Italy Itinerary and Travel Tips

We settled on a loose itinerary for our trip relatively quickly: three nights in Rome, three nights in the Naples area (including Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast), and four nights in Florence. But before we could have fun in Italy, we had to take care of a thousand details, from passports to child care (praise the Lord for awesome grandparents!) to train tickets to comfy shoes. We booked everything ourselves, which means I spent countless hours reading reviews, shopping online, perusing guidebooks and studying maps. Today I’m settling into my “31 Days of Italy” series by sharing some resources and advice I found helpful—some specific to Italy, some applicable to all travelers.

Language Learning
I’ve been a language geek as long as I can remember, so I definitely wanted to try and pick up a little Italian before we left. The Duolingo app was a fun way to learn some basics. I only wish I’d started six months sooner! Even though I wasn’t anywhere near even proficient enough for basic conversation, I had learned enough to get a sense of how the language worked and be able to guess at the gist of signs or written instructions. Italian is way easier to learn to speak than other languages, because the pronunciation follows rigid rules. And because Italian isn’t spoken anywhere but in Italy, the Italians recognize that foreigners don’t really have a reason to learn it (unlike more widely spoken Spanish or French, for example). So they tend to be gracious with people who attempt to speak it when visiting.

I would have loved to be fluent, but I had to rely on Google Translate a lot, be willing to look/sound stupid, and give thanks that most Italians speak English far better than I speak Italian. Still, it was fun to try, and one of my favorite things was when people would say “Brava!’ when I understood a word or managed to produce an appropriate phrase. (You definitely need the Google Translate app, by the way--it is crazy amazing and helpful!)

Keeping in Touch Back Home
With little kids back home, being able to communicate internationally was critical for us. My understanding is that AT&T will provide cellular service internationally, but we use Ting (and, incidentally, we spoke with AT&T users in Italy who said their service was awful). So we contacted Ting to unlock our phones for international use, and then we bought SIM cards from Lycamobile once we arrived in Italy. We had a bit of trouble finding a place that sold them (the train station was supposed to have them, but we couldn’t locate any vendors), and getting service switched over took up more time than we anticipated, but in the end it was well worth the hassle. For roughly €40, we had 2GB of data and the ability to make calls from one of the phones. This gave us new Italian phone numbers, so calling the U.S. would have been expensive (and it would have been expensive for our families to call us), but with free wifi at all the places we stayed, it was easy to use FaceTime or Skype to talk with the boys.

For frequent communication with my mom, I used WhatsApp, which enabled us to send messages and photos back and forth, but using data/wifi instead of texting. This was a great way to keep in touch. I’m so thankful to be traveling in the age of technology that makes being away from your kids so much more manageable!

Portable Battery
No way could my iPhone battery stand up to the heavy usage of photos, maps, texting back home, looking up restaurant reviews, and listening to audioguides for an entire day. Buying a portable battery for recharging while we were out was essential. This one worked really well.

Airfare and Train Tickets
A few months before we bought our plane tickets, I ran across this article with tips on getting the best fares. Following some of these (searching incognito; using Google Flights and Skyscanner rather than Expedia) enabled us to find cheaper tickets than our travel agent could come up with.

Between cities, we traveled via high-speed train. This was a comfortable and convenient (and quick!) way to travel and worked out really well. We bought our tickets ahead of time and spent only $128 total on tickets from Rome to Naples and from Naples to Florence.

City Passes
Each of the cities we visited—Rome, Naples, and Florence—has a city pass, where you buy one card and get free or reduced admission to most major sights plus free access to public transportation.

The Firenze Card is the best, but also the most expensive: €72 gets you admission to every major museum and attraction for 72 hours, and you will thank yourself every time you bypass the long line and walk through a priority entrance for cardholders. The most popular museums require specific time reservations, but not if you have the Firenze Card, so it was really nice not to have to decide ahead of time when we wanted to visit the Uffizi or the Accademia (we ended up changing our planned times to visit both). It’s also supposed to get you free wifi citywide, but that was pretty spotty. One thing to note: if you plan a day trip out of Florence, you’ll want to make sure that doesn’t fall into the middle of your 72 hours. We booked our Chianti tour on Monday because many of the museums are closed on Mondays, but then our cards expired in the early afternoon on our last day, and we would easily have had time to use them for one or two more sights.

