It’s set!! I have figured out the itinerary for my trip in May with my mom and I could not be more excited! Now if you know me well, I’m sure you know how organized I can be and how I love to plan events. Apparently, trips are no exception… haha our itinerary is quite the reflection of my organizationally-obsessed self (that’s the term I’m gonna go with). If you want to see the real thing I’d be happy to share it but here’s the outline of our trip:
May 6 – Mom arrives in Paris in the morning
May 7 – Venice (arrive by flight in a.m.)
May 8 – Venice
May 9 – Florence (arrive by train in a.m.)
May 10 – Rome (arrive by train in a.m.)
May 11 – Rome
May 12 – Athens (arrive by flight in a.m.)
May 13 – Santorini (arrive by ferry in p.m.)
May 14 – Santorini
May 15 – Santorini
May 16 – Naxos (arrived by ferry previous night)
May 17 – Paros (arrived by ferry previous night)
May 18 – Athens (arrived by ferry previous night), fly back to Paris
May 19 – Mom flies home
May 24 – I fly home
Sophomore year I Googled “when will Venice sink” because I just had to see it before it was gone.. Apparently we have plenty of time… (photo credit) |
I know we are fitting a lot in but we had so much more that we wanted to see. We had to cut Milan, Como and Pisa out of our trip in Italy, and decided we were more interested in spending majority of our time relaxing on the islands than in Athens while in Greece. We loved the idea of a cruise and island hopping is similar but allows us more time on the islands and less on a boat. My mom also had minimal interest in spending a lot of time in Paris which was fine by me since I live here.
As for the Eurail pass, flying from Paris to Venice, Rome to Athens, and Athens to Paris was $200 cheaper than buying two Eurail passes for Italy, Greece and France. We considered getting Eurail passes just for Italy since we were planning to take trains from Venice to Florence to Rome but the train prices I found online at trenitalia were cheaper than the cost of the pass. Plus we no longer have to worry about the trouble of making reservations with the Eurail pass.
Now all we have left to do is book our hotels and get regional train tickets once we arrive in Italy. We are looking at bed & breakfasts or family-run hotels (especially in Greece) so we can get a fun and hopefully authentic expereience. The Greek islands we chose to visit are all on the same ferry line which will cut down travel time and allow us to spend a day and night on 2 isles other than Santorini. These islands, Naxos and Paros, are less popular but still cater to tourism. We want to get lots of beach and outdoors time in. For our trip, we had to fly in and out of Athens before hitting the isles but we are taking advantage of this and spending a day in Athens. The time will be short but my mom has already been and I’m sure I’ll be back.
We chose Santorini because it is a volcano, has an amazing water-filled crater and red, white and black sand beaches. (photo credit) |
It’s our first time in Italy so we chose the major cities Venice, Florence and Rome. My mom really just had to see “Vienna” so I was trying to find a way to fit it in but the city was so out of the way. After about a week of arguing over how to fit Vienna in and why Venice wasn’t on the list I realized my mom was referring to Venice as Vienna! Nice, mom. In Florence I hope to find the Jersey Shore cast (I hear they are filming season 4 there!) and, of course, we had to do Rome. Italy is going to be food heaven for me!
How amazing is this photo of Florence? (photo credit)
We weren’t able to fit Croatia into the trip but I don’t think we could’ve enjoyed ourselves as much if we crammed in much more. Italy was my #1 pick and now I’m obsessing over Greece. I am so excited for this! My roommate Renata is also doing a trip with her mom the same 2 weeks and it just so happens they’ll be in Greece at the same time as us, so to celebrate we got olives and hummus. I could already eat my body weight in hummus but now I’m addicted to green olives as well. Never thought I’d like those.. but here’s to trying new things!!
If anyone has ideas for things to do or places to stay during our trip, please let me know!!
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