Italy April 2014

We're visiting Italy for a few weeks, together with three other couples.  We've been planning the trip for a year (!) and finally, we're actually here.  Some of us have visited Italy before, and some have never been here.  Our Italian language skills are minimal, to say the least!

Here's our itinerary:
Fly into Rome (on three different flights), arriving April 2
Three nights in the Termini neighborhood of Rome
Train out to Chiusi where we pick up 2 rental cars
Stay in a villa near Arezzo (central Tuscany) for a week
Drive to La Spezia and drop the cars off
Train to Monterosso in the Cinque Terre
Stay in Monterosso for two nights
Train to Milan, where we leave one of the couples.  They stay one night and fly home the next day
Train to Varenna (Lake Como)
Two nights in Varenna
One couple heads for Venice from there, stays two nights, and flies home
Two couples pick up a rental car
One night in Bergamo
Two nights in Verona
Three nights in Venice
Fly home from Venice

The trip evolved around our week in Tuscany.  That was the priority.  Early April may be a little too early for good weather there, but we're restricted by school vacation schedules for one of the couples. The weather is always a gamble, really, but summer is sure to be plenty hot, so we're happy to avoid that.  
As with other trips, we used Rick Steves' books, videos, and radio shows to get ideas.  Budget-wise,  we tried to use Frequent Flier Miles for our airline tickets, if possible.  That's why the trip planning started so long ago.  
We had our plane tickets, six hotels, the rental house, cars and a private tour guide in Rome booked ahead of time.  We have some great resources for day trips in Tuscany, so we'll play it by ear when we're there.

 At home, we watched movies filmed in Rome and Tuscany, just to whet our appetites.
"Tea with Mussolini" had some great shots of San Gimignano,  "Three Coins in the Fountain" showed the Trevi Fountain, "Roman Holiday" had lots of great shots of Rome,  "Under the Tuscan Sun" had some scenery from Tuscany, and some from Positano, on the Amalfi coast.  "Letters to Juliet" had some very nice scenes from the countryside in Tuscany.   
We're ready.

Stay tuned!

  The travel group - first day in Rome.

Money, money, money, money

Before we head overseas, we calculated how much cash we might need right at the beginning of the trip.  We need British pounds for the first 4 days, and Euros for the rest.

Several months ago we attended a travel lecture where the speaker suggested we follow the currency exchange rates on www.xe.com.  We know that the euro has been valued at between 1.21 and 1.34 dollars per 1 euro for the past 6 months.  The British pound has been valued at between 1.54 and 1.62 dollars per pound.  The idea was that we wait until the rates are as low as possible when we change some money.  Of course, you never know whether the rates will go up or down over the weeks, but luckily the exchange rates are near the low end right now.   I have to say, in all of our past travels I've never been very aware of the rates, so this has been an interesting exercise.

It's amazing to me that all of our little hotels require payment in cash.  They're all small family-run businesses, so that may be part of the reason.  All of the hotels say they require payment when we check in, but in reality they aren't too worried about having guests pay immediately.  After all, they do have all of your stuff in your room, so could hold your undies for ransom, if necessary.  Our apartment in Paris also requires payment in cash.  Our other three rentals accepted credit cards or payment by check (all  in advance).

Rick and I decided to use AAA to change some money, and though they don't offer this service in all states, they do offer it in Washington.  I would assume their rates would line up with the official exchange rate of the day, but discovered we were charged about 8% more for each euro and pound.  Tim and Linda worked with a commercial bank, and thought the charge was about 5% through the bank.  We know these rates are better than the money exchanges at the airports.

So we have some money to start the trip, but know we'll need more along the way.  Traveler's checks are cumbersome to use - waiting in line at the bank, signing away your firstborn child, etc.  Plus banks may not be open when you need money.  I remember a trip in 2000 to the British Isles, where my father-in-law would be waiting in line at the bank to cash his traveler's checks, while I was getting money at the ATM nextdoor in a fraction of the time.

ATMs are in every town and village in Europe now, and a quick and easy way to get cash.   Debit cards charge different fees for using them, but we've found these charges to be minimal, at least for credit unions.  Both credit unions we checked have a 1% charge for withdrawing cash overseas, and the machine you use may add a fee also. 

We'll also be using credit cards where possible.  They too have different fees, but supposedly use the current official conversion rate.  The British Airways credit card through Chase bank is advertising no fees on foreign transactions right now, but I think all of the other bank cards charge a fee.

Is all of this effort worth it?  For me, yes it is.  We could possible save a few hundred dollars overall, and I figure that pays for a few extras over the course of a trip.  It all adds up!

On another note, we're all packed! 

