We found the indoor garage across from what I thought was the Hertz office and drove inside. The people were friendly, polite but spoke little English. (By this time I was getting pretty brave with my Italian). This is where Lucas and I discovered a Turkish toilet--the crouch down type with a hole in the middle of a flat piece of porcelain. I digress... After this, it was a long five block walk, dragging luggage (we have the hand truck type with small wheels) behind, over cobblestones and on sidewalks that were nearly too narrow for one person. When we got to the station there was a large flight of steps to get up before entering the station... not very handicapped accessible, like the rest of Italy. Again, no rental office or drop off AT the station.
Now, the real nightmare: Naples Hertz. Naples Centrale Station is so large it was difficult to get our bearings (and the data plan wasn't activated yet on our phones, so I couldn't use the Maps app). We had to cross over an extremely busy viale where people do not pay any attention to signs, speed limits, other cars, pedestrians or stop lights. I was really worried about Lucas getting across dragging his large backpack rig along. Then it was a two block walk along one of the most sleazy streets I've seen yet. Filthy, druggies, gypsies, stench and drunks amid the rush of normal workaday people pushing past it all. This was also one of the hottest days yet... we were all sweating when we finally got to the Hertz office, a tiny space with a garage door pull-down and--of course--no air conditioning. This office did have tw0 young men working there. But it seemed they were working tandem on each person (there were a few people ahead of us). They couldn't seem to handle taking care of two customers at one time. We did the paperwork and they gave me the keys telling me the car was in a "parking lot" 30 meters down the street across the busy viale--again. This time, there were no lights, no crosswalks and a major "rotary" intersection to get across. Just getting across the street was a real effort... and dangerous for Hertz to have their customers do. Ok... 30 meters? Try 359 meters (I measured it on Earth). This walk was also hairy... past a sleezy train station hotel with hookers, panhandlers, gypsies and filth, the stink of urine. This taught me that everything I read is true... Naples is a sewer. Literally. We couldn't find the "parking lot" until Lucas spotted a small Hertz logo on a building around the corner from the street they said it was on. It was a run down indoor hourly parking garage. So, that's where they hide their rental cars! The next surprise came when they seemed puzzled that I expected an automatic "Fiat 500L or similar compact" as per my contract (I reserved months ago). The best they could do was give me an automatic Volvo "soove"(SUV) he said. This thing was big--and dirty. He asked if I would like it washed. Of course, I said. He said it would take over half an hour... forget it, I said. We were trying to get to the next check-in in Amalfi to meet the caretaker. So, we got stuck with this wide vehicle, not the Fiat 500L that I had originally booked. And this wasn't even in the same "compact" class of car. It was a move up the tier... which I didn't want... especially considering the narrow, twisty roads that I knew were in my near future. Returning this car wasn't all that bad, aside from the insane drivers in Bari. This office had three people working there, and still, NO air conditioning. At least, the Hertz person there offered to drive us to the station since he had to drive the Volvo across town to their garage location. (I'm glad I didn't have to pick up a car here!) I was happy for that, because otherwise it would have meant walking 4 blocks in a seedy, train station neighborhood, then carrying luggage down and then up stairs to get under the train tracks at the station. You see, in their wisdom, the Bari Hertz people have their rental office on the back side-- the proverbial wrong side of the tracks--from Bari Centrale Station. There's an underground tunnel going from the Hertz neighborhood side to the main part of the station, where you must enter to get to any train platforms. Again... no kiosk right at the station? Nope, that would make troppo senso (too much sense)! Renting a car from Hertz in Italia is a truly painful experience. Beware... and look elsewhere. --Jerry Finzi
