My sister and I are spending about a week in Italy in July (arriving around 6 p.m. on the 22nd, and leaving probably on the 29th) and we were planning on visiting Venice, Cinque Terre and then Florence (and then fly out of Bologna to go to Scotland). I was wondering if you could give us some advice on those three areas as in things we must see/must do, resturaunt recommendations, anything.
Also, we really are interested in doing some sort of day activity like going to a vineyard, or taking an authentic one day italian cooking class or visiting a place where they harvest olive oil, anything that would be exciting and will give us some insight into italian culture. If there are any sort of really fun day excursions like the ones I listed or any others (we are looking for anything, especially if its out of the box) you can think of I'd really appreciate the recommendation. Thank you so much!
-Amy
Answer Hello,
yours sound like a very interesting plan.
I cannot give you a lot of tips about Cinque Terre and Venice, but I can defenately suggest you to contact the guys
from TAT ( www.toursaroundtuscany.com ) for the exclusive excursions. They are very well quoted here and are famous for this kind of off the beaten path experience.
About Venice, well I can tell you not to miss Burano (less touristic than Murano instead and more pictoresque for me) and I also can suggest you to make your home base in Lerici or Monterosso when you'll be in the cinque terre. These two places, although not charming as Manarola or Vernazza, can offer you a wider varity of hotels at a cheaper price. Then you can always take the train (there's one every half an hour) and in 5 minutes you jump from town to town. The ticket is a daily ticket for few bucks.
