Italy (2026)

Friday 5/22 Katie and Mike are once again on their way to another European adventure. This year, we decided that since we had such a great experience a few years ago with the Rick Steves "My Way" tour of the Alps, we would try it again this year with a tour of Italy (isn't that an Olive Garden menu item?). For the "my way tours" the travel company takes care of all of the travel and lodging, and we get to choose what we do each day on our tour. This year, we will have stops

Tuesday 5/26 We were up early on Tuesday morning, packed up and out the door by 9am to catch the vaporetto boat transport across the Grand Canal to the waiting bus to take us to our next destination. Thankfully we had a couple of Venetian cappuccinos to help us wake up and get going! Venice was amazing and we'll always remember the city fondly. Once on the bus, we had a fairly uneventful 3 hour journey to Bolzano, in the Italian Dolomite Alps. This is the one city on the tour

Thursday 5/28 The day started off with a quick and delicious breakfast (see notes from yesterday) from the hotel before catching the bus for an 8:30 departure to Monterosso, one of the Cinque Terre. The trip was 8 hours as we made the trek from Bolzano in the mountainous northeast region, to Levanto along the coast in the northwestern part of the country. Once we got to Levanto, we boarded the train for a 15-minute journey to Monterosso. Wednesday night we were for warned tha

Saturday 5/30 Today began as a travel day as we departed from Cinque Terre and headed to the heart of the Renaissance, Florence. Mike was looking forward to this leg of the journey as the Renaissance is part of his AP European History curriculum that he's been teaching for decades, and FINALLY he will get to see some of the art and architecture he's never seen in person! Additionally, since this was Katie's 2nd time to Florence, she was looking forward to seeing the sights ag

Monday 6/1 Today is a travel day as we departed Florence, hopped on the magic bus, and went south to the medieval Umbrian town of Assisi. However, as a nice surprise, our tour guide Martin arranged for the bus to stop for a few hours at the fortress town of San Gimignano ("Jimmy-Yanno"). Sounds like a mafia family name from the Godfather! The ancient Italian hill town in Tuscany, southwest of Florence is encircled by 13th-century walls, and its old town centers on Piazza dell

Wednesday 6/3 As we departed Assisi Wednesday morning, the bus made a quick stop on the outskirts of the city to take a quick picture of the entire group. We then hopped back on the bus and hit the road...and today, all roads lead to Rome! After about 3 sleepy and rainy hours on the bus, we arrived on the outskirts of Rome only to find that traffic had come to a screeching halt. After about 15 minutes of creeping along, we finally passed a downed tree in the middle of the roa