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Before setting out on this three week adventure, I researched the weather of Italy so we could bring appropriate clothing. I checked travel blogs, long range weather sites and checked historic weather data to see how cold, wet or warm it might get. We packed appropriately... or so we thought. I learned that average daytime temps for most of Italy would be lower to mid seventies during the day and mid sixties to upper fifties at night. Nonsense. For the last three weeks the weather has been amazingly warm... upper seventies to mid eighties in the day and rarely cooler than 65 at night. Curiously, the Italians really think this is autumn, and admittedly we did see some grapevines dropping their leaves in northern Tuscany, up near Vinci... but that is near the mountains. It does get a little cool at night there. But everywhere we went, in the north or way down by the southern heel of Italy's boot, Italians dressed like it was winter, never mind fall. And scarves... most wear them. Day or night. Man or woman. During the evening passeggiata when we strolled in shorts and short sleeved shirts, everyone else wore the puffy vests and jackets or outright winter gear. Check out the pic... I was wearing a short sleeve shirt and sweating, these people were dressed for a cool, breezy autumn day! The odd thing is, most people do sweat... I've seen it. "Why don't you take off that sweater, the sun is out and it's hot", I'd find myself thinking. Like the French, I don't think Italians are so much into daily showers or baths... thus the abundance of bidets in this country. And, like the French, they are into perfumes and colognes... no deodorant sprays, just piling on the cologne to cover up their sweatiness. There are others who seem to have no functioning sweat glands. I've seen them too... usually when I'm sweating like a pig. Like this nice lady in a gift store near the Pantheon yesterday... We had bought a few things and while Lisa and Lucas waited outside, I was waiting for her to pack things up so I could pay. I kept mopping my brow and my shirt was sticking to me... and no air conditioning and very bright hot lighting in the store. And there she was, dry as a bone, happily fussing to the extreme with fancy wrapping, gift bags, and tying ribbons as Italians in chi-chi shops tend to do. No joke, while I stood there exuding bodily fluids, she spent the better part of ten minutes perfecting her little packaging gems... I was dying to get my fading consciousness out of that sweat shop and onto the street where the breeze of a speeding scooter might give a tiny bit of relief. Needless to say, autumn does not exist here and we packed too many clothes for cooler weather. Lisa never got a chance to wear that wrap I bought her. My one corduroy shirt remained packed. If you look at the latitude of Pennsylvania and Italy they are almost the same... but the weather sure isn't. By the time we get back home most of the leaves will have fallen, the best pumpkins picked. Italians don't know what they're missing. --Jerry F. Hertz in Italy is not the same Hertz in the States. They are independent brokers. They treat people politely on the surface but insult us with the slap on the face they call "Service". "For your convenience" really means "for our convenience". Returning a car to Florence, for example, is not convenient. Instead of being open 24 hours at train station and airport locations, they open at 8, close completely for a few hours at lunch (even when more than one person is manning the office and they could easily stagger lunch hours), and close by 7 at night. They complain about no jobs and failing economy... Gee... I wonder why it is failing?
Then do they put pickup/return offices at a desk IN the train station? No. You have to drag your luggage several blocks from the station to their office through through the typically sleezy and dangerous streets to find them. Are there signs at the huge train station at least telling you which direction to head? No. (Naples Central is about a kilometer wide... Hertz about 1/4 mile away from the closest exit... over very rough cobbles). Also, when returning cars to Florence, you have to be incredibly careful about NOT driving into the ZTL (no drive zone, or Zona Traffico Limitato) or six months after your trip you'll get a very expensive summons from one of the many ZTL cameras. (BTW, these are legitimate fines, not scams. Learn about the ZTLs HERE and HERE). And to top it all off, they never bring the car to you. In Chiusi we had to walk in the rain, dragging luggage over a quarter mile and get the car parked near a bridge. In Florence they actually give you a map to get to the garage. He told us it was a parking lot, but Lucas noticed the teeny Hertz sign on a garage building that also does hourly parking. He said it was a one minute walk only "30 meters" across the street and around the corner... it was more like 1000 meters. We had to pass all sorts of low-lifes, smells and filth. I was seriously worried about our safety. Oh yea... and that street in front of their office that we have to cross? No crosswalk... a very busy intersection with cars jostling to get onto the nearby interstrada. Hertz in Italy is just a logo... a method used by schemers to latch onto a good company name and deliver a dumbed down, lazy Italian style service... "for your convenience... for your convenience..." Yea, right. Oh... the last straw: months ago I booked a compact class Fiat 500L automatic for our southern part of the journey... especially to help navigate the twisty, mountainous, narrow roads of the Almafi Coast. They didn't have automatic in compact class so I wound up getting a a very wide Volvo SUV. It was diesel, which saves money on gas, but Lucas said it sounded just like his schoolbus (it did). Oh, and they gave it to me dirty... then asked if I wanted