"My Italy impressions" Italy by codrutz

I have been two times in Italy, first time in June 2005 in Rome for five days, and I enjoyed the most of Rome's attraction, with some high temperatures and a day with a quick shower, and last time in June 2006, when I took my car from Venice west to the lakes then south just below Napoli, to Sorrento, visiting in 10 days some interesting places (see my tips on this Italy section).

Italy is a unique country in Europe :) begining with its shape, being a long peninsula streching from north to south, with different regions and styles of living, with lovely places, lots of stuff to eat - not especially in restaurants but local spices, olive oils, wines and stuff is what I like, to the lovely Venice, lakes and riviera, to the busy Naples and surroundings, crowds - really - of tourists, mostly americans, football frenzy and money spending all over (Italy is really one of most expensive country - that is in touristic places by the sea - because if you are to live there is not such expensive, I've found the supermarkets, but they are well away hidden from tourists).

Crowded parking spaces in Florence

I was very concerned about driving and especially parking in Italy, and for that I've been writing some posts on the VT forums :) Now I can say about driving in Italy: There are indeed differences between north and south; in north you can make the difference in driving from Italy and other country like Germany or France; in south the latin spirit is beginning to show and the driving is more crowded but not as erratic as I was expected, at least on the highway you can really drive without much fuss; the SS are also nice to drive; from S below the streets are getting crowded and it takes much longer to reach. I've been out the highway between Florence and Siena, on the Chiantigiana road (SS222), trough the Chianti hills and it is a wonderful road to drive and admire the views :) Driving in cities is another business though - starting with Rome, which I have visited in 2005, cities are crowded, not having such large boulevards, but rather winding streets, being all old cities, the traffic is heavy, plus the motocycles, the conclusion is the driving inside cities can be very stressing and time consuming. The real bad thing in Italy by car is parking. Italians can't care less about their cars and lower you get (south), bigger percentage of cars, from 50 to 80%, have at least one scratch, on the corners or along one side, to loose side-mirrors, to really bumped in doors, so clean (untouched) cars are very hard to find (try it yourself). Parkings are very small, check out my picture in my transportation tip to see how the cars are parked with 10cm between them (1cm between closed side-mirrors).

Ponte Vecchio - Florence

Ok, now to my general impressions about visiting Italy. From all the countries I have visited so far in Europe, Italy is without a doubt the most touristic country, and I don't mean only in Rome, Venice or Florence, but in every single small place (even in the tiny St.Vigilio on the Garda Lake) there are a lot and more than a lot of tourists, mostly from the US - and when I say that believe me you can be sure to find a fellow american wherever you travel. Seemed to me that close to 1 milion US travelers were there in Italy :) very interested in places and history of this country. And local people, hotels, restaurants and shops, did make their business accordingly to the profile of the traveler, meaning the shops are full of souvenirs, nice or less nice, useful or less useful, all kind of stuff, rarely cheap but rather expensive. Ok, when talking prices - I found Italy to be expensive - that is for my standard of living - which you know in Romania is much lower than in US or western Europe. Cheap hotels (under 60-70eur/room/night) are very hard to find or even imposible in some places - like around Genova - on the italian riviera. And that keeping in mind that one traveler have to be very attentive when choosing accomodation - not all hotels or b&b are so cared out for by their owners, and one trying to have cheap accomodation may be unsatisfied or even irritated by the conditions. But that can happen also at three star hotels, when payed more than 100eur/night, so my recommendation is to research about the accomodation you will be staying in Italy - using not 'official' websites but traveler's websites like VT or even booking websites with traveler's real comments about the hotels. Check out below (accomodations tips) where I have stayed in my travel in Italy - it was a hard work to search for those hotels - as I said I won't go for over 90eur/night/room and that is the difficult part. If money is no object, if you have 150eur/night/room than you can easily find someting you like, of if you are a big spender that Italy is for you with 4 or even 5 star hotels on the lakes :) And that is good for Italy, to have rich tourists :) But not me :) Though I was 'cheap' on accomodation and restaurants, you can't do (imho) a real budget longer trip in Italy, because you will have to pay something every step and turn :) By examples, in Sorrento to get to the beach you have to take the elevator and that means a ticket :)

• Pros:Great places, unbelievable churches, Rome, Venice
• Cons:Tourist crowds, pretty expensive to visit
• In a nutshell:One of the most visited country in the world