If you have any spots that you enjoyed for lunch or dinner that we should look into, I would appreciate it. It is our first time to Italy, so we are open to anything. Also visiting Milan, Lake Como, and Parma.
Jim - thank you for posting. I knew I could count on the Forum to help with our upcoming trip to Venice.
Charlotte
There is so much to see and do in Venice. You will love it. Another favorite restaurant is Trattoria Do Forni (doforni.it) within a short walk from St. Mark's Square. Enjoy your time in Italy!Jim - thank you for posting. I knew I could count on the Forum to help with our upcoming trip to Venice.
Charlotte
A trip to Italy is never regretted and always exceeds expectations. I can't help much with regards to Venice since we only spent a few nights there and it was not our favorite from a food perspective, but we loved the trip we took to Murano to one of the glass factories. If you have extra time I'd check it out. We also took a private boat tour around Venice and thru the canals which was really cool and a great idea for early in your trip in particular as it kind of gives you the layout, some history and just incredible views of the Grand Canal and some smaller ones as well.Jim - thank you for posting. I knew I could count on the Forum to help with our upcoming trip to Venice.
Charlotte
Love Sicily & London!
. We also have lunch reservations for Al Giubagio, which our hotel recommended. The rest of the time, we are just going to see what we feel like and go from there. We do have tickets for Murano. That was absolutely on the to do list. We took in a glass blowing demonstration years ago in Colorado and I have been fascinated since. We also have tickets to all the major sites and museums, but we will just see what each day brings.
Good morning Jim. We have our dinner reservations for Antico Martini. Unfortunately, by the time we confirmed our dates we could not tickets to the theater. I guess we will just have to wander around a romantic city at night looking for trouble
We are staying in Valmadrera near Lecco. We wanted something off the beaten path. We did find a boat day trip around the lake that also drops us off for lunch and waits for us, which is just what we wanted. Would love to see Lake Como in the Summer. Next time
Since we are going at the end of September, we are hoping the crowds will be a bit more manageable. I have a feeling we will be seeing a lot of rain.
Enjoy your trip to Sicily and London.
Charlotte
We had the most beautiful weather - sunny and low 70's. So I can't complain. We visited Milan, Lake Como, Venice and Parma. Got everything done that we wanted. How anyone gets any work done is beyond me. They sit around and drink Spritzes and espressos all day. The trains definitely run on time. which made it easy to plan. We loved every location. Everyone have a great weekend.
Agree! A gem of a dining spot while in Venice.
Perfect description! Have you ever seen Katherine Hepburn's film, "Summertime." It's an absolute "must" for anyone who likes Ms. Hepburn &/or Venice!
Hello - we have returned from our adventure, what a great 10 days!!!! Every weather app and website we used gave us completely wrong information, so we did a terrible job packing
Jim thank you for the recommendation for dinner in Venice. We did enjoy our anniversary dinner at Antico Martini. I can vouch that the chocolate cake that Jim had, it was delicious! We also enjoyed a lovely waterfront lunch in Venice at Al Giubagio. Bill had one of his favorite dishes, linguini with muscles, at the restaurant. It was in the Cannaregio neighborhood. The Rialto fish market was a good way to start a Saturday with the locals while they shopped. We did get over to Murano, for a visit to see the glass blowing. We would recommend going over on the early ferry. We had the place to ourselves. It was lovely. When we headed back, it was packed. We did not make it over to Murano. We had tickets to the Doge.
We traveled Lake Como from Lecco, using the locals ferry. We recommend seeing the lake this way. Very relaxing and you do get to see everything. We found Bellagio to be a tourist trap and were glad we didn't actually stay there.
We specifically went to Parma so we could take a food tour to see how parmesan cheese and prosciutto are made. The tour did not disappoint!! At one point we were standing in a room with over 600 wheels of cheese! Thank you goodness you can bring back cheese to the US! I had to buy a little bag because I could not fit it in my carryon. The center of Parma is very pedestrian friendly, with only bike traffic to worry about.
Milan is busy, felt like a mini NYC. Even though the Olympics will be there in February, there was not much advertising about the games. I also didn't see much construction or preparation. Maybe it is just too soon.
Time to plan the next adventure
Charlotte
A lot of the major tourist stops now (maybe the last 2 or 3 years) during the day are just brutal - Bellagio, Venice, Florence, etc. At night much, much different. Bellagio clears out at night and it's just great. Not very crowded at all. Then during the day while everyone else is in Bellagio since you are there at night and in the morning you are elsewhere and away from the throngs of tourists but you have the convenience of the 3 towns ferries (Bellagio, Menaggio and Varenna) to get around. Just a great way to do it IMO. Similar to Venice for me because we were there in July. During the day it was horrible with the crowds. I borderline hated it and skipped most things because of how crowded they were, but walking around at night was much more enjoyable and relaxing with less people around. To each his own of course. It's like the Yogi Berra quote coming to fruition "nobody goes there any more, it's too crowded"