The Roma Pass and the Campania (Naples/Pompeii area) Artecard are cheaper, but the benefits aren’t as great. They say that the first two sights are free and the rest are 50% off, but in reality, some of the major sites (Pompeii, for example) still charge you a reduced rate even if it’s one of your first two. So it was more like “reduced admission and skip the line” for the sights, plus the convenience using the card for mass transit. I don’t honestly know if these two cards really saved us much money, but they definitely saved us hassle and waiting in lines.

Travel Planning Websites 
Reid's Italy provided a great starting point for coming up with an itinerary. He has helpful posts that lay out exactly what he would do (down to the restaurants) with two and a half days in Rome, or three days in Florence, or whatever. He also has tons of other recommendations I used and learned a lot from.

Viator has every kind of tour you can imagine—private, small group, within-the-city, day-trip-out-of-the-city. (If I were going on a cruise, I would book my excursions through them, as I have heard that cruise lines lose money on your room and make it back through exorbitant markup on the excursions, among other things.) We booked our Taste of Chianti wine and food tasting tour through Viator and can’t say enough about how great it was.

Napoli Unplugged was helpful for our time in the south, especially in looking up transportation information.

Italylogue was also a wealth of information on all kinds of topics.

Trip Advisor proved very informative both in its reviews and in the forums where fellow travelers give advice to common questions. It was through this site that I found out about the tour guide who led our Amalfi Coast hike, and we loved her.

Pack Light
We didn't go quite as radical as Rick Steves requires, but still, I was proud of how light we traveled. I have never packed so little, and we really could have packed less. This is all the luggage we took for two people for ten days in Italy: large suitcase, small carry-on, backpack for a computer, and my purse/camera bag.

Washing out clothes in the sink was a pain, but not as much of a pain as lugging a suitcase up to a fourth-floor walkup (our B&B in Florence), or dragging it for a kilometer on cobblestones, or pushing another carryon through a crowded train station and onto the metro at rush hour. Even with getting sweaty every day and not being able to wear clothes twice like I anticipated (it was around 90*F every day in Rome and Naples), I still didn’t really need quite as many clothes as I took. I would definitely recommend following this tip, though, which I didn’t and regretted: buy a Chinese jumprope and use it as a clothesline. We had a little trouble finding space to hang wet clothes.

Logistics aside, now the fun starts. Tomorrow: Rome, starting with "I've discovered Airbnb and I'm never going back"!  

My Book: A Visual Journal of Everyday Moments

This is "my book." Or as beloved Ann writes:

"This is the story of a Type-A personality finding serenity in playing about with glossy pictures and glue and paper. Child’s play. Yes, true: it’s a pretty simple story."

I am so, so glad she told that story so that I could begin my own!

It was nearly three years ago I started doing this, found a big stash of lovely magazines in the twenty-five-cent bin at the library, bought a big black sketchbook and started chronicling. Last week I opened volume six. The row of filled coilbound books lined up on my shelf makes me smile. And the current volume has a permanent home lying open on the end of my kitchen counter. I put off the project for a while after I first heard of it, but once I got over my intimidation and jumped in, I couldn't stop.

Ann explains the value in a personal visual journal:

 ~it’s a place to play, and yet practical: it’s a place to record the workings of your household
 ~a place to make beautiful, so when everything else is unraveling (or is that only at our house?) there’s a pretty place on the counter to write down the date and all the lovely little snippets of the day...
 ~a keepsake day journal for children and grandchildren, a container of simple memories, the best kind
 ~an aesthetically pleasing place made with your own two hands that invites you to write down when the dentist appointment is today, which phone calls to make, and it makes you smile evey time you look at the page
~ the ordinary tasks of our lives find themselves chronicled for what they truly are: important ceremonies… daily celebrations.

Yes. So here we go: I start with a blank book like this (only it's one of the few things I *don't* buy online; with a 40% off coupon for JoAnn, I never pay full price). Sometimes I decorate the cover with a printed article or quote, some patterned paper and a jar of Mod Podge--

 

--sometimes not. Then I collect magazines. Don't spend a lot of money on this! My favorite sources are Southern Living, Better Homes & Gardens and Real Simple. I've also enjoyed Midwest Living and Martha Stewart Living. But I don't subscribe to any of these, unless I can do it for $5 or less (which does happen occasionally). Ask friends and family or even doctors' offices for their discards. Check the castoffs bin at the library. Sign up for free preview/sample issues. (Lowe's has a free magazine called Creative Ideas that comes five times a year.) The magazines above tend to have a higher number of things I like, but this will obviously depend on personal taste--and really, you can find fun pictures anywhere you look. I've used pictures from Pier 1 catalogs, Compassion magazine, even Snapfish or Hobby Lobby flyers. I also occasionally glue in my own photographs of neighborhood trees in the fall, or our peony bushes.

