marazul

Many independent european hotels have affiliated with Best Western for the benefits of its website and reservations system. We have stayed at a number of them including in Carcassonne and Olympia. They still preserve their "independent" character rather than a "chain" look.

@Silent Penguin - you are now officially in charge of emergency management! (Please, run for office.) Thank you for posting a detailed description of the process for obtaining a replacement passport. Just an additional comment on the handbags. A "theft-proof" handbag with steel mesh panels and straps would have been of no use in this situation, or in most situations. Pickpockets specialize in opening zippers quickly and grabbing readily accessible valuables inside. There are two things that can slow them down. The first is to place valuables like passport and wallets in an inner zipper of the bag. A bag with many zippers and inside compartments is best. They will not have time to rummage through and open the various inside zippers after opening the main one. The second is to lock the outside zipper with a safety pin or small carabiner. That would deter the theft because it requires two hands to remove them and open the zipper. Of course, other security measures are great - under the shirt bag, spreading things around, etc.

Try Tours by Locals and also search this forum. We haven't used one recently.

This thread answers a similar question: In your case, Mt Etna is past Taormina, close to 1.5 hours from Messina. You would have to negotiate with at taxi in Messina to take you there and wait for you. You are not likely to find taxis waiting there for a ride. Like in the Taormina thread, you are much better off arranging for a private tour. It would end up costing you about the same as a taxi and you would know the price ahead of time.

It doesn't matter. If you do end up in Athens, try to stay overnight so you can visit the city. It would be a shame to be there and not go up to the Parthenon, visit the Parthenon museum, walk around Plaka and have dinner there. Stay in the center city so you can accomplish all of this easily on foot the day you arrive.

@llarsen I second @euro cruiser. Go to Caserta and spend more time in Naples. Go to the museum and have pizza. Always try something new unless you have no other options. This area has an abundance of riches. Have you been to Pompeii and Herculaneum? You could also look for a tour that combines Caserta and Pompeii which could be hard to do by public transportation.

We have driven there so I can't answer your first two questions. However, five hours is way too much. I would say 2-3 hours is ample. Go get some pizza in Naples.

@SquishTheWhale Would a golf car tour interest you? They can get in just about anywhere and it could be fun for your child. You would get to go around the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, etc and see a lot more than possible with a ho-ho. Contact the companies. They could pick you up at the train station. On a long day you could still go to the Borghese gardens after the tour.

Lorenky - Cruising is not the way to explore Santorini. Don't give up on a cruise to Greece because of Santorini. Santorini is the bottleneck created by megaships. All other ports are fine even if crowded. Your original plan of a week in Rome first and several days in Athens at the end is very good. You named Santorini as a priority. To avoid disappointment do consider my suggestion of flying there for two nights. If you do that and take a cruise that does not include Santorini, you would have another port you would not have visited in the original itinerary. On the other hand 10 days on a land tour of Greece including some island hopping is great. Although we do take cruises in Greece, we also do a lot of land and island travel on our own. If you choose this option you can also go to places like Delphi, Meteora and the Pelopponesus. Do consider flying to some of the islands because some ferry trips are very long. We have sometimes made arrangements for local travel with Fantasy Travel, an excellent local company. They offer hotels at all price categories, transport arrangements within Greece, etc. Look at their offerings and email them for suggestions and prices. www.fantasytravelofgreece.com You can also do short cruises with them using Greek cruise companies that dock in Santorini - no donkeys!

That is a tough job! Good luck.

That explains it. 😁 No es mi idioma tampoco, pero tengo mas práctica. You might be interested in the restaurant ratings article I just posted in the thread "Italy: all things food and wine-related." Happy sailing!

Of course. 😁 No, there is no magic button. However, in this case it is easy to understand the listings. Just scroll down the page to find the names of the restaurants. For example, here is the listing for Toscana. It just names the restaurants and the cities. Da Burde is the only Tre Gamberi award in Firenze (Florence); Futura Osteria is located in Monteriggioni: Toscana Da Burde - Firenze Futura Osteria - Monteriggioni (SI) [SI is a district within Toscana]

Gambero Rosso's best trattorias and restaurants in Italy for 2024 The Gambero Rosso magazine is the Michelin Guide or Bon Appetit of Italy. Every year it rates and issues awards to all sorts of eating establishments from fine dining to wine bars. The awards are ranked from one to three, with three being the best. For 2024 it awarded "Tre Gamberi" (Three shrimp) to 36 trattorias and "Tre Forchette" (Three forks) to 47 fine dining restaurants. The Tre Gamberi winners for Rome are: L'Arcangelo Vino e Cucina Armando al Pantheon Da Cesare Grappolo d'Oro Here is a link to the full article for the Tre Gamberi trattorias: https://www.gamberorosso.it/notizie/notizie-ristoranti/le-36-migliori-trattorie-ditalia-per-il-gambero-rosso-tutti-i-tre-gamberi/ Here is a link to the full article for the Tre Forchette fine dining restaurants: https://www.gamberorosso.it/notizie/notizie-ristoranti/i-47-migliori-ristoranti-ditalia-2024-con-le-tre-forchette-gambero-rosso/ In each article, the restaurants and trattorie are grouped by Nord (North), Centro (Center) and Sud (South) Italy, and listed by region within each section. Rome is in Lazio, Florence is in Toscana, both in Center Italy. For more categories, you would need to buy their guide book and/or subscribe to the website or magazine.

