
I think I will start by saying a couple of general things and will go into more details as I go on. Our Italian vacation — as most of our vacations tend to be — was great. We really liked Italy and all the cultural and historical experiences that it has to offer along with an abundance of famous places to visit.
Having said that I probably should mention that while we enjoyed our trip greatly we weren’t completely swept off our feet the same way we were in Japan. I’m not exactly sure why, but it probably has something to do with the fact that we really wanted to visit Japan for many years and year after year some obstacle would prevent us from going. So when we finally managed to do it — the achievement itself made if feel more special. And then there is the fact that it still is much more exotic of an experience. After all — United States itself, even though quite a bit different — did originate from Europe, while Japan existed and developed on a very different trajectory for thousands of years.

So a short summary of our trip would be that we got lucky with the weather, loved our Hilton hotels, used trains with great success to get around and even rented a car for one day. We tried a good number of Italian specialties and had a rather good luck with randomly picking places to dine at. All the cities look and feel quite differently from familiar to us U.S. cities and we loved exploring each and every one of them. But my favorite stop of all would have to be Venice — there is just nothing like it in the world and you feel how special it is when you’re there.

However a bigger advantage of the time of the year that we picked was the fact there were no enormous crowds. There were still tons of tourists everywhere, but we didn’t encounter a single line — no line to Saint Peter Basilica, no line to Vatican Museums, no line to Uffizi Gallery and tons of empty restaurants which were very happy to serve us.

But of course the best part of the timing of our trip was the fact that we ended up celebrating our 6th wedding anniversary in possibly the most romantic place on earth — Venice.
And now having all of the above laid out I can jump right into our trip and start from the beginning and get deeper into details.
P.S. Selecting photographs for the introductory post was really hard. I didn’t want to use up photos from the stories about each city, yet this post came out looking really photo-scarce. We’ll probably readjust this when we are done with all the posts.
December 10, 2012 @ 11:33
Man, you guys lucked out on the floods. A week before you left I was literally seeing pics of people taking a swim in the middle of Saint Marco’s plaza. While it might have been an interesting experience I doubt it would have been a pleasant one
December 10, 2012 @ 13:05
I agree. We were a bit scared, but were hopeful that by the time we get there it will be OK. I find the fact that the flooding resumed right after we left a bit freaky.
December 17, 2012 @ 13:03
My husband and I have a New Years anniversary trip planned to Venice. Any great restaurants you loved and would recommend?
December 17, 2012 @ 14:24
The place that stands out for me the most in Venice was San Stefano. Black Ink Risotto was really good. It was located on Campo San Stefano, not far from Accademia Bridge in San Marco district.
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