I go through the magazines whenever I get them and tear out anything I find pretty or visually interesting, including (but not limited to):

• flowers 
• food 
• landscapes/scenery 
• interior decorating 
• significant words/quotes 
• cities/travel 
• random household items (colored bottles, books)

Now that I've built up a huge collection, I keep these sorted in folders, with the above headings plus seasonal ones (Autumn, Spring, Winter/Christmas). And then I flip through them, spread them out on my table, and go to town. I glue in just a few pages at a time, less than a month's worth. I learned that lesson after my first journal, when I decorated the whole thing at once and then ended up looking at tulip pictures in November. I prefer to match the season, so not doing too far ahead allows me to (roughly) match flowers in season, holidays, etc. But I'm a little anal-retentive that way...if you like pumpkins in February or snow in July, more power to you.

Once I've got pictures glued in, I put the open book in its place on the end of my kitchen counter, and I start scribbling. With a pretty pen in a coordinating ink color (because we know pens are a little important to me). Cello pens won't do for this; for a while I was partial to Sharpie pens but now I'm addicted to these pricey but gorgeous Staedtlers...but keep the caps on! The tips of the Sharpies and the Staedtlers *will* get ruined when dropped on the floor...sadly I have learned this the hard way.

Sorry. Pen digression. Anyway, so I start scribbling, and I keep coming back throughout the day. There's no end to the variety of things that can find a home here:

• daily/weekly to-do lists as well as long-term project lists 
• gratitude lists 
• funny things Elijah and Jude do and say, their developmental milestones, etc. 
• Scripture verses 
• quotes from books, blogs, song lyrics 
• printed out blog posts or excerpts (if it's more than a few lines I love), most frequently from Ann Voskamp, Christ in the Chaos, Femina or Scotty Smith 
• lists of and brief blurbs about books I’m reading 
• notes from important phone calls (asbestos abatement contractors, preschools, chickens, etc.) 
• gifts received for birthdays/Christmases (people needing thank-you notes) 
• hospitality plans 
• recipes or meal plans 
• parenting inspirations/reminders

In addition to all these lists and quotes, occasionally I'll do a little more traditional journaling, writing just a paragraph or two about a special event or activity that day. If I remember and have space, I also use this like a scrapbook and glue in mementos (ticket stub, cut-out logo from a brochure, etc.).

Really this can be anything you want it to be. No rules--it serves you. And oh, can it serve you (and your family)! For me, this journal isn't just play, and it isn't a time-suck. It's a visual anchor, a place to refocus. It's a way to chronicle my journey, not in long chunks of set-aside quiet time (though I do love those, and journal differently during those when they come) but in moments. It's a place to preach truth to myself, a reminder to choose gratitude, an opportunity to pause for a moment and really *see* my life, my children, my Savior.

And, I hope, it will become a family heirloom of sorts. Maybe it's just me, but I think if I could get a glimpse of my mother's or grandmother's ordinary daily life this way--what she was thankful for thirty years ago, what Scriptures spoke to her, what books she read and loved, what funny things I said--wouldn't I love that precious keepsake! Even if my boys don't appreciate these books, I know I have loved having and revisiting my own journals over the years, rereading stories of God's work in me and looking back on sweet moments of my life.

So there it is--my often-mentioned visual homemaking journal. Now it's your turn! Grab a sketchbook, a pen, a glue stick and some magazines and have at it.

WFMW: Freezer Cooking and Inventory

Another anonymous commenter recently asked for food tips:

I also love food stuff -- hearing what works for you, good recipes, tips, etc. I'm particularly on the hunt for good slow-cooker recipes these days, so if you've got any of those, please share!

This dovetails nicely with yesterday's post about saving money by cooking and eating at home plus Works for Me Wednesday, which I seem to do only about once a year when I'm trying to fill up space during NaBloPoMo :)

My first tip is to cook for a crowd. When I was first married, someone gave me a subscription to Taste of Home's Cooking for Two. I've got some great recipes I still use from that magazine, but honestly? I think cooking for two is a stupid idea. All that work, and all that mess, for two portions--no leftovers, even? Good grief!

