Our 9-day tour of Italy included stays in Venice, the Cinque Terre, Lucca, and Rome, with additional trips to the Venice islands of Burano, Murano, and Torcello, and Naples and Herculaneum. We took 15 train rides and a dozen boat rides, experienced Rome’s Metro subway, and walked around 95 miles. It was an amazing experience, and it’s fun to think about how we could plan a return trip with the girls. A recap of our blog entries and final day of travel rounds out our trip diary.
- Day 0 – Chicago
- Day 1 – Arrival in Venice
- Day 2 – Glass Making and Murano
- Day 3 – Burano and Torcello
- Day 4 – Bonus Day in Venice
- Day 5 – Cinque Terre
- Day 6 – Pisa and Lucca
- Day 7, Part 1 – Lucca’s Torre delle Oro
- Day 7, Part 2 – Pasta Making in Rome
- Day 7, Part 3 – Rome at Night
- Day 8 – Colosseum, Roman Forum, and Vatican City
- Day 9 – Naples and Herculaneum
Day 10 – Return to Iowa
Our flight out of Rome didn’t depart until 11:05, but with a bag to check and a trip through Italian customs, we played it safe and checked out of our Airbnb before 8:00. We ended up having more than enough time before our flight, and found that while Rome’s airport had a lot of different places to eat, they all seemed to serve variants of the same food and very limited breakfast-style offerings.
We bought the correct tickets this time to avoid the steep fine we paid the last time we took the train between the airport and the train station.
The return flight was about 90 minutes longer than our flight to Rome, and also more crowded. We were served pretzels, lunch, an ice cream snack, and a light dinner over the 9-hour, 40-minute flight, and were happy to arrive in Chicago on time. Getting back to our car couldn’t have gone smoother, and we even had time to stop at Jeni’s Ice Creams one final time before we drove the rest of the way back to Iowa.
The timing of our Jeni’s stop was ideal, as it was the first day serving their new banana bread flavor.
A final ice cream selfie.