14 Days in Italy - Part II

 So you’ve packed and prepared… here’s what to expect once in Italy. Just a few tips to make the most of your time in this magical place!

Create a shared iPhone photo album between you & your travel mates 

I can say that this was so great, my husband took some awesome photos that I appreciated having without saying, “Can you send that to me?” And vice versa. Also that way, only one of us had to have our phone out the whole time LOL.

Speak to the staff. They’ll take care of you.

Italians are (for the most part) affectionate, friendly people who like connection. We loved that, because post-pandemic it seems like everyone forgot how to be kind and communicate like humans. I made sure to smile, look them in the eye, and try to learn a few words in Italian to show some effort and not look like a clueless American. Specifically, if you get to know your hotel staff and treat them with kindness, they’ll watch out for you and take good care of you. We even got to know our main waiter in Sorrento at the hotel (because we were there for 6 days), and he told us all about his lemon farm at home and invited us to come see it next time we were in Italy.

Ask staff for recs on food/gelato.

Every single time we asked the front desk or concierge for advice on great food or gelato, we were never disappointed. We will never EVER forget our last night in Florence thanks to our front desk guy telling us about a place we would have probably never considered otherwise. The food and experience was simply incredible.

Gelato

Speaking of food, gelato is Italy’s ice cream and we ate a LOT of it. Tips: don’t go for the gelato that’s brightly colored - if it is fluorescent or bright in color, it’s not authentic. For example, you’d think pistachio gelato would be green but in reality it’s a greenish-taupe color. Go for muted colored gelato. Another thing: if it’s mounded high, that means it has a lot of air in it and you will pay the same price for half the gelato amount. Don’t fall for the eye-catching mounds, go for those in metal containers that are flat across the top. Last tip: the cannoli and Nutella flavors were my favs.

Grazie

Say thanks. It goes a long way. And how to pronounce it is so important (I heard one tour guide correcting a traveler and saying how it means a lot to Italians when we say it correctly as it shows we are trying). It’s NOT graciAH nor is it gratz-EE. It IS: GRATZ-ee-eh. If you’re super duper thankful, you’ll say “Grazie a mille” (“thanks a million”).

Tipping

Half the time, your tip is included in your bill at the restaurants. Look for the word “servizio” - if it’s not there, it’s not been included. The travel blogs all say that tipping is not a huge thing there like it is in the USA, and that waiters don’t rely on tips like they do here. So small change or 5-10% is perfectly fine at restaurants. Also of note, you may notice a table charge added to your bill (“pane e coperto”) for the bread and olive oil - it’s rude to not accept the bread and olive oil in Italy so just go with it. Embrace the culture. We ate bread, olive oil, and balsamic with every single meal there. Tipping tour guides and porters for your bags did not seem very common among any travelers but from what we had read, it was the right thing to do. So we did tip tour guides (20 Euros for a full day, 10 for a half day) and porters (2-5 Euros), and they always seemed super grateful. 

Trattoria vs Osteria vs Ristorante

We learned that these are not all the same. If you want a full meal with several courses, go to a Ristorante. If you want a place that excels in their wines and happens to have a small menu of food (which was always good), go to an Osteria. If you want something that generally has authentic food, but isn’t super fancy, go to a Trattoria. 

Spotting a tourist trap vs authentic Italian food

Our tour guide on our food & wine tour gave us this tip and we lived by it the whole time (and it never let us down)… stay away from those places who have a huge sprawling menu (their food isn’t fresh because they have to keep such a large inventory of different items), who have pictures for every or most item, and who have menus outside with multiple different languages. Those are supposedly tourist traps! Most of the menus had English translation below the Italian food listings. 

Be prepared to eat a lot of bread, olio, pasta, & pizza

Bread/olive oil/balsamic is a staple with every meal. Embrace it and enjoy it. I am not an adventurous eater, and there’s a LOT of seafood in Italy… so I ate a ton of pasta and pizza and I wasn’t mad about it. Literally the best of both that I have ever had in my life.

Try all the food!

