I was fortunate enough to be able to accompany my parents and a group of their (and my) friends to Italy in June, 2008. Here's the story that led up to the trip. Stories relating to the trip itself are contained in separate articles under this section and category.
Back in September of 2007, the (now) ex-wife and I were, for all intents, separated, and I was wondering what I was going to do for a vacation - and a badly needed one at that - for the coming travel season. I was thinking I might go ahead and do one of my "standard" week-long Mexico or Caribbean diving vacations when I was out to supper with the folks one evening. They were talking about this trip to Italy with a big group of people that was still in the early stages of planning. They were talking about this villa that could sleep a large number of people, and that the more people they had, the cheaper it would be for everyone. Italy had always been high on my list of places to visit in Europe once I finally had a chance (and the money) to go, so on a whim, I said, "I'll go!" I didn't really think I had a chance, but both of my folks stopped talking, looked at me with their heads cocked, and with an air of surprise said almost in unison, "Are you serious?" I said, "Hell yeah, I'm serious. I've always wanted to go to Italy, and at this point in my life I can actually afford it." Well, as it turned out, that's where it all started. Sure enough there was room available, and I was brought into the travel group.
First, where were we going to stay? Reba McHaney - a friend of the family for years and years, and my second grade and music teacher from way back - had found this villa in Rocca di Papa, a village about 25 km southeast of Rome. The pictures on the Internet were great, the reviews were great, and everyone in the group decided this was the place.
The name of the villa is Gli Olmi. According to the brochure we picked up, "Gli Olmi is a villa built in the early 1900's, fully furnished and remodernized, situated in Rocca di Papa in the heart of the Castelli Romani. It's not far from Rome (35 minutes by car), the villa is connected by Via Tuscolana and Via dei Laghi. Rocca di Papa is a pretty historic center near Monte Tuscolo's ruins, Lago di Albano (Lake Albano) and Pratoni del Vivaro. The villa is composed by five double rooms each with private bathrooms, plus one suite, and is surrounded by a garden with a marvelous view of Rome."
Anyway, Reba contacted them, made the reservation, and we paid our deposit in October. The villa rental worked out to be roughly $55 per person per night. Considering hotel rooms go for considerably more in the Rome area (especially considering the doller to Euro exchange rate), this was one heck of a good deal! My portion for the 2-week stay worked out to just shy of $800!!! Also, the kitchen of the villa was stocked with cooking utinsels and everything needed to cook. As it turns out, Reba's husband Mac does gourmet cooking as a hobby, and is a magnificent chef. We knew we'd be well accomodated and well fed the whole time we were there. With those two details taken care of, the rest of the planning could take place.
An interesting side note: we rented the villa through RentVillas.com. Since they are a brokerage/rental agency of sorts, there was obviously an extra fee included with the rental price. I'm not sure how much it was, but the owner of the villa (who Reba met our first day there - her name is Luli Campilli Santovetti) said we paid way too much, and for future rentals we should contact her directly - she'd "give us the rental for much cheaper." How much cheaper, I'm not sure, but should we decide to do another trip there and rent this villa, we'll definitely be contacting her directly and bypassing the agency.
Our group consisted of 12 people: me, my parents Carole and Jerry (all from Houston), Reba and Mac McHaney and Charles and Brenda Nail (all from Odessa, TX), Jack and Linda Stacey (from Portland, OR), Barry Mitchell (from Dallas), and Karl and Kathy Herzog (now from Houston, but recently from Tulsa, OK). With so many people coming from so many different places, flight arrangements were left up to the different parties. Mom, dad and I made arrangements through American Express Travel (probably the final time we'll do that, by the way...getting flight information and seat assignments was challenging at best), and ended up flying KLM from Houston to Amsterdam and then to Rome. Return flights were Alitalia from Rome to Newark, then Continental from Newark to Houston. Because of cost, obviously we flew coach (Barry was the lucky one - he had enough miles on American to fly business class both ways...must be nice). Also, the airfare turned out to be the biggest single expense for me at $1,650. Luckily, KLM and Alitalia are (at least at the time of this writing; things are about to change, though) all members of the SkyTeam alliance, and we would be able to earn Continental OnePass miles on all legs of the journey. And that's a good thing, because when it's all said and done, that should be just short of 12,000 miles in our accounts.
With those arrangements made, we had to decide what we wanted to see and do while there. Obviously, we had to do some of the touristy stuff. The Vatican, sights in Rome and obviously touring around the immediate area of Rocca di Papa were definites. The questions were: Do we want to see Florence? Venice? Naples and Isle of Capri? Sicily? Pompeii? Milan and the Italian Alps? What could we reasonably cram into the 2-week vacation without wearing ourselves out, yet still take advantage of the enourmous expense of getting there and see as much as possible?
After several discussions, Florence and Pompeii were in, but Venice, Naples (for reasons other than distance), Sicily and the north of Italy were out. We decided that those destinations were too far away to day-trip from Rome/Rocca, and the decision had been made that were were going to spend 2 nights in Florence anyway. Why waste the villa rental expense by paying for hotel somewhere else in addition to that rental rate? Naples was out because as it turns out, several mafia families there have been fighting for over 2 years for control of the garbage and waste disposal unions. In other words, there has been no trash service in Naples for over 2 years. Needless to say, Naples was nasty - didn't want to go there.
For the stay in Florence, my aunt Jackie had recommended a particular guide there. She's an art history major from Sydney, Australia, and has been living in Florence for several years. According to Jackie, she was just fabulous - so good, in fact, that they had used her twice on separate trips to Florence. With that recommendation, we contacted her and set up guided tours of the Uffizi Gallery and a walking tour of Florence. Those were to occur on two separate days, thus the two-night stay in Florence.
But how to get to Florence? Luckily Jack and Linda had a wonderful travel agent in Portland that was willing to help everyone in the group with obtaining rail tickets (as well as passes needed for a guided tour of the Vatican, passes for a "cruise" on the Tiber River, and hop-on/hop-off bus passes). She set us up in first class on the Trenitalia high-speed train between Rome and Florence, so we were set. Also because of Julie's help, we were set on a couple of our major "touristy" things (Vatican passes, etc.) as well as reservations at the hotel we would stay at while in Florence. Those accomodations, however, were not in Florence proper - they were in a small town roughly 25 km south of Florence called Tavarnelle.
With all of that in hand, there were just a few other details to work out. We had dates, rail tickets and accomodations for our Florence trip and passes to the Vatican. Julie also got us hop-on/hop-off bus tickets for a tour around Rome which could be used at any time. We had tickets for the Tiber River cruise, as well, so now we just needed to plan the rest of our days. These would be free days where folks could take some side trips or go shopping, or just hang around the villa and relax.
April came and it was time to pay the rest of the deposit on the villa. At that point, it was a done deal and everyone was ready to go!
I'll post the actual trip story in another article, to follow shortly.