it washed. I said yes. He said "another 20 minutes" which in Italy means over an hour... or so. I said no since we still had to get over the mountains to our Amalfi apartment where the caretaker was expecting us as a set time. Such is car renting in Italia. I'd love to hear from others about their experiences with other Italian rental companies (i.e., brokers) to see if it makes any difference. I doubt it, though. For instance, the Florence in-town location also had logos of other rental companies. The experience would be the same no matter what logo you decide to rent with. --Jerry Finzi P.S. If you like what you've read, please LIKE us on Facebook and SHARE us with your friends who might also be interested. Gratzie! Update On A Former Post The Old Reliable post, which was featured on the blog earlier, can be seen here. All caught up now? We can't bring a laptop because of all of our stuff (sorry, teachers) we have a few cameras, tablets, etc. And we'd have to carry it everywhere. Tablets and smartphones are easier, and we have the Weebly app, so we can still blog! Well, United Airline's prices are CRAZY, but before I tell the horribleness of of prices, the first two bags are free to lighten the mood, but then, after the first two bags, the third one is $50, the fourth one is $100 and so on. And OF COURSE you think after since United's prices are so expensive, they wouldn't have a limit on space of the bag. Well, they do! It's about the size of a backpack. That's really small! If United is trying to get more people on each plane, they're crazy! If you ever fly united PLEASE CHECK the dimensions, they'll probably make them smaller! LOL Packing Today we started packing, and it's such a hassle with United's prices, so I only can use one bag, a bag we bought this year (WHICH IS AWESOME!) it was a good price, and we have a few others. So picture this....
You have these layers of stuff: (Sorry again, teachers.) Clothes Electronics Fun Stuff (Sorry for the 1, 2, 3rd time, teachers) Other Now into my backpack, stuff socks into extra shoes, roll up shirts and pants tight and I'll be squishing my... er... things (Finally! I don't say stuff... OOPS!) Hope you enjoyed this double post, class! -Lucas A shout-AT to my dear wife pointing out to the world what a hot-head I've become in the last week, and a shout-OUT to her for her sweet words thanking me for all the hard work. She really deserves a Grand Voyage to Italy.
As far as Fugitaboutit goes... that's where I'm at now. Two days to go and all the computer work, PDFs, confirmations, reservations and such are done! The last straw was not being able to locate the confirmation email for the car service picking us up at the airport. I found it finally and PDF-ed it onto our devices and I was done! Now I'm trying to Fugitaboutit and move on to more practical matters: locking up my garden equipment and tools, making sure that new security camera is up and working, testing the alarm system, tightening up the pool cover and giving that darned electrical problem one more shot. Tomorrow: Packing! And I'm trying to Fugitaboutit and start to think of the cool things we are going to experience... picturing myself floating up, up and away in the hot air balloon calmed me yesterday. I also realized yesterday that--even though I thought I had done some pretty amazing trips before--I've never had to plan more than a plane-taxi-hotel trip. I did a trip by myself years ago to Paris for 6 weeks. I flew to Paris (pre-911 days... what a breeze), checked into a hotel, bought a bicycle toured the town and had no problems. On another trip I winged it for 3000 miles throughout France and Switzerland on a moped without any reservations... camping in farmer's fields with gypsies, staying at hostels, 5 star hotels, pensions, castles--you name it. Of course, I was younger and dumber back then. Still, it was all good. This time around I've had to book flights, book car services, book 8 different hotels/agriturismos, 2 different car rentals, 3 different train trips, a hot air balloon ride, a Vatican tour and more... A lot different than a plan to a taxi to a hotel! (Wondering if the wind will blow us over San Gimignano's towers... nice.) --Jerry F. I've traveled to Europe a few times on my own over the years. Mostly in France (I lived in Paris for a bit) and a little into Switzerland. I traveled 5000 miles with a moped throughout France--a real adventure. Then we honeymooned in Paris. This time around, we are going with an 11 year old--our boy, Lucas. Early on I realized that we should set some goals for the trip--not an itinerary mind you, but actual goals. My main goal was to see the birthplace of my Dad--Molfetta in Puglia. I had no idea what else was in or near Molfetta--just that I wanted to pay homage to a great father and perhaps dip my toes in the same water that he did when he was a little boy and perhaps find out where his family used to live. My other goals were simple: see the Sistine Chapel, see Michaelangelo's David, drive in the Tuscan countryside and perhaps even the amazing white knuckle roads on the Amalfi Coast. Going into this I knew very little about Italy.
