'd miss their flights because everything just took so long and other days where people with a similar flight time get through and 2 hours is more than plenty for them. Weekends would definitely be better for pushing your luck on the timing than weekdays because of road traffic, but if there is any traffic at all, and it is pretty common for Italian roads to have traffic for no apparent reason and at all hours, you might be cursing and stressed out before you even get to the airport. Then there are the potential delays in just getting off the ship. On the other hand, the gamble could pay off, the ship could dock early and clear the port authority quickly, you manage to be some of the first people off the ship, and traffic is light and everything works out. If you really must push those early gamble flight options, make sure you have back up plans either for later possible flights or for a possible overnight stay. That means also looking at possible later flights that at least get you a lot closer to home if you really must get back asap.

We rented an ATV our day there and had a great time! The only issue is that you have to have helmets so it is something to carry around when you stop at different places. I'd go for a scooter over bikes, the hills can be a challenge.

We did the Venice to Rome cruise on Oceania in May, we did hit a few out of Italy days, Dubrovnik, Kotor, Corfu and Monaco, but all the other days (and we had a port every day of our 12 night cruise) was in Italy. If you add some pre- and post- cruise time in different Italian cities then the other countries are a nice change. Is there some reason your Mom is set on an all Italy cruise? Good luck in your searching!

Venice does not have a lot of wood fired ovens, so the pizza there can be different than elsewhere. That was our one location that we didn't try any pizza I think. The best pizza we had was in Lucca. We enjoyed the pizza pretty much everywhere though and we went to Da Michele in Naples too. Occasionally you'll see a post from someone on the different travel boards that complains that the pizza in Italy was awful and nothing like what they get at home. Its true, the pizza is different, usually a very thin crust (unless you hit one of the by the pound places with a thick very bready crust) and less sauce and less cheese, we love it though. The toppings tend to be more local and more seasonal. Dining is one of the few things I don't plan for on our vacations, except making mental notes of where people have had really bad experiences. We tend to wander and look at menus as we go and look to see the plates that are brought out to other diners as we walk by to see if it looks appealing to us. For most cities we tend to avoid the restaurants in busy tourist areas and wander a few blocks away, it has served us well over the years.

We took a few mis-turns trying to find the hole in the wall, there are two, one place has cover over the tables the other was more exposed, I think they are owned by the same people though. I forget the name, but the sign doesn't really say the name, it just says Cold Drinks or something like that. If you walk the wall first, it helps you find the hole later, it gives you a better visual of where you need to go. If you look at the tour of the old town at this link, we got out to number 29 and then just walked along the base of the wall from there. Both places are on your left if you go this way.

The seafood in Dubrovnik is very good! We found ourselves at the Orhan last week and had the seafood platter for 2. We have found grilled squid/calamari at a few places as we go along, its one of our favorites, mostly found the calamari in Italy. If its cut up at all, it is usually only sliced part way for a visual appeal, and it will be the whole calamari, not just parts, we only saw one place that had rings and that was a place that had them fried.

We were just there last week, no problem using euros everywhere we went, taxi, ice cream, wine shops, fee for walking the wall and even the little bar out through the wall. One person we were with said that one ice cream place would not take euros so they just went to the next door that did. In general, divide by 5 for US prices and by 7 for euro prices.

Magellans sells a wine bag thing which is essentially bubble wrap in a zip lock. We usually take a small bottle of port with us, don't want to have to worry about finding a wind down adult beverage right away, so we save the bubble wrap and ziplocks from that for things coming home. I think we brought three bottles of olive oil home last trip and one bottle of Limoncello (we can get 3 or 4 brands here). No problems..... I usually carry extra ziplocks anyway for wet things or anything damp coming home.

On the Rick Steve's website there are the audio guides and now there are also video excerpts from some places from some of his shows, warning, they are big files:

http://podcasts.ricksteves.com/video_itunes.xml

Before going to that expense, and since the sat phone may only work from the top deck, they are a little more limited and need to be able to line up with the satellite, check to see if you can use your current cell phone or rent an international cell phone from your current carrier. Our cells could be used in Mexico, the Caribben and in Europe so far with no trouble.

KCSungirl, I have the following in my notes for getting to the Acropolis from the port in Piraeus. I got this from one of the other posters here:

The train from the port into Athens runs about every 3 minutes and once again is amazingly easy to take. When you get off the ship go left and just follow the sidewalk along the port. When you reach the “Plateia Karaiskaki” plaza there is a big fork in the road. At this point turn to the right (you’ll be walking away from the port). Now keep your eyes open and about 1 city block up on the right is the Metro station. Most big cities have the Metro marked with large letters or just a big red “M”, but unfortunately that is not the case here. So keep your eyes open or you could walk right past it. The walk is about 1.5 miles (30 minutes).

Take the Line 1 Metro. Go to the ticket counter and ask for a round trip ticket. You will get two tickets (one for each direction) at a cost of Euro 0.70 cents a piece. Stamp one of your tickets in the yellow time stamp machine before getting on the train. (Do not stamp the second ticket until you are ready to come back. Once stamped the ticket is only good for about 90 minutes.) When the Metro leaves Pireaus there will be 5 stops before it comes to the “Theseum” stop. Exit here for the Acropolis.

My understanding is that the Plaka is walking distance from the Acropolis. I think there's also a tram that goes by the Acropolis to the Plaka area. Reverse for the directions for going back to Piraeus.