Scumbag

I was thinking of taking Mrs S for a weeks holiday in Rome/Florence and maybe Naples in a couple of weeks. Does anybody have any recommendations for things to do/see, or places to stay. How long should I give any individual location to give us time to see the sights?

As it's her birthday when we'll be away, I also quite fancied splashing out on a night or two in a good hotel - something different, not the usual Marriot / Hilton cr@p that I spend half of my work nights in. It doesnt need to be massively luxurious, just 'special', either in location, or ambience. Any ideas from the scoobynet clan?

TIA

SB

GaryCat

Don't stay in Naples.. it isn't a safe place for tourists but Ischia & Capri in Naples bay are nice. Sorrento on the Amalfi coast is OK, it's cheap and therefore attracts the type of people who want a cheap holiday.

Poor Guy

Ive just returned from italy yesterday. I found rome very disappointing. lots of graffiti, rubbish in the street, traffics awful. I saw the pope from a distance, lots of Chilieans for some reason. The coloseum was way smaller than expected. Take your own drinks. I got raped E6 for a Gatorade. ~You will find the people up north a lot more friendly i found.

Florence is great, good inside market, but the black and chinese street traders have moved in selling their crap. E1000 fine for buying from them. But its still nice. Me old man shouted "Polizia" and they went mental lol. Bought a nice bag and leather jacket from the inside market for 1/2 the price of over here. Loved it. "you like to buy? E150" "si, mi piace questo." "you no american?" "no, sono inglhese, ma mezzo italiano" "ah, mi dispace!" "quante per questo?" "E90" Result! Americans really get ripped off over there using the old credit cards. But they seem to like paying the prices. It seems over there if you try to speak italian, they help you a lot more.

We stayed in Montalcino where Brunello wine comes from. Wonderful place in the Tuscan hills. Also, hit the gelaterias, the ice cream there is delish (Tartufo,- truffle and nuts, sexual.), and if you like ferreo roches, have Trunky flavour, its even more fecking sexual.
There is a village near there called buonconvento with this hotel, http://www.hotelghibellino.it/eng.htm, didnt stay there but loked nice. there was a restraunt called "I Poggioli" there too, thoroughly recommend it.

Petem95

Went to San Remo this summer and that was pretty nice. Really nice Italian feel to the city centre - not the biggest place, but it seemed quite clean and safe. Also a beach there and plenty of nice restaurants and bars.

Still get all the dodgy traders trying to sell you stuff. Quite funny when we pulled into an open air car-park near the sea front, and there was a stand selling traditional african carved stuff - kept getting people come up to use selling crap quality fake stuff, and we ended up buying a couple of watches and turned out they were all using the african stand as a front!!! keeping all the dodgy stuff there, and kept going back for more!

Also went to Genoa and that wasnt great - big city, but not really much for tourists.

Phantom_Flan_Flinger

Been around 10 years since I was in Italy, though I was there for 18 weeks.

Maybe it's better now but Naples was dirty, smelly and suicidal if you were driving. I was in a car with an RAF guy who was based there. We were in Naples for 20 minutes, we saw 3 car/bike/scooter accidents (none serious) and we were involved in 1 of them. The Water workers were on Strike one of the times and the whole city had no clean water for around 3 weeks.
Best thrill ride was in a taxi from the train station to the American Naval base on a seperate occasion. Driver had no notion of red lights, crossings or intersections. All that at a constant 40+ mph.

Sounds like Rome's gone downhill since I was there. Was quite pleasant back then. Saying that, there was this was guy selling these glossy city brochures near one of the sights. He git a bit irate after he'd gone through his sales patter only for me to tell him that I knew my way around and had already visited Rome several times, so would not need his brochure.

Florence, as stated above was very nice. Only had 1 day there but it came out near the top for 1 of my favourite places.

Sorrento was too Anglified in my opinion, but Capri was beautiful and a lot quicker if you took the Hydrofoil, or whatever they are now.

10 years is a long time mind you, so you're probably better taking heed from more recent appraisals.

Dave.

davyboy

Sardinia

warrenm2

if your in tuscany try massa marittima or cortona for nice hillside towns, perugia, siena, arrezzo also nice

CooperS

Get over to Verona, lovely lovely place, not far from Lake Garda, you can fly pretty cheap to Brescia airport which isn't too far away. Or straight into Verona airport.
Very highly recommended, you can also see Romeo and Juliet's Balcony

Poor Guy

Siena is very nice. Lovely people. 25 mins up the road from where we stayed. Theres a gelateria across the road from an interweb cafe. The Tartufo is to die for.

warrenm2

A graffitti'd tourist trap hell hole

CharlesW

I had a very good holiday in Sicily a couple of years ago. Loads to do and see. Food and wine was great. I stayed in Taormina and hired a car for a few days to get to other parts of the island. It is quite big.

Driving over a still steaming lava flow on snow capped Etna was a novelty. The previous eruption had resulted in a lava flow across the road, so when it had cooled down, they just flattened a track across it for the traffic.