Lisa's goals were simple: See how they make great Italian food, pasta and pastries... stay in an agriturismo, see the Vatican, visit Venice and maybe take a hot air balloon ride. Lucas had goals too. See the Leaning Tower of Pisa, visit Pompeii, see Mount Vesuvius and eat real Italian pizza. (He is a bit of a gourmet, as far as kids go.) After understanding our mixed bag of goals, I then had to come up with a plan that did all (or most) of this. After all, Pisa is at one end of the country and Molfetta is at the other--in an area a little difficult to get to easily. We realized that Venice would have to go but Tuscany and Rome were must-sees. (Although early on we even thought of dropping Rome completely because of safety concerns). We even thought about flying into Milan, then driving to Venice, visiting Pisa and Tuscany and--somehow--get to Molfetta and then back to Rome and fly home from there. Wow! Those airlines really sock it to you with the price when you want to fly into one city and fly back from another! That plan died real fast. So, here we are with a pretty good plan to achieve most of our goals--with some new ones added on as we learned more about Italia. Fly into Rome then take a train to Chuisi in southern Tuscany. Rent a car and tool around that area a couple of days, then move on to an agriturismo near San Gimignano--within short drives to Siena, Pisa or Florence. After several more days we drop off our rental car in Florence and take a train down to Naples. Pick up another car and drive on to our 3 day stay on the Amalfi Coast, visiting Pompeii from there. Now comes the surprise part of the trip: While trying to find a way to get from the Amalfi area to Molfetta I discovered Basilicata. Never heard of it before. I discovered a rugged, natural mountainous area full of mystery, ghost towns, bandit history, and amazingly dramatic Machu Picchu-like towns clinging to rugged cliffs--Castelmezzano and Pietrapertosa. After a night in Castelmezzano and a stop at Pietrapartosa we will drive on to another discovery--Matera, a city where people have been living in caves for 40,000 years, with homes dug into the mountain that were occupied until the 1950s. Nowadays, there are posh hotels in these cave homes... we are staying in one. Nearby there are neolithic cave dwellings and thousand year old cave churches and deep gorges within view of the town. After leaving Matera and Basilicata behind, it's onto Puglia--my newly discovered favorite place--and a couple of day stay in a Trullo--cone shaped houses reminiscent of the ones in Oz. Many are half a millennium old and are now being restored into villas and guest houses. In this area (more Greek than Italian) are many whitewashed hilltowns, huge sinkholes, the best bread in Italy (Altamura), seashore, beaches and grottoes, strange dialects and two thousand year old olive trees producing the bulk of Italy's olive oil. And then there's Puglian wines (who knew?) and frutti di mare--fresher than one can believe. After the trullo stay, it's onto a Molfetta where I'll discover my roots. After that, a train from Bari will carry us back to Rome for a four day stay before heading home. Whew! This has really been months of planning, research, Googling, decisions, learning MS Project, emails and many bouts with Booking.com (a pretty painless way of finding and booking places to stay--lots of reviews). There you have it... our goals are met. At least most of them. Many compromises were made along the way... --Jerry F. So, you can see from Jerry’s last two posts that he is on THE BRINK. The >6 months of non-stop planning have finally gotten to him. I knew we were in trouble when he came back from the store today an announced that he had “had enough”. All righty then. Thankfully, we don’t both have nervous breakdowns at the same time, so at least one of us is logical at all times. No doubt, though, the stress of the countdown hangs heavy in the air, and the countdown seems to be moving faster than ever!. Picture this:
The house looks like a bomb hit it, and we are nowhere close to being packed. The stuff to pack is piling up…can we fit it in 3 carryons? It’s questionable at best. And then there is the technology. All the technology. And video and camera equipment. The way it’s all laid out on the dining room table, it looks to me like we need the company of a 4th person to handle it. Technology needs its own carry-on. And I'm still hanging on to my hair dryer--lol. Add on to that the phantom electrical problem, pool closing activities, cleaning, and let's see, what else can I pile on? It’s gonna be a rocky weekend for sure as we pack, finalize details and close up the house. Lots to do before we can officially deem ourselves “on vacation.” But we’ll get there. Big shout out to my wonderful husband for all his hard work planning this trip and for organizing the MASSIVE amounts of details, reservations, and more details, most without any help from me whatsoever. Without you, this 3-week trip would be daunting, uncharted territory. Instead, we’re going as honorary locals with a comfortable knowledge of the areas we are visiting. This trip will be awesome because of all your efforts and I look forward to a wonderful adventure with our little famiglia. Ti amo e ti apprezzo più di