Italy tour - Rome, Florence, Venice - Experience and few tips

I recently went on a tour to Italy with my parents. We planned three main cities to visit – Rome, Florence and Venice.

Enormous amount of time was spent in Google search to collect details on the tourist attractions and accommodation and the proximity of the tourist sites from the location of stay.

The more the information in Google, the more the confusion in making decisions. After scratching our head for quite few days and after eliminating many possible options, we finally made a clear plan that was workable for us.

But in this post, I am not going to talk about tourist attractions, as there is already so much material available on virtual platform to guide you. All thanks to the technology. 

The purpose of this post is to share few of my observations and experience from this trip that might be helpful to the readers. 

Rome (2 nights)

Stay - Airbnb - B&B 128Roma - (Shared Apartment with common dining hall and kitchen)

The flat is in the first floor with three bedrooms, each bedroom occupied by a family.  Though the flat is shared we had no discomfort staying there. All were tourists and had their own outing plans. The host provided us with cookies, croissants for breakfast.

Sites visited –

Colosseum & Roman Forum

Vatican Museum, Sistine Chappel and St.Peter’s Basillica.

Trevi Fountain  

These are the most commonly visited tourist attractions I could find in web searches. We purchased tickets for Colosseum and Vatican City in advance through Online Booking.

Colosseum - We booked Skip the Line ticket without the tour guide. But there is a limitation here. Entry to the top of the Colosseum is open only for guided tours. Though we entered the amphitheatre, we missed the view of the monument from the top. If you would really like to climb (highlighted in the picture below) to the top you must choose guided tour.

Vatican City - We chose a guided tour (GetYourGuide) . If you are interested and inquisitive to learn the history of Romans and the architects, I recommend guided tour. If not, skip the line ticket would just be OK.

Caution: Not recommended for people with walking difficulties and knee pain. You do not have to think twice about this. The floors in the Vatican museum are elevated and will turn painful for them, trust me. My mother has a knee pain and she suffered a great deal walking in the museum.

Trevi Fountain

Trevi Fountain

This fountain is one of the most famous fountains of the world. The sculptures are also beautiful. It is recommended to visit the site at night when illuminated. There is a belief that when you throw a coin in the fountain with a wish, your wish will come true.

( I have so many wishes, coins fell short !!!! :)) 😃

Pinocchio Shop

My favourite stop in Rome. Pinocchio is a fictional children’s character. The shop is a wooden toy store with varieties of Pinocchio dolls. You can locate the shop just close to the Trevi fountain, amidst the roadside shops ( just around the corner of the road leading to Trevi fountain)

I was so impressed that I clicked few snaps of the stores. Below is a glimpse of the store and the products. You will be tempted to pull your wallet .... 

Pinocchio Toy Shop, Rome

We chose MyTaxi Cab service to commute to different places. This service was found cheaper than Uber. You can download the App - Mytaxi and book the taxi online. 

You can also choose to travel by public transport depending on proximity of the places and your comfort level. 

From Rome we left to Florence by train (GoEuro). The train tickets were booked three months in advance to avail best cheap fares. The train station is Roma Termini which is very close to our place of stay (700 metres).

Florence (2 nights)

Stay - Camping Firenze ( not the right choice). 

I had to book this hotel at the last minute, due to unforeseen reasons. But this hotel is not apt for tourists as the location is in the outskirts of the city and at a distance from tourist attractions. 

Sites Visited - 

      Florence city center by walk

      Leaning Tower of Pisa

      Leonardo Da Vinci Museum

My most favorite site was Leonardo Da Vinci Museum. Though it is a very small museum with very few visitors, this place is worth visiting if you have the keenness to learn about the works of the great "Renaissance Man". 
The entry ticket is €7/person.
All his inventions are displayed as models in the museum with descriptions.
His works on mathematics, science, human anatomy, paintings and sculptures will make us realize and feel amazed at his cognitive ability.
The models are made with wood and executed with details by the staff of the museum that is worth complimenting. Allocating one hour for the museum is worth the time.

Display inside Leonardo Da Vinci Museum

Transport - We chose public transport for most of our visits. It is very comfortable and frequent. Google GPS came in very handy for me, as it helped me track the bus routes. I could not have survived without GPS.
Tip: It is better to purchase the bus tickets at ticket counters in bus stations or at any small cafe near the bus stops. Tickets here are cheaper than purchasing them inside the bus from the driver.
In Florence one bus ticket can be used for 90 minutes, irrespective of number of buses we choose to change.

Miss - We missed the Chianti wine tour from Florence. I was curious to visit the place to experience the sights of the beautiful landscape and the wine yards. But due to lack of time we could not make it. There are different packages for Wine tour. 