Luggage enjoying a few minutes on the deck.  As per usual, the largest bags go with the shortest person.

I know what you're thinking.  When do we get to the fun part of this blog?  the food?  the fancy stuff?  the foibles?  Soon, my friends, soon.

Until next time...

What do you want?

So back to the beginning, when a France trip was just an idea.  How did we plan the trip, decide on a route, make reservations?

We're lucky to have access to Rick Steves and his company in our local area.  We've used his books before and gone to presentations at his office in Edmonds, Washington, given by people who help write his guide books and guide his tours.  And even if he wasn't a local boy, we like his travel philosophy.  He visits the big cities but also seeks out small towns and stays in small hotels.  We feel like we get to experience the local culture better that way.  He doesn't speak any foreign language fluently, so he knows we can all have a good time wherever he's had a good time.  He espouses affordable travel.  He says the more you spend, the farther away you get from the local folks and culture. 

So we do some reading, watch some travel videos, go to some lectures, and get an idea of what we'd like to see.  Sometimes one little article in a paper or magazine will make me determined to visit a certain place.  This time we decided we wanted to travel in the fall, so we know we'll miss the lavender in bloom in Provence, but we're willing to miss it to avoid the heat of summer in a place that doesn't have much air-conditioning.  Our priorities were Paris, Normandy and Provence.  We decided to fly into London, take the train to Paris, and fly out of Nice at the end of the trip.  We met a few times to determine how we'd hook the regions together, and what we'd like to see in between.  (I've made this sound so businesslike, haven't I?  We actually mostly eat and drink a lot when we get together, but try to have French wine and food, if possible!)  We really like renting houses or apartments.  We like having a home base and being able to cook our own meals if we want to.  It's nice not to have to pack up every day or so and move to another place.  The issue is that we need to stay in one place for several days to do this, so the length of the trip dictates whether this is possible.

By now my head is spinning with ideas from all of the blogs, books, articles and travel shows I've seen.  There's never enough time to see it all!

As for accommodations, we reference Rick Steves' books, online agencies like VRBO, Home Away, Trip Advisor, and anything else we stumble upon while researching a particular area on the web.  We'll report back at the end to let you know about cost, value and location. 

Departure is 4 days away, and I know we have everything we need, but it isn't packed yet!  I find myself compelled to blog, probably as a diversionary tactic.  The pattern is familiar to me.

What a mess!  Like Lucy would say to Charlie Brown "ARGH!"  I hate this part!

I know one of my goals in France will be to use some of the French sentences I've learned recently.  Watch for "Je voudrais diner chez vous."  (I would like to have dinner at YOUR place.), "Malheureusement, je droit partir maintenant."  (Unfortunately, I must leave now.)  and  "Les chiens ne font pas des chats." (The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.)  The last one is a favorite, literally translated as "The dogs do not make some cats."  I can't wait.  
Until next time...

France 2012

We're off to France next week, for 6 weeks, and my plan is to blog about it.  I love following the blogs other people write.   Usually I keep a pretty extensive travel journal that I type up in a Publisher newsletter format when we get home.  So I'm thinking it might be easier to just type onto my computer at the end of the day and share as we go.

A little background is in order.

The travel group this time consists of me, my husband Rick, his sister Linda, and her husband Tim.  We spent a month together in Italy a few years ago, and had a great time, so decided to see France together.

This will be my 8th time to France, so obviously I love it!  Rick has been there with me once before.  This will be the first visit for Tim and Linda.

We started planning our trip over a year ago.  We start the trip with a few nights in London, just for the heck of it, and ride the Eurostar train through the Chunnel to Paris.  We'll be staying in an apartment in Paris, a house in Provence, and two different apartments in Nice and Villefranche-sur-mer.  In between Paris and Provence we'll stay in small hotels or B&Bs for a few nights in each of these areas:  Normandy, the Loire valley, the Dordogne, and Carcassonne.   We'll be renting a car for two weeks while we traverse the western side of the country.  Otherwise, in Paris, Nice and Villefranche we'll rely on trains, buses and the Metro.

I've been warned by another blogger (son Andrew, of the Build blog) to have some kind of interesting angle as I write so as not to be "same old, same old".  My journals are filled with entries about food and foibles.  Hey, I love reading about those things on everyone else's blogs.  But, if we haven't seen or done anything interesting, you can bet I'll be interviewing other travelers as we go along to get something to write about.  And I have learned how to say, "I speak French like an infant", so we'll see how that goes over with the locals!

So this entry is a test, just to make sure I know how to let you know there's something posted.  

Tim and Linda, Rick and Kathy in Italy in 2008