quanto si potrà mai sapere. Un sacco di baci! --Lisa I started checking long range weather forecasts on the Accuweather site last month. Their "extended" forecasts covers 45 days. At that point, I didn't expect accuracy--only a good estimation of rainy days versus sunny ones--along with getting a general feel for temperature ranges. This last week I'm getting more realistic forecasts, especially for the first few days after arriving. So far, we are sunny for landing in Rome and sunny for Tuscany, the first leg of our trip. I've also checked the water temperature on the Amalfi Coast and on the Puglian coast... both are pretty warm for this time of year--around 76 degrees Fahrenheit. Great for taking a dip or wading in a tide pool. Certainly good enough for tooling around in a boat for a while. Oh, and the hot air balloon trip we planned for Tuscany looks good so far... sunny. Can't wait. --Jerry F. So it's 4 days and counting. I'm counting by minutes, not days or hours. There aren't enough minutes in the hour--not enough hours in each day. I'm being hit by all sorts of curve-balls, too. Like when Lisa and Lucas said they "had" to go to his school's bingo night so Lucas can have one last blast seeing his friends. Right after school today, Mom decided Lucas needs a haircut, even though my view is he'll fit right in with Italian kids with a more shaggy cut. More time lost. And I need Lisa to sit down with me--uninterrupted--and double check all the paperwork and scheduling. And I still have some house buttoning up to do. Put away stuff in the sheds, put the pool pump away, etc....
And then there's the pain in my butt over the last 2 months. We've had an electrical problem that I've been hassling with... and that needs to get solved before we leave. I've done my own electric for the last 40 years or so, but this one has really got me stumped. After tackling the problem 6 times, revisiting with varied solutions, well... it's still is not working right. (I won't bore you with the details... this isn't an electrical forum). Needless to say, I'm trying to squeeze in another 2 hours this weekend to my already overburdened plate to give it one last try. Sigh. Yesterday I got all the lodging details and confirmations into PDFs and ready to install on my Kindles and phones. Today I'm loading them up. Next, it'll be making sure we have all the plane, train and automobile stuff ready and squared away... either in PDFs and/or in a folder to take with us. When going through the hotel details yesterday I came across our first one... an agriturismo in southern Tuscany. I ran the slide show of pictures and it DE-stressed me right away. I pictured myself sitting there looking out onto that rolling Tuscan vista. I pictured myself on that stone veranda having a glass of wine and some cheese. Ahh... Almost there... stay calm... --Jerry F. All I want to do this week is finish up all this planning. I want to do brainless work like putting away the pool pump, securing yard tools in my shed and starting to organize clothes and gizmos for packing. Pretty much I finished all my map work (the Google Earth pin maps) and GPS programming yesterday. Today--with exactly a week before landing in Rome, I've got another fire to put out...
First I got an email from Booking.com (where I booked most of our lodgings) saying that the credit card I am using for our reservations needs updating. Huh? It's a brand-new, unused card, except for charges for this trip. OK, so I update the info with via the special link they emailed. Then an agriturismo we are renting for 4 days emailed saying they can't do a prepayment on the card. OK, so I update the Booking.com info again, then email the agriturismo to try again. It still didn't work. So, I got on the phone with the credit card company to see if there is any type of security hold on any charges. There isn't. They already know about our trip to Italy, so it's nothing to do with that. I get another email confirmation from Booking.com so I email that to the agriturismo. They say it still won't work, but they see we have every intent on showing up. I beg them not to give away our rooms. Thinking this might be a glitch with Booking.com that might effect all our other reservations, I emailed them to explain and ask for help. They emailed back (very quickly, too) saying they checked and there are no reservations being affected. Whew! (Well, so far, anyway). They are also going to email the agriturismo having problems to tell them that we are in fact "confirmed". Next, I get an email from the credit card company confirming everything I discussed with them... "large purchases" are OK... duration of trip... Check! Can I relax yet? Maybe not... until AFTER I land in Rome, AFTER catching the car service to the train station, AFTER we take the train to our car pick-up town, AFTER the drive to our first agriturismo, and maybe... maybe... AFTER having slept the first Italian night, on an Italian bed with Italian tiles on the floor, and AFTER having a long, relaxing contemplazione of the hills of Tuscany for the first time with my wife and kid at my side... ahh... yesss... Mmmm... ahhh... Er... nice daydream! Wake up! There's still lots do do! Get those maps and files on the Kindles and phones! Here I go again... --Jerry F. I