I regularly cook for about 4-6 people (at least), because we eat leftovers for lunch almost exclusively. It's quick and easy, not to mention healthier a lot of the time. But last year when I was pregnant with Jude, I discovered the joys of freezer cooking. And oh my goodness, why didn't I do this before?!

Of course, it only works if you have the freezer space, and we just got a stand-alone freezer for this very purpose a few months before Jude was born. But really, it's life-changing. Anytime I'm making something that will freeze well, I double the recipe. It's so much easier to make a bigger batch once than to go to all the trouble and deal with all the cleanup two separate times! Some of my recipes are already big, so I don't have to double them--I'll just make half again as much, or make the regular batch and freeze half, only saving enough for us to eat it leftover once (which is nice because then we're not totally sick of it by the time we eat the leftovers three times). Soups freeze particularly well, and if you freeze them flat in ziploc bags, they stack and thaw nicely.

For dishes like lasagna or enchiladas, I line a glass pan with foil and freeze the unbaked dish just long enough for the food to be solid--then I pop it out of the glass pan and put the foil-wrapped food in a ziploc bag. When I want to bake it, I take it out of the bag and put the food + foil back in the glass pan to thaw in the fridge and then bake. Similarly for meatloaf, I put it on a cookie sheet and freeze it, then pop it off the sheet and put it in a bag.

I also freeze partial meals or ingredients. For example, I'll mix up all the ingredients for tuna noodle casserole except the noodles--so then all I have to do is boil some noodles and mix it all together, very simplified. Or I'll cook a huge crockpot full of dried beans and freeze them in one-can portions. I cook whole chickens and shred the meat, then freeze it (flat--it thaws much more quickly) in about one-pound portions, and I brown about 5-6 pounds of ground beef at a time and freeze it (again, flat!) in one-pound portions. Doing this makes taco night or spaghetti night a breeze, because all I have to do is add seasoning or sauce.

My other tip for freezer use is to keep an inventory. I typed up a list of things I commonly have in my freezer, organized by category, with extra spaces to write in other items. I then slipped the lists in plastic page protectors and taped them to the top of our chest freezer. I also taped a wet-erase marker to a string next to the list. I can tell at a glance what's in my freezer, so that things don't get buried and forgotten. It also helps me to plan ahead (I've only got one bag of beans left, so I need to add them to my grocery list and cook some more). Having the list taped to the lid and having the marker right there helps me not forget to add or erase things when I get into the freezer--otherwise this system totally doesn't work. (I have problems making it work for my upstairs freezer, which I'm in and out of a lot more often.) I still have to empty and re-inventory/reorganize the freezer about once or twice a year, but keeping an ongoing list helps immensely.

I'm so glad I've discovered all these tips and tricks for cooking in bulk and using my freezer! It was absolutely wonderful when I was newly postpartum. But even without a newborn in the house, it's a lifesaver. I love to cook, but with two little boys, life happens and it's sometimes hard to get a good meal on the table. Having pre-made food in my freezer means I have [healthier and cheaper] options besides take-out for those days when everything seems to fall apart, or when I know I'm going to be gone all day, or when I just don't feel like cooking. And it just plain makes life easier to make twice the food for the same amount of prep time and cleanup!

How has freezer cooking worked for you?

[Check out We Are That Family for more Works for Me Wednesday tips!]

WFMW: That Tube Goes Further Than You Think

I can't remember now who suggested this to me--but I'm so glad they did. Maybe this is obvious to most people, but it was brilliant to me. It is one of the easiest, most effortless ways I know to be frugal, and all you need is a pair of scissors and a ziploc bag.

You know those tubes of liquidy beauty items that stand on end--lotions and so forth? You figure that since they're standing on end, the lotion has settled at the cap and you're able to get most of it out. But there comes a point where you just can't squeeze hard enough, and you have to throw the tube away.

No more. You will be astonished to discover how much lotion or makeup is still in that tube! And getting it out this way is much easier than wrestling with the tube to squeeze out the last drops. I first did this with a tube of body cream from Bath & Body Works. I simply cut the very top off of the tube with a pair of scissors, and used my fingers to wipe out the lotion that was stuck to the inside of the tube. When I got all the lotion from the upper part of the tube, I cut it off further down so I could use up the rest. And I stored the cut tube in a plastic baggie in between uses to keep it from drying out.

Recently, I thought I was about out of foundation--but figured I would cut the top off and maybe get another day or two worth of makeup out. Wrong: I continued to use that tube for several WEEKS! It was a smaller tube, so I used a cotton swab to get the remaining foundation out.

