Eurail Italy Pass Saver

In addition to putting money aside well in advance for our housing, we have also bought a short duration Eurail Italy pass that is good for 4 days within 2 months. Because we will always be traveling together, we qualified for the Saver Pass which is valid for groups of 2 to 5 persons traveling together. Similarly, I made reservations for seats on specific trains to ensure we get to where we want to be when we want to be there. The reservations cost money too, but during high travel season, it's the only way to guarantee we'll get seats on a train, or get to sit together. I could have booked each individual leg of the trip separately, but if we lost any one of those tickets, we would have lost the whole price of that trip. This way, if we can make an earlier or later train, we've only lost the nominal price of the reservation--the pass preserves our ticket price. While we are planning on taking additional side trips around Rome and Florence, our transportation between cities (Rome-Pompeii return, Rome-Florence, Florence-Venice) is already taken care of--that's our four days right there. Anything else we decide to do, we'll pay for out of pocket.

Like the AAA Spiral Guide (I mentioned in an earlier post) that gives suggestions what to do in Italy, the inside jacket of the Eurail Pass folder offers a sillier selection, including:

Make gargoyle faces
Sniff out a truffle
Wink at the conductor
Get chased out of town on a goat
Chum for mermaids in the Baltic

Given the opportunity, I would like to do those things. Others, however, seem more realistic:

Miss your stop on purpose
Visit a town you've never heard of
Climb an ancient stairway
Take soccer too seriously
Get lost

I say, Let the journey begin.

One list among many

I can't count how many travel books my mother and I have acquired over the last few weeks. All have been helpful in one way or another. Of recent note, according to the AAA Spiral Guide on Italy, when in Italy, one should:

1. Try the regional food and wine
2. Browse in a food market
3. Join the evening passeggiata
4. Walk in the countryside
5. Enjoy an excellent cup of coffee in a bar
6. Take in at least one of Italy’s great museums
7. Shop for clothes, knitwear, leather and crafts
8. Swim in the clear coastal waters

We already have plans to do seven of the above eight things.
Any idea which one we won’t be doing? ;D

Packing trial and error

I admit to being more than a little obsessive about what I take with me on European trips. This concern, however, has fermented over nearly 25 years of travel dating back to my first venture overseas on a high school trip in 1984. At that time, I packed like I was leaving the planet for a year; I took a hair dryer, makeup, shoes for every occasion, clothes for the slightest change in weather. Later, determined to streamline, I learned the hard way that taking my father's smaller camera that I didn't know how to operate wasn't worth saving six square inches in my bag. When I took a freighter across the Atlantic in 2001, however, I reached my highest packing quotient (PQ?) ever. Because I'm older and my back is in worse shape now than it was then, I'm determined to pack as efficiently this time as I did then.

Everything that I'm taking on this trip can be washed in a sink and will dry overnight--underwear, shorts, shirts, dresses. I've been testing things out for the last week or so, taking them into the shower or tub with me at night, washing them with shampoo and hanging them over the shower curtain rod to dry. So far, so good. Most of what I'm taking is sports wear in the sense that it is made from a Tencel/poly blend that, when worn in the gym or on the athletic field, wicks sweat away from the body and dries quickly. Other items that I'm taking, if not made from a Tencel material, is purely a poly/nylon blend that would melt to my skin if I got too close to a fire. I usually prefer natural fibers, but considering man-made fabrics tend to be lighter and dry more quickly, that's where I'm casting my lot on this trip. With the help of onebag.com (see link to the left), I'm still tweaking my packing list. I'll post a final list closer to our departure.