An unabashed tourist and her family explore the world one holiday at a time.
Florence is crowded, smelly and sweltering. It’s also jaw-droppingly gorgeous. We visited for two days and only scratched the surface of everything there is to see and do in this city that was once the Western world’s epicentre for art and culture. Here are a few of our highlights. Il Duomo di Firenze, or the Florence Cathedral, is free to...
We arrived so early at the Piazza dei Miracoli that the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa was still darkened by its own shadow. We sat down on the cold marble tiles of the Duomo and watched as the trickle of tourists turned into a steady flow. Luckily we had pre-booked our time slot, so at 8:15 exactly, Gareth and I...
After a very frustrating morning, we had a pleasant afternoon in the town of Monterosso while waiting for the boat. We had lunch in a crowded pub, wandered the streets looking for souvenirs and dipped our toes in the warm Mediterranean water. By the time the boat finally arrived, the morning’s worries were forgotten. ...
You may not have heard of the Cinque Terre before, but chances are you’ve seen photos of them. Five colourful little villages on the northeast coast of Italy, clinging to the cliff tops and mostly inaccessibly by car. The stuff jigsaw puzzles and fairy tales are made of. ...
We went to Tuscany for Florence, but it was Lucca we fell in love with. Lucca, with its tree-lined ramparts encircling the old city, with its attractive cathedral and sunny piazzas, and with the music of one of the great Italian composers wafting through its alleys. Lucca, with its gelatos! ...
Toom-ta-dum, toom-ta-dum, dum, dum, DUM! Gareth and I looked at each other. What was going on? We were sitting outside in the sun enjoying brunch at a little bar in the hilltop town of Orvieto in Umbria, Italy. It was a Sunday morning, and we had come early hoping that we might miss the masses who, like us, arrive in...
For our recent trip to Italy, Gareth and I decided to make use of the popular accommodation site, Airbnb, for the first time. We wanted to live like the locals and experience another side of Italy, one where we bought our groceries at the nearby market, made use of public transportation and generally pretended to be Italians. Well, we found...
One of my most vivid memories of Italy from our camper-car trip back in 1997 is of my father’s white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel as two painted lanes on the highway turned into five swarming lanes of Italian cars. There were no rules except “first come, first serve” and no regard for other road users. Almost all of the...
As always, the first question everyone asks after you’ve returned from a trip abroad is: “Did you enjoy it?” Of course I enjoyed our recent trip to Italy, but so many things went wrong this time that I sometimes hesitate before nodding. Here are a few things that happened to us that threatened to spoil parts of the holiday: We...