was hunting around in Google Images for some tourist maps and came across this great website... Mappery. It is dedicated to maps and created by lovers of maps. Contributers from all over the world scan and upload their maps. It's obvious that some are direct scans of travel worn (and wrinkled) maps direct from people's own voyages. All sorts of maps are on the site--tourist, hiking, topographical, historical, even a fantastic biking map of Rome and the surrounding countryside. I was amazed at the large selection for Italy. A great find. Enjoy. --Jerry F. Here's the thing. I love pizza. Always have, always will. I loved it since I was a kid and my Mom would make it in our little kitchen. She'd give me a little ball of dough to make a tiny one just for myself. The smell would waft out into the halls in our little apartment building, and my cousins--who lived upstairs--would know it's time to invade. I also hung out at the local pizzeria when I was a teen. I worked in the back helping to make dough and sauce, folded delivery boxes and delivered for tips... and got a lot of free slices. Dripping hot, cheesy, burn your tongue heat on a cold winter's Friday night--that's the best. But it wasn't until about 8 years ago that I became determined to make my own pizza at home. A baking stone, a good cutter, bread flour and a professional oven peel and almost a year of practice and lots of so-so pizzas. I even remember one time when I forgot to put the stone in the oven and shoved the pizza off my wooden peel right onto the oven rack. What a mess! Somehow, I managed to get most of it off the rack and folded it over and made my first ever Stromboli. I now consider myself somewhat of a pizza expert. I can manipulate the dough recipe to make it more crisp, more fluffy, more thick like a focaccia, super thin and more. I can make a Sicilian style, an upside down Chicago deep dish, rustic shaped, pan pizza, heart shaped and dog bone shaped. I've even made double crust stuffed pizzas and my own version of the edge-stuffed crust. Desert pizzas are killer when we have friends over. And at Thanksgiving time there's my Thanksgiving Pizza made with turkey, stuffing, cranberries and gravy. You can't belive how good that one is. I'm so into the nuances of pizza-making that I even noticed how a rainy day has a great effect on my pizzas... rainy day pizzas and better. Now I'm going to where pizza all started. I'm going to sample pizza all around Italy. But not the tourist pizzas you get across the street from the tourist hot-spots, but the real pizzas from the little mom & pop pizzerias and bakeries. I'm going to take notes with my mouth, my tongue and my belly. I'll see if there are differences between pizzas in Tuscany, Rome, Puglia, Amalfi or the mountain villages of Basilicata. I'll take pictures when the pizza is blog-worthy. I'll come back with new recipes and perhaps a few new techniques. Maybe I'll get a brick pizza oven someday so I can make those smoky, semi-charred pizzas. Stay tuned... and have a slice on me. Jerry F. Of course, I want this voyage to change Lucas' outlook on life and have a longterm effect on who he becomes as a man. When I went to live (for just under a year) in France in the Seventies, it changed my whole outlook on life, politics, food, and culture. I learned some of a new language. I saturated myself with French folklorique musique and put up with the likes of Johnnie Hallyday "rock n roll". Of course I want him to see the miracles of The David and Sistine Chapel, but I don't want to bore him with waits on extremely long lines and hall after hall of statue after statue. I mean, how much marble can a young boy take (that is, unless they are the colorful, rolling kind)? I want him to notice all the small things too... how we are the same but oh so different from people living in another culture: Clothes hanging on the balconies to dry, tiny grocery stores selling really fresh and flavorful fruit and strange looking veggies, lemons as big as grapefruits, weird 3 wheeled cars, roads so curvy and twisty that you have to hold your breath around each hairpin, "old" buildings not just 200 years old (as we have here in Pennsylvania) but over 2000 years old, and after dinner a stroll (passagiata) instead of watching a overly long episode of America's Got Talent.... I've also loaded my Google Earth pin maps with lots of other interesting and fun options: Italian go-karting (a real sport there), a cool amusement park (for a fun break), a huge cavern (Grotti di Castellana near Bari), thousands of real dinosaur footprints (Puglia), a prehistoric "caveman" (Altamura Man), bread that can last for a month (Pane Altamura), a hot air balloon ride over Tuscany, the "Manhattan Towers" of San Gimignano, a Ghost Town or two, a volcano, a night sleeping in an Oz-like house called a Trullo (near Alberobello), huge radio telescopes, an abandoned missile base, sea caves, a boat ride below the cliffs of Amalfi (I'll let him drive the boat), a tremendous sinkhole (he bacame a sinkhole expert after last year's science project), and some other surprises that neither Lucas or Lisa know about. Maybe we won't get to all of them, but depending on the mood and the weather, there are lots of things that I hope will keep him from getting bored.