@alserrod En el caso de las tarjetas bancarias y los cambios de moneda, "comisión" se traduce como "fee" y no como "commission" ya que es una tasa impuesta por el banco al consumidor. "Fee" tiene el sentido de tasa o tarifa, mientras que "commission" significa más el porcentaje que el vendedor o viajante recibe como compensación. Disculpe escribírselo aquí. pero no hay manera de comunicarse directamente. Gracias por su contribución a estos foros. Necesitamos la experiencia de los "locales."

Check out this thread: It depends on the number of people on each ship. Add up the number of people in those ships. The cable car can carry 600 people per hour. The year round population of this small island is 15000. You figure it out. Yes, it will be between extremely crowded and too much.

My favorite.

@Lorenky - Just a few comments: Depending on which cabin level you book, WIndstar could be competitive with the cruises you are considering Celestyal is a Greek cruise line and as such it is allowed to dock at the Santorini ferry port. That avoids the donkeys and the cable car. Staying overnight is a big plus. Just consider that it could be a bit "basic" compared to the amenities of the three cruise lines you are considering. The flight (30-40 minutes) to Santorini in September would cost you 87 euros R/T. There are about 10 flights per day. You can easily fly out a couple of hours after your flight from Italy arrives. Just change gates. If you also fly Aegean Air from Italy, the gates will be in the same section of the terminal. https://e-ticket.aegeanair.com/A3Responsive/dyn/air/booking/;jsessionid=NOPSr8rt0gePvH7FoPidRXkfz52LYS9M8mBXSFU5!1704415698952#!/flight A one-way flight (2 hours) from Rome to Athens in September is 60 euros: https://e-ticket.aegeanair.com/A3Responsive/dyn/air/booking/;jsessionid=HEun468p8J4FhoQ8HRKD16n7lvGa17wRGchtsl0K!1704416041857#!/flight Aegean also flies to Barcelona. Depending on the day of the week, the one-way fares start at 120 euros. Aegean is a very good airline. We fly it often. Anyhow, think about it.

Yes, you are booking with the hotel. Small independent hotels cannot afford their own IT departments like Marriott or Hilton. They contract with one of several reservation platform providers to process their reservations. If you do dummy reservations in a few hotels, you will see that the reservation process is identical as provided by their common platform vendor.

@Lorenky If you want to see Santorini, don't take a cruise that stops in Santorini. You have plenty of time before or after the cruise to visit the island independently. It is a 30 minute flight from Athens. Plan to stay 2 or 3 nights. There are many lovely hotels at all price points. That is the only way of avoiding the crowds, donkeys and cable car nightmare in Santorini. You could fly from Rome to Athens and change to a flight to Santorini. Fly back to Athens for your cruise. Enjoy more Athens at the end. Take advantage of your extra time to do it right. Check out all these flights in aegeanair.com. You could also look at line with smaller ships, like Seabourn, Windstar, Silversea, etc. They port a lot closer to Venice than the bigger ships. They also have more interesting Greek islands itineraries. Just skip Santorini on the cruise.

The jousting festival takes place in August for the feast of Saint Louis. It lasts about a week. There are other occasions in the summer, usually for Bastille Day. It is a lot of fun. There is also jousting in other places, but the main site is Sete. Look for the Sete tourist board website to find more about it. They should also have the joutes (jousts) calendar.

@CCJack You can make it, but it is tight. It is a weekday and there is a lot of traffic in the morning. You should be at the airport by 8:30 if you leave at 7:45, but you must prebook transport otherwise you might be cutting it too close. George's Taxi is an excellent transfer company. taxigreece.com

@smurphette Carcassonne is a little bit closer to Port Vendres than to Sete. They are both lovely seaports. However, IMO there is a lot more to see and do in and around Sete. Take a look at other sightseeing opportunities out of each town and see if anything appeals to you more in one of the two.

For wine, order a carafe of house wine. Frequently the choice is just white or red. 😁 The wine will always be a decent or even very good wine. Local fare.

You decide. Here is the average water temps for September: https://www.seatemperature.org/europe/greece/mykonos-september.htm

Try the "multi-city" or open jaw first. It's a RT to and from different cities or countries. Have you used kayak.com or google Flights? https://www.google.com/travel/flights?tfs=CBwQARoVEgoyMDI0LTAxLTE3agcIARIDTVNQGhUSCjIwMjQtMDEtMjFyBwgBEgNNU1BAAUgBcAGCAQsI____________AZgBAw&tfu=KgA