With food in mind, and knowing how picky I am, you can imagine that this was a little hard for me. However, “when in Rome”… right?! In Florence, you gotta try the Florentine steak - it’s an experience - I got the filet version and it was incredible. My husband got the real deal (it’s a T-bone brought out on a sizzling hot plate and cooked rare to medium rare) and he did a number on it! Venice is all about sardines in every way you can imagine, and surprisingly I did try those and they were really good! Sorrento is all about lemons - and again, I wasn’t mad about it! Haha! They even put lemon slices in my Coke Zero - weird, but okay! :)

Water

Obviously, it will be hot. Plan to bring a lightweight water bottle to fill up as able (Venice, Florence, & Rome all had public water fountains and it was good, cold water), or plan to buy bottled water often. Another note on water: they love sparkling water there… not our thing… but they will ask “Still or sparkling?” - if you’re not into sparkling water, “still water” is plain ol’ regular water. They’ll bring it to your table in a big glass bottle for you to refill yourselves.

Take away

They don’t use the term “to go” there. It’s called “take away”… so when you order a cappuccino or food to-go, you’ll say “take away.” Also, if you plan to do take-away and not sit… don’t sit. We got scolded LOL. 

Espresso Corretto / Grappa

There’s espresso and then there’s the espresso corretto. This is translated to mean “Corrected Espresso” - it’s “corrected” with a shot of alcohol, usually one local to Italy called grappa. It’s like drinking straight up motor oil. Unless that’s your thing - then order away! 

Paying for bathrooms

OK, enough about food and drinks (although that was the highlight of our trip, clearly)… let’s talk about something most people may or may not know… public bathrooms are not free. I knew this, but it shocked my husband. It’s usually anywhere from 50 cents to 3 Euros to use, and often they won’t accept anything but correct change (and are unapologetic about it, even if you’re doing the pee-pee dance). So with that in mind, keep your change! We often would just order something at a cafe (like a water or cappuccino or a little snack) and that would be our “in” to use their bathrooms. Also a word of advice: the bathrooms often don’t have AC.

Pick-pockets

We’ve all heard about this issue in high foot traffic areas like the train stations or pretty much anywhere in Rome, and our guys that would take us to and from the train stations reminded us about it every single time. We just wore our sling bags or book bags in front of us or on the side under our arms, and really had no worries other than being a little more diligent. I never felt unsafe. Never.

Guided Tours

You won’t be able to really appreciate the rich history unless you do some tours and/or experiences while you’re there. We did a food & wine tour, a couple of bus tours (one for Tuscany - highly recommend ___ - it was awesome), and a couple of audio tours. You can do self-guided audio tours and we did that for the Pantheon and it was a great way to do it at our own pace. We booked our guided tours through our travel agent, but she used (and we used) the Viator app. You can also use TripAdvisor or go straight to the source. 

Here’s a list of the specific tours we did (just copy & paste them into the Viator app):