And if all this fails, there's gelati... pizza, more gelati... then more pizza... then gelati... --Jerry F. We have two different car rentals setup for Italy. One in the north and another when we head south to Amalfi and on into Basilicata and Puglia. So Lisa tells me this week that the first rental charge showed up on the credit card bill but the second never did. I should call and make sure the reservation is good to go. Ok, so I call... and I'm so glad I did! It turns out that although this reservation still was in their system, they said it was set up for us to pay at the rental broker in Naples when we pick up the car. Huh? I set these up the same time and both with the same charge card. Not only that, but the Hertz rep on the phone (very nice actually) asked if I had the "voucher" numbers for each rental. Vouchers? All I have is the original confirmations when I booked them online. Not good enough. Apparently, they needed to mail (takes 2 weeks or more) or fax (ever hear of email?) the vouchers to us. This should have been done months ago when I first booked the cars. And they would not have given us the cars without vouchers! With less than three weeks to go I wasn't about to take a chance with the mail, so fax it was... er... but it's been so long since we received a fax I forgot which of our two phone numbers the fax was on. Uh... Ok, I think it's the second number. I told the rep that number and the second line started ringing.... so I run up two flights to our office and the fax is not being answered. I find the phone line is not attached and that it was really trying to come in on the line I was talking to the rep on. Ok, easy fix. But the phone jack is mislabeled. I quick give the other number and tell them to try that one. Long story short... it was over an hour before I had the two fax vouchers in my hand, BUT BOTH PHONE LINES KEPT RINGING for the next hour or more! Somehow, there were doubled up faxes cued up on their end that kept coming in. So, I had to plug in one line and then sit there receiving fax after fax until that line stopped ringing. Then I hooked up the other phone line and started accepting more faxes. Stress! But at lease I have the right vouchers and will get the cars. Sigh. Italian pizza had sure be better than my own... --Jerry F. It's no wonder that some people opt for a cookie cutter, travel agent planned trip--or even an (ugh) bus tour. It must be easy to sit in someone's storefront and tell them your likes and dislikes and <P U F F>... all of a sudden, your trip is planned for you. Well, I've been planning every little detail of this trip for months. Yes, months. This week it's been getting the details of our technology straight. Skype. Dropbox. Global Calling options added to our cellphones. Making scans of documents to upload to Dropbox (just in case we loose something) or put on our Kindles and phones. Making certain we have all the cables labeled and ready to go. Getting a new charger that uses higher voltage and can quick charge up to 5 devices at once. Reading manuals for a new camera we got for the trip. Whew! And maps. I'm still not quite done but getting there. I've used Google Earth to plan where to go and what to see--creating pin maps organized by folders (by region of our trip). I then saved each folder separately from Earth as a .kmz file which can be be copied to my PC, then onto either a smart phone or tablet. When I'm in a particular area I can load up "North Tuscany.kmz" and it will pop up in Google Earth! I can then plan our day before we leave our wifi equipped apartment. As for actual driving routes, I've used Google MAPS to get DIRECTIONS for each specific route. Now the tricky part... After you name and save the resulting map in MY PLACES, then click on MY PLACES, click again on the new map name, and you'll see a little link called KML. This will let you save the map as a .KML file which also can load up into Google Earth! Slick. For the more ad hoc driving around, I got a new Tom Tom GPS unit with the European maps already installed. I was trying to buy the Euro maps for my old Magellan but after a week of trying to download them with constant error messages I discovered from Magellan that no one in the world could get those maps due to server problems on their end. I couldn't even get them to send me a set on a memory stick (which is still an option on their web site for the same price as a direct download.) Anyway, the new Tom Tom is pretty easy to use and has some nice features. Plus, I'm adding addresses and phone numbers for all sorts of contacts in Italy. Am I finished? Not by a long shot... but I'm getting close. --Jerry Today I'm starting the school year. BUM BUM BUM! (No, not really) I like school, but sometimes I'm still happy to get a few days off school. For Italy I'm getting like a few weeks! And dad told me not to get sick in