Over the weekend, I decided it was time to nail down our hotel stays for our upcoming trip to Italy and Greece. We plan one night in Venice, two nights in Florence, two nights in Rome, a week on SeaDream I, and three nights in Athens. Though I had been looking at a lot of properties, I finally made my decision by going on Jetsetter.com and finding several hotels.
Our first night will be spent at the Hilton in Venice, which is a five star hotel. Ordinarily, I’d prefer a family owned hotel, but hotels in Venice are expensive and we had enough Hilton points to book a free night. So that’s what we’re going to do… It should suit our purposes fine.
The next hotel is Marignolle Relais & Charme, which is a small hotel about six miles outside of Florence. I looked for a hotel closer to town, but this one won me over because it’s in a quiet area and has beautiful countryside views. We will be using taxis a lot, no doubt. Hotels in Florence are expensive too, though…
In Rome, we will stay in Relais Orso, which was on sale on Jetsetter.com. We got a junior suite at a reasonable price and it’s close to The Vatican. Supposedly, the place is in a great location. Rome is a huge city, though… I almost wish we could stay on the outskirts and come in for the day.
May 11th, we will take either the train or a cab to Civitavechhia and get on SeaDream I, which will take us to Sicily, Capri, Positano, Amalfi, Delphi, Kefalonia, Corinth Canal, and Santorini. We end in Athens on the 18th, where we’ll unwind at the Hera Hotel until the 21st.
I managed to book all these hotels for just under $1800– about $220 a night. Not bad, considering we’ll be in tourist hot spots. It helps to get a free night.
I’m really looking forward to this trip. Hopefully, I’ll make some headway in chipping away at the debt!
It sounds fun. I've never been anywhere near that part of Europe. I've only been to Scotland and Ireland to visit relatives. My parents travel all over the world, but for the most part have done so sans kids. They say they're paying for our educations (except that we're both receiving full rides right now, so that argument doesn't exactly hold water) so that we can travel where we want once we've completed our educations and are gainfully employed.I love staying in hotels. I'll probably get bed bugs from one someday, but I stay in hotels at every opportunity. My room is set up to be as much like a hotel room as I canmake it except that it has hardwood flooring and a rug rather than wall-to-wall carpeting. Also, it has a baby grand piano in it. Once on TV I saw a hotel suite with a grand or baby grand (I can't remember which) piano in it.It was on one of those trashy Kardashian shows. Why in hell would anyone in the extended Kardashian/Jenner/every other miscellaneous surname that makes its way into and or out of that clan need a piano in their hotel room? Can even one person in the extended family play anything as complicated as \”Chopsticks?\” I read something on Surisburnbook.com that said that when Kourtney and Scott named their daughter, they just strung together the two fanciest words they could collectively think of, and thus came up with Penelope Scotland Disick as the kid's name. I seriously need to do a better job of pretending this family does not exist, because I suspect my IQ goes down by at least a point each time I think about them.
You must visit Europe, Alexis. It's amazing! I highly recommend the month on a train experiment, if you ever have the opportunity and the means.God only knows what Kim Kardashian and Kanye West will name their kid… God help that kid.