PantheonYep, things are coming together for our fall trip to Italy! It’s been 3.5 years since we’ve been and I’m looking forward to it.

First off, we booked our airfare last week. I had wanted to fly out on November 5th so we’d have two free nights before being joined by my brother and sister in-law on Saturday, plus I wanted a longer vacation. But crazy airlines, flying out on Wednesday was producing fairs of $1300 while leaving on Thursday was producing fairs of $700.

Yes, I could have gotten cheaper routings on Thursday on airlines other than Continental (but it was Alitalia, and I’m done with them for now), or if I had flown through multiple destinations (one stop I could handle but given the choice between a 45 minute layover at CDG – impossible – and a six hour layover at CDG – well, it was going to eat up the time we got for our earlier departure. Oh, on the return the 12 hour layover at CDG could have been fun – can you say trip into Paris but I didn’t think we could foster the girls on to George that long). Anyway, last week there were rumors of fair drops (finally), so I popped on and sure enough, the flights I wanted on Continental had dropped from $1300 to $800 (still twice as much as I paid 5 years ago) but only $100 more than flying out the next day and worth it, so I snagged it.

Now, back when we thought we’d only have one free night, we had decided not to go into Rome but just find some nice agritourismo in Lazio in which to hunker down for the day. Now with two nights, Rome came back on the agenda again and I have to say I’m very excited.

Pretty quickly, I hopped onto Venere and booked our hotel, Cesari. Of course we first looked at the Del Senato and the Teatro Della Pace but the first was too expensive and the latter, had no availability. Chris still wanted to stay in the thick of things, and at €185 a night, that was more than I wanted to spend but acquiesced (after all I was getting my extra night for higher airfare, so who am I to quibble).

Anyway, that’s done, and we also know that we’re renting a house just outside the walls of Montalcino for a week. Again, originally we were going to try somewhere new but when my brother and sister in-law decided to join us, we opted to return to Montalcino. We found this house, Casa Vigneto through Italian Journeys, so we’re renting it Saturday to Saturday.

Casa Vigneto – Bottom Right Corner, Behind the Trees

Funny story about that house, on one of our morning strolls during our last trip to Italy, Chris and I spied it below the walls of the town. I took a picture of it and remember wondering what it would be like to live there. Now I’ll know.

 

Remaining things to take care of:

  • Rental car – we need to figure size and make sure everyone is in agreement as to luggage
  • Restaurants – yeah – with Chris, this gets planned, well at least we’re going to plan the Roman portion in order to obtain some Buon Ricordo Plates.
  • See if I can book the Unofficial Angels and Demons Tour from 3 Millennia. I’ve already e-mailed them and am waiting to hear.
  • Book Borghese Tickets. In 2002, I only got to spend about an hour there and Chris not at all (Becky and Sammi couldn’t hack it) and we’ve both wanted to return.
  • General daily planning

So stay tuned as the planning commences.