school, because if I do before the trip, the venture to Italy is GONZO! So I have wipes, sanitizer, etc. in my backpack, and hopefully I still don't get sick! -Lucas :) Setting Up Old Reliable, The Computer. Yesterday I sat down in my room, installing things that we need for the trip, like Google Earth (which won't work.), update the computer, etc. Old Reliable is what I call this old Windows laptop, like from 1990-something. We will probably use it to post posts on the blog and check my Gmail inbox. I found something out about that computer, it's like we haven't used it in 20 years (which we probably have) because up to the hour you're reading this, it's probably still updating. What Should I Bring What should I bring?, What should I bring?, What should I bring?, yeah. Really, what should I bring. Whenever mom and dad ask me I always answer: "ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I don't know?!" Okay, so I think I've figured it out. We each have a bag, and part of it will be clothes (I mean like, 3/4!) So probably next post, or the post after that, I might be able to share a little computerized drawing of what will be inside my bag (probably BORING stuff, like clothes, notebooks, a stinky old 3rd gen Kindle and 2 stuffed animals (I LOVE DOGS!)
Well, I hope you enjoyed this double-feature post, that's all for now! -Lucas I got all my ducks in a row months ago with the packing plan. I got a credit card that allowed us one checked bag each for free. Whew. Saving lots of money and not needing to lug baggage around the airport. I was a planning rockstar.
Then, whap! Hubby announces that from all his research, he has come to the conclusion that we should avoid checking ANY bags. To save time. Huh? Three weeks of clothes in a single carry on bag? How on earth was that supposed to happen? He gently explained we would not carry 3 weeks worth of clothes, we would have to do laundry whenever we could (or wash underwear in the sink if we needed to). Uh, ok. I'll keep an open mind, or at least try to. Airline max carry on dimensions were 9 x 14 x 22. The first bag he ordered as a trial didn't look too bad--smaller on one side than the other, but still staying within total linear dimensions. Maybe I could work with this. Then, the sneaky airlines removed "total linear dimension" flexibility. The trial bag was officially now too big. When the smaller bag came, I broke into a sweat. I was sure I couldn't fit even a week's worth of clothes in there, let alone all the accessories I needed. And so, we embarked on a trial packing session. He packed--no problem. When all you need is two pairs of jeans for a 3-week trip, you can't go wrong. But I'm a GIRL. I need a hairdryer. And shoes. And well, STUFF. We knew Lucas would not be a problem. And so, we embarked on a trial packing adventure for moi. I laid out all the clothes I wanted to bring--no not 3 weeks worth, enough for about 7-10 days. We folded, rolled, packed, squeezed (I continued to sweat) and squeeze some more. And you know what, it is possible to pack carry on only for a 3-week trip, provided you are willing to:
I won't lie, the girl who expects to have a nicely ironed change of clothes for every day is still getting used to this new way of travel. But I'm still not feeling washing underwear in the sink...stay tuned! --Lisa One amazing tool you might have right now... Microsoft OneNote. It has helped me keep track of all the research for this trip. The structure is simple: Create a notebook (called "Italy Trip" or whatever). Open tabs (called sections) titled for each part of your trip (Rome, Florence, etc.), add other sections to keep track of travel reservations, hotel reservations, etc. You can clip and paste ad hoc from the web... URLs, photos, bits of text, just about anything you can see on your screen.
In fact, a great ability is to use the print-screen key on your keyboard to print a web page or photo that typically can't easily be copied... then paste it from the buffer (control-v) into an image editor (I use Photoshop) to crop out unnecessary items, and then to paste the image into. This is an excellent way to capture an copy-protected image of something you want to reference later on. As long as you can see it on your screen, print-screen will print it to the copy buffer. You can then add pages to each section, although since the section spaces are truly virtual (without boundaries) I haven't found a need for that. Everything gets pasted onto one page and I just zoom in and out or scroll around. Every time I come across a travel tip, I cut and past it into OneNote. Items also retain their URL s. Just a click takes you back to the site where you originally found the information. OneNote also auto-saves. You will never lose your notes. Amazon has OneNote for around 60 bucks. --Jerry F. |
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