Italy Travel Tips

When ever you travel to different country its important to know few basic things about that country.It is very important for your safety and to ensure  your planned tour happens as per schedule

• Italy offers a 3 to 7 days travel pass. It is basically a pre-paid travel pass which you can use to board any train through out Italy from any destination within the defined period.The biggest advantage is it helps you to keep your plan flexible. But there’s a catch:You have to pre-book a seat on the train that you intend to travel.The price and time to reserve a seat may vary from 10 euro to anything depending on the rush hours.Instead you can reserve a seat on a train and be relaxed.You can find more information on http://www.raileurope.co.uk/, http://www.europeanrailguide.com/railpasses/
• Italian do not speak in English or if they speak than those English speaking people are not so  common.So keep time to walk down to the nearest tourist information for any help. If possible take address and print out the tourist information cells available in the visiting city.This would save time and effort to get the right information you seek.
• Arrive 20 mins before your travel time, as most of these cities have large rail station or bus station. To top it up people don’t communicate in English-hence you need to have time to enquiry than reach your train/bus.
• Ensure you take print out from Google maps for direction to your booked hotels from airport/station/bus station from where you arrive.
• But before you go to your train–validate that train ticket! Just before you board your train, find the yellow box like the one shown in the upper right and insert the end of your ticket. This prints the time and date of the first use of your ticket, and makes it valid for the journey. There are stiff fines for not validating your ticket. If you forget, try pleading that you’re just a dumb tourist. It has worked before, but it works less and less as time passes.
• Once you find your train, just board it. You will probably have to show your ticket to a conductor once during your journey–so keep it where you can get to it. Usually there are racks above the seats for luggage. Sometimes there are dedicated shelves near the ends of each coach for your larger baggage.

Travel plan to Italy

Steeped in history and culture, featuring some of the world’s most important art and architecture, Italy is understandably a country at or near the top of many travelers’ lists. Travelling to Italy can be very exciting and there are lot of cities that you can visit. Italy is rich in history, culture, offers various food options to the tourist.The must cities to visit  as per my knowledge or research are :-

• Pisa:-

              Pisa known for its leaning tower is a must see. Pisa now draws its fame from an architectural project gone terribly                      wrong: its iconic Leaning Tower. But the world-famous tower is only one of a trio of Romanesque splendours on the                green carpet of the Piazza dei Miracoli – a serious rival to Venice’s Piazza San Marco for the title ofItaly’s most                          memorable square. Pisa has a centuries-old tradition as a university town and swarms with students

• Rome & Vatican (not to be considered in Italy or to be considered in Italy):-

  Rome is the capital of modern Italy. Rome is full of history everywhere you look. It has many ancient monuments, interesting medieval churches, beautiful fountains, museums, and Renaissance palaces. Modern Rome is a bustling and lively city and has some excellent restaurants and nightlife. The Vatican and St. Peter’s are also found in Rome.

• Venice:-

  Venice is a unique city built on water in the middle of a lagoon. Venice is one of Italy’s most beautiful and romantic cities as well as one of the most popular for visitors to Italy. The heart of Venice is Piazza San Marco with its magnificent church. There are many museums, palaces, and churches to visit and wandering along Venice’s canals is interesting.

• Verona:-

  Verona is known for the story of Romeo and Juliet and for its Roman Arena, the third largest in Italy and the venue for a top opera festival. Verona has a good medieval center, Roman remains, and an interesting castle complex. It’s the fourth most visited city in Italy and well worth a stop on a northern Italy travel itinerary.

  We diced to visit Pisa, Rome, Vatican city, Naples, Capri, Venice.Our travel plan was as below:-

  We took a print out of the above table and kept with both of us, in case if v got lost

  Date of journey	From	To	Mode trans	Time	Details of travel	Arrival time	Direction
  8th June 2011	London Stan stead	Pisa	Flight	6:30 morning	Boarding pass in hand.	9:45 morning in Pisa	Its enough time to visit pisa, chappel and climb on pisa tower
  8th June 2011	Pisa	Rome/ Roma	Train	3:00 pm  afternoon	Intercity 511,Coach 9, Seats:-55,56	18.14/6:14 evening in Rome
  10th june 2011	Rome	Naples	Train	6:45 am morning	Eurostar9371, coach 9, seats:-55,56	8:26 morning in naples	We booked boat from Naples to capri
  10th june 2011	Naples	Venezia/ Venice	Train	19.57 /(7.57) PM evening	Coach 5, Seats:-105,106	5:26 morning in Venice
  12 June 2011	Venezia/ venice	Luzern (Swiss)	Train	5.20pm evening	Class 2a, Seats:-65,66	23:41/11:41 PM in the night

Europe

After a year of dealing with fractured collor bone coupled with renewal of passport + extension of visa kept us away from visiting Europe.

I love to travel around places. See different cultures, eat local food, explore through the country’s history, understand its origin, way of dressing of women and men i.e fashion- which is inspired either by weather/ cultural issues.I feel travelling broadens your horizon, most important thing it gives you understanding.You must be wondering–what has understanding got to do with travel. Let me explain, when u travel around places you get to know so many things about that places. Which i am sure is way different from your world.

You start analyzing, processing and understanding the thought behind the difference between yours  and the visited places culture. This gives us sense of understanding.My way of looking at it.

I wanted to visit Italy and vishal Switzerland, so we decided to visit both the countries.Weeks of extensive research, shopping as per weather and trying to come to a concise of visiting mutual interest place by both of us.Last part is always difficult as my area of interest is history, operation or working of anything living or organization, where as vishal’s interest is nature, scenic beauty and mountain views. So some how we came to a conclusion and travel plan to both the countries.Will post the travel plan in my next blog.