• “Eat, drink and repeat: Wine and Food tasting tour in Venice”
• Highly recommend  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
• “Dolomites Mountains and Cortina Semi Private Day Trip from Venice”
• Highly recommend ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
• I think we’d like to be able to go into the mountains a little more & maybe do some hiking but that’s just us - this was somewhat a superficial look at them, more like photo ops at each stop but still an amazing experience
• Accademia Gallery Tour (Michaelango’s David in Florence)
• Recommend-ish ⭐️⭐️⭐️
• I think we could have done this one by self-guided audio tour instead but it did allow us to skip the long line, so that was nice
• “Small-Group Wine Tasting Experience in the Tuscan Countryside” - out of Florence
• Highly recommend ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
• Be prepared to 1) drink a lot of wine (like full glasses), so pace yourself… 2) spend some money because this will be the best wine you’ve ever had and you’ll be convinced to buy a bottle or case :D… 3) have a lot of fun
• “Cinque Terre and Pisa Tower Tour from Florence Semi Private”
• Highly recommend ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
• Word to the wise here from us by learning the hard way: when you leave the van after the 1st stop, take all your things because for the rest of the day you’ll be traveling by train & boat to your destinations. In all transparency, it was this particular tour guide’s first day and he failed to mention that to us, but they made up for it by retrieving our book bag and getting it to us at the next stop! 
• I do wish we would have had more time in Cinque Terre. Pisa Tower was just meh. 
• You’ll take a ferry at one point and I really could have used some Dramamine. Pre-medicate if you can! They did say it’s not usually that rough, but several people got sick on the ferry.
• “Small Group Tour: Colosseum & Roman Forum with Arena Floor Access”
• Highly recommend ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
• This was an amazing tour!!!! Our only regret is that they have a secret underground tunnel tour that we didn’t get to do, but this was one of the coolest things we did.
• “Early Morning Vatican, Sistine, St. Peter’s Semi or Private Tour”
• Highly recommend ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
• My only issue here was since it was a private tour (just the 2 of us with a guide), she didn’t wear a microphone and we didn’t have headsets/earphones, and it was crazy busy so it was really hard to hear her. She also had a very strong accent so it was hard to understand her. 
• This was a cool experience, but visiting the Vatican and trying to take it all in is like drinking water from a fire hose. I’d really recommend spending a full day at the Vatican to be able to take it all in.
• Last word of advice: don’t visit on a Wednesday. They close St. Peter’s Basilica on Wednesdays, so we didn’t get to see it sadly.
• “Day Trip to Capri and Blue Grotto From Naples & Sorrento”
• Highly recommend ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
• This was a bus trip, and is what broke us of bus tours LOL!!! We loved it, and honestly if they had not included a semi-private BOAT tour of Capri to see the coastline at the end, I would have not loved it as much. The boat tour at the end sincerely MADE this trip so wonderful, like a cherry on top. The bus itself was fine, but super hot and we felt a little rushed. But honestly you can’t really see it to its full capacity without the bus.
• Blue Grotto will close for high tides, high waves, and unacceptable/unsafe conditions. So PRAY for good conditions, because this one tiny sliver of this day will be a core memory for this trip. It’s that awe-inspiring and cool. 
• “From Sorrento: Amalfi Coast Small Group Boat Day Tour”
• Highly recommend ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (I’d give 10 stars if I could)
• Amalfi and Positano are incredible to see from the coastline, but wildly busy with people and super hot. In Positano, walk up to Hotel Poseidon and check out the view across from the hotel for spectacular photos and breathtaking vistas of the Positano coastline.
• You get to swim. In the Mediterranean Sea. Enough said.
• Word of advice: sit on the left side of the boat for the best views of the coastlines when leaving Sorrento and while on the way there, and on the right side on the way back. 

Bus tours

A specific moment about the bus tours…These are GREAT… until they’re not. LOL! In general it’s a fantastic way to get around these areas and experience the best of each area with a local and a smaller group (the buses are smaller). However, the buses are often warm (and in one case, it was stifling), and the days can be long and tiring. The drivers can be aggressive (not in a bad/scary way, just got a little nervous at times, haha). We ended up cancelling our last tour by bus and opted for one by boat - best. Decision. Ever. If you are planning on seeing any coastlines (like Capri, Amalfi, Positano, etc), do the boat tours instead. They will still drop you off in the towns at the marina to give you time to explore each area, but then you get to hop back on the boat and get those glorious breezes and gorgeous views. 

Use the hotel laundry service, or pack some travel detergent (?)

This might be over the top, but after the amount of sweat our clothes received each day, hand-washing them was just not going to get it for us. We did pack some travel-size laundry detergent but… nope. We packed about 5 outfits that we could interchange with tops/bottoms to get us through the trip and not have to pack too much. But that meant we had to get them laundered. For us, having the hotel handle it while we were out for the day was worth the extra expense. They do have laundromats, but who wants to waste 2 hours or more in a laundromat while vacationing in Italy?!

Timing of popular experiences 

Venice - do the nighttime gondola. It’s not hot, very pleasant, and really romantic. In Rome, all the popular tourist attractions will be busy unless you go very early in the mornings or very late at night for the Trevi Fountain, etc. Try to see the Trevi Fountain & Colosseum lit up at night if you can.

Be prepared for crowds… and heat.

We went in early June and the heat was like a furnace. If you go in with the mindset that you KNOW these places will be hot and crowded… that people don’t know how to walk any faster than a snail’s pace… that people do not know how to move over on the sidewalk when you’re coming up on each other head on… and just accept that you cannot change it, you’ll be mentally prepared for it and less irritated when it actually happens.

We hope you enjoy Italy as much as we did!!! We can’t wait to go back!