The next time you think you're just about out of lotion or foundation or something similar, cut off the top of the tube. It works for me!

*I am out of the loop and, not being a regular participant, didn't realize that WFMW would be on vacation this week--oops! Next week, you can visit We Are THAT Family for more Works for Me Wednesday tips.*

Related:
WFMW: Bleaching in the Sun
WFMW: Photo Postcard Thank-Yous
WFMW: Christmas Card Prayers

WFMW: Christmas Card Prayers

The other Christmas-related thing that works for me is also shamelessly stolen from someone else :) I got this idea from Lyn, the amazing woman of God who mentored me while I was in college. One night when I was at her house for dinner, I found out that she and her family kept the Christmas cards they received in a basket near the dining room table. Each night, as part of the prayer they said before eating, they would choose a card and pray for that family.


I loved the idea, so ever since Steve and I got married, we've been doing the same. Before all the photos go on our refrigerator (my other favorite thing to do with Christmas cards), we put the cards in a basket on our dining room table. Each night before we eat, we pick a card and pray. It's a simple way to remember to lift up people who are dear to our hearts and ask God to pour out His grace on them in the coming year.


Visit Rocks in My Dryer for more great Works for Me Wednesday tips.

WFMW: Photo Postcard Thank-Yous

Years and years ago, long before I ever got married, let alone became a mother, I picked up this idea from a cousin of mine. My mother would give gifts to her nieces and nephews' children, and one in particular always sent thank-you notes. But not any thank-you notes; these were postcards. And not just any postcards; these had pictures--of the adorable recipient of the gift!

I loved the idea, and filed it away for the future. The first time I had the opportunity (Elijah's first Christmas, last year), I used it. It was a hit. This is a win-win situation for everybody: I save money (places like Snapfish offer 9-cent prints, and postcard stamps only cost $.27 instead of $.42) and the gift-givers get cute pictures to hang on the fridge!

As soon as I can after the holiday (birthday or Christmas), I chose a favorite photo and order several prints. Sometimes I use the same photo for everyone's postcards; other times I change it up. When I get the prints, I use a ruler to draw a vertical line down the center and a few address lines so it looks "official." (Sometimes printing places--Snapfish, for one--print a line of information on the back; when this happens, I just use dry white-out tape to cover it up, and it's barely noticeable. This time I got prints from CVS, and the backs were blank.)

I then write the thank-you note, trying not to press too hard so it doesn't leave marks on the photo side. Add a stamp, address it and stick it in the mail. Of course there's a chance that the picture will get damaged en route, but the ones I've seen have arrived unscathed. Here's one of the photos I used, and a picture of the back:

Visit Rocks in My Dryer for more great Works for Me Wednesday tips!

WFMW: Bleaching in the Sun

Some of you may already know that Shannon, the famous "mommyblogger" at Rocks in My Dryer, hosts "Works for Me Wednesday" every week. I've never participated before, and in fact don't know many bloggers who do, but it seemed like a good source for a prompt this week as I strive to complete NaBloPoMo.

So on this Works for Me Wednesday, I'd like to share the helpful secret every cloth diapering mama knows, but too many others have never heard: the incredible bleaching power of the sun.

When I started cloth diapering, I'd been told that hanging diapers in the sun would take care of the stains. But when I pulled that first load of prefolds out of the washer and saw the bright mustard-colored stains (you mamas who have breastfed know exactly what I'm talking about), I was more than skeptical. It was way too big a leap of faith for me to think that simple sunshine would make those diapers white again.

But hang them on the line I did, and when I took them down at the end of the day, I was a believer. Spotless. You actually couldn't tell which diapers had been pooped in--I swear.

I don't know how well it works on formula-fed babies' poop, or on other kinds of stains. But I can absolutely vouch for the effectiveness of sunshine when it comes to breastfed poo. That stuff does NOT come out in the wash, and I've heard many a mama talk of throwing away a favorite outfit after she thought it was ruined by a blowout. No more! It doesn't just work for diapers--I've seen hopeless stains disappear from colored pants, too, after a day in the sunshine. And it doesn't matter if you've already dried the clothing in the dryer. I was always taught that once you've done that, the stain is "set" and you might as well forget about removing it. Not so; the sun can still take it out. Just a note: It works better if you hang things wet, and it may take a couple of tries.

The bleaching power of the sun is nothing short of miraculous. It totally works for me!