Planning a trip to Italy

Well. Its decided. We talked and talked and talked about wanting to go- so we're making it happen! Michael and I are planning a trip to Italy for 2014! We bought a Frommer's guide for the whole country to get some general knowledge. Now that we have planned out the places we want to go, we will invest in some books for those specific places to get some more information on each place. We will touch down in Rome, and spend a couple of night there. We will take some day trips down to Naples and Pomeii, then up to Tuscany to spend some time in Florence. We will make a short stop in Bologna on our way north to Venice. The next couple of days will be spent in Venice, with a day trip through Padua and Verona. We will either drive back down to Rome for the flight home or find something to fly out from Venice. A good deal of the trip are on train lines, so for the day trips we may be able to rent a couple bikes and head down on the trains. We're really aiming to only have 2 hotels- possible 3. Primarily in Rome and Venice since those trips are for a couple of days.

There is so much planning involved! Michael is going to work on getting his passport soon, and I will be checking in to mine to see the expiration date. I am starting to look in to air fare to get a feel for how much we'll need to set aside. I found a website, Yapata, that when the date gets closer to booking the flight I will upload our parameters and it does the search for me. When it finds an all time low deal it will email me. Then what's amazing is after you buy, it continues to search. If something comes in lower before your trip they give you refund for the difference.

We figure around $4000 per person for air fare, hotels, and a car. We intend to save that first bit over the next year. Our goal from 2013 until the trip is to save for any food money, souvenir cash, bus/train tickets, bike rentals, etc. I am hoping that in the mean time I can find a way to save up for my upgraded camera as well. We already have a video camera, so that is set.

We hope to be able to utilize my parent's time share for at least one of the hotels. The books we are getting also have a lot of suggestions for traveling such as hostels, bed and breakfasts, and sponsored visits (where you pay a family for a room in their home and they cook you your meals.)

We have Rosetta Stone Italian that we are making a schedule for (probably twice a week, half hour a day to start. It gives a lot of information in that amount of time.) We also have flash cards to cut out and use, practice books with games and matching/filling in the blanks to test our knowledge and spelling, and we have stickers up all over the house. They have pronunciation written on them with the actual word, and I went through and put the english translation on each sticker. La lampada, for example, I learned is "light" or "lamp" and it is on a light switch I use daily. My ultimate goal before I go is to be able to go to Powell's books, buy the Italian translation of Harry Potter, and read through it well enough to grasp what I am reading. Since I know the book well in English I will be able to tell what I am struggling with to translate.

The exchange rate this year isn't as bad as I suspected it would be. It's $1.30 to every 1 Euro. Hopefully in the next couple of years our economy will take a miraculous upswing and improve the rates. (Hey- a girl can dream!)

I already know that in packing for the trip I will need to pack my clothes in a small suitcase, pack that suitcase in a big suitcase, and pay for an extra bag home. It will be full of souvenirs. I am so positive of that.

I haven't been more excited about anything in a long time! I really believe that this is do-able in 2 years and I can hardly contain myself!