Ok, June 1 – just at the 4-week point! Did a lot in the last week. My “non” Il Volo related weekend over the holiday weekend was quite busy, but I managed to research and make some decisions. I did take Bernard’s advice and looked into the links he had submitted in his comments. Ironically, I was already looking into Sienna and Chianti.
The Palio horse race I believe, is not for me. However, I did book a day tour on July 2, and it goes near where the horse race is! So, we will see if anything happens to our tour. On the first day we arrive, I booked a “make your own pizza and gelato” tour in Tuscany. We travel by a mini-bus through the region at about 6p to this villa to make our own pizza and gelato and get a history on how wine is made in the Chianti region. Then we get to eat what we make! Lol! That is on June 30. Not sure how jet-lagged we will be, but I just remember that I couldn’t sleep the first night I was in Germany! The next day is the concert and I left that day pretty open for sight-seeing and museum/church hopping. Wanted to stay as close to town as possible and to the Santa Croce – as we will be so close. Hope to get sightings of the guys, etc. Maybe even be able to listen to the sound check? Of course, probably loud enough, could listen from our hotel!
I’m going to be sure to take my VIP passes from the concerts and from the Flight Crew Fan Faire – maybe I’ll get special access to somewhere? As I’d mentioned, July 2, I booked an all day tour into Sienna and Gimignano, and another city I cannot pronounce. It is a 10 hour tour, but we should be back no later than 8p or so, still plenty of time to get to bed and get up early the next morning. We are now spending a night in Venice!
Yes, July 3 is Venice day! We take the train from Florence, into Venice, arriving approximately 10:30a. I booked an afternoon tour to the Murano Glass factory and Burano – it’s about a 4 hour tour. Should get us back early evening for a nice dinner, and again, lots of time to get a good night’s sleep. The next morning, we again take the train to Verona, just about an hour train ride from Venice. We arrive by 10a or so and have the whole day to tour Verona. Again, I left the day open to whatever and wherever the moment takes us. I doubt we’ll be able to get too near the Arena di Verona before the concert though?
I watched the Verona concert again and was trying to figure out where our seats will be. Well, we will be really far back! We are in the “no cushion/no backrest” zone, but the 2nd row, which is pretty good, and they are assigned seats. We really weren’t paying too much attention when we booked our tickets for Verona, but we will be there in spirit and the guys will be about as big as our thumbnails, if we are lucky! Maybe even our little fingers? Lol!
On Monday, Lorna came over and we actually booked our day trips, train tickets, and reserved the car. I am getting a lot of good advice from people who have been there before, so that is nice. Yes, it is getting more real! Still a few decisions to make, but it’s coming along. I found a different train website and decided it would be cheaper to just get direct train tickets for each trip, instead of the Eurail pass. So, that is what I did, and they are first class tickets on the fast trains – they weren’t much more than the 2nd class.
The day after Verona, we will be taking the train again to Rome, where we pick up the rental car. We also still need to get our international driver’s licenses from AAA. One of the easier things on our list of things to do. Even though Lorna will be doing the driving, I think I will get one too, just in case….
I checked with Dani on the “bug” issue and yikes, there are mosquitoes there! I am going to be fresh, foreign blood for them. I’m a mosquito magnet and I purposely don’t go out at night, if I can help it to avoid them – now I will be outside for HOURS for 2 concerts! Any suggestions on bug spray or repellant? Should I take some with me, or try to buy it there? I was also just reading today that the Zika virus is in Italy! Hope the guys are protected!
And gasoline? We really can’t complain about our gas prices here! Dani was saying they are about 1.60 euros a liter! That’s like what, almost $7.00 a gallon or so (3.78 liters to 1 gallon)? Good thing we are renting a very small economy car!
Also, had a little anxiety attack on Sunday. As I was creating our itinerary, for some reason, I wanted to double check our seat assignments. So, I signed in on Delta to check our seats. Uh oh, we weren’t in Kansas anymore, or the comfort class either, on our return flight home from Rome! We were in row 18 and that was preferred seating, but didn’t say comfort class. We paid extra for the upgrades, so I had to change our seats back to rows 12/13. We are at least behind each other. Maybe we can switch seats with someone at check-in? Yes, getting chest pains there. I had to tell myself “breathe, Jana, breathe…” I had a few glasses of wine and some aspirin and felt a lot better an hour later! I’m going to check again later, just to make sure we still have those seats!!
Also found another Flight Crew member who will be joining us for both concerts. She is from New Orleans. She was also able to book a few of the same hotels we are in for Florence, Venice, and Verona. She has been there before, so it will be nice to hang with someone for a little while to show us around town!
Since many of you responded that you don’t want me to limit my ramblings here, I will continue to give you my play-by-play of my planning – all the details! I just hope I don’t pass my panic attacks on to you!
That just about sums it up for now – still many things to do, like what to pack, we can check a bag for free, so do I take the 2nd bag? Not used to having to claim luggage… lol! The rest of our trip is fairly open after we get to Silvi, except for an outing to the beach.
Ok, what is next on my agenda? I have a few things up my sleeve… have to leave you with a little cliffhanger? Lol! And, what do we have here? Another empty frame? lol!
Oh, one more thing… I bought a 128GB micro SD card disk for my phone for extra room for pictures and videos – you think that’s enough? It was the largest my phone would hold! lol! Geez, I remember the old days when my PC was upgraded at work and it had a whole 1GB of space on it!
Ciao – Jana!