Florence to Venice was also by train (GoEuro)

Venice ( 2 nights)

Venice is a beautiful city, well known for water based rides through canals, bridges, villages and small neighboring islands . I was just curious to explore this unique city, different from rest of the world. The experience was definitely great and memorable.

Stay - Booking.com - Sunrise Apartment, Venice.

We stayed in a very beautiful, spacious house in Venice with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. There is a kitchen with few vessels to prepare dishes. All the amenities are provided in the house including iron box. Very comfortable stay. The only limitation is the distance to the Venice main city (Piazzale Roma). From the house Venice city is half an hour by bus, but there is a direct bus to the bus station.

Sites visited -
     Murano & Burano village
     St. Mark's & Doge's palace
     Sant Elena & Ludo

The only transport to visit the villages and islands surrounding Venice is BOAT, that by itself sounds exciting.  Boats are nothing but water buses. These operate just like the buses, with route numbers and corresponding routes. We have to choose the boat as per our destination. There are different types of boats - Vaporettos (public transport), Gondolas, water taxis, and many more. There are also different tour packages for boat rides that can be explored on various links.

We can choose from different types of boat fares based on travel plan. Below is the link that provides fare details.

https://europeforvisitors.com/venice/articles/venice-vaporetto-and-bus-fare-tables.htm

We chose one day travel card - € 20 / person.

Gondola ride is very famous in Venice, but is expensive compared to Vaporettos, but more exciting and thrilling. So when you want to have fun, shelling few notes is acceptable. Life is about trade-offs. Decision is ours.

We chose Vaporettos to visit two of the most famous islands  - Murano & Burano.

Murano is famous for glass manufacturing. We visited Murano factory, where the glass making master gives a demo on making glass sculptures and glass blowing techniques. That was really breath taking.
Another specialty of Murano glass products are, the sculptures are not painted. The varying colours on the finished product is obtained by mixing colors with the glass powders in desired composition, in the initial stage itself. This makes Murano glass authentic and magical.

Glass Factory

Glass factory

We purchased few small Murano glass products as Souvenir. 

Burano is well known for lace manufacturing. This place hosts a lace museum. Unfortunately we could not visit the museum but kept foot on many lace shops and also bought lace stoles. Few lace products were very attractive. I also clicked pictures of few such eye-catching items.

Burano - Bright houses

Burano - lace products

Burano is also known for colourful houses. The houses here are painted in varied bright colours for the fishermen to identify their houses. The houses look similar, and hence probably they wanted to distinguish them by means of colour. What ever the reason be, the village looks bright and here is the picture to show you the look.




After visiting these villages we returned to our flat in the afternoon and took a short nap.

Late in the afternoon, I decided to visit Doge's palace and St.Marc. My parents stayed back in the hotel. I inquired about the boat number and the platform in the information desk and walked straight to the particular platform. There are display boards in all platforms that cannot miss your eyesight. After waiting for few minutes in the stop for the boat, I hopped into the boat and rushed to my favorite window seat, suitable for taking snaps of beautiful panoramic sights. Watching the boat rush through the water waves, feeling the chill breeze, catching the glimpse of small row houses and villages along the way was magical. I stepped out of the boat in my stop and walked towards Doge's Palace and St. Marc's. But unfortunately the entrance to the two sites were closed. On inquiring, I found out that the sites will be closed by 5:00 pm daily, and I was late by an hour.

Doge's Palace

But I liked the ambience of the island. I spent some quality time clicking snaps at various angles. After some half an hour I took a return boat back to Piazzale Roma. At Roma station I purchased bus ticket and boarded the bus and reached home. 

St. Marc

Doge's Palace

St. Marc

Sant' Elena

As in Florence, here as well the tickets can be purchased at bus stations or small cafes instead of in the bus. This helps us save on transport cost. Tickets in bus are twice the amount of the ticket purchased from bus stations or cafes. 

Next day, as our flight was only in the evening to Amsterdam, we decided to visit few other islands like Sant' Elena and Lido. Sant' Eleno is not a tourist attraction but a beautiful village with greeneries. There are hotels and residential apartments in the island.

(Few snaps clicked from the boat)

Rialto Bridge

 

After the visit to the islands, we boarded a return boat to Piazzale Roma and left to Venice Airport in a bus from the bus station. 

Venice Airport

The whole trip was experimental, wonderful and exhaustive with lots of learning and experience. 
I have gained innumerable insights on Italy and its historical significance. More than anything, I learnt the life style of people and transport structure of this country. 

I hope this post gives you a broad idea. As this was my first visit with an hectic schedule I could have missed few places and observations. If you have anything to add value to the post please do add in the comment section. 

Thank You!