Italy: Overview

Italy

In our two fourteen day trips to Italy, we have hit over fifteen cities. Wanting to share every meal and adventure with you, I will be breaking out aspects of each trip over multiple blog posts. As an overview, here are the itineraries from each trip. In preparation of our first trip, we took Italian level 1 and 2 through our local community college (two and three hour classes, twice a week for ten weeks) to prepare for our adventure. I think it definitely helped to give us a grasp of basic Italian, especially since some of the towns we explored had little English speaking natives. If you plan a trip and stick to the major cities, you will have no issues with Italian since English is readily available! And yes, we packed for both trips in a carry on backpack.

Trip 1 Itinerary

Our first trip to Italy together in 2015 I think we planned as if we would never have the chance to go back to Italy again. See everything- nine stops overall on this trip over two weeks! A bit aggressive, but we were able to fit in so many experiences throughout the country. Thankfully, Italy has a fantastic public transportation system that permitted us to cram in all the places on this trip.

• Flight into Milan
• Verona (Days 1 through 3)
• Modena (Day 3)
• Florence (Day 3 through 7)
• Chianti (Day 5)
• Siena (Day 7 through  Day 10)
• Montalcino (Day 9)
• Orvieto (Day 10 through Day 12)
• Milan (Day 12 through Day 15)
• Lake Como (Day 14)
• Flight out of Milan

Trip 2 Itinerary

Our second trip to Italy in 2016 was a much different trip. We stayed in four areas that we got to know very well, two of which comprised of the majority of our trip. Since we had done tourist attractions on the previous trip, we felt less compelled to see every museum and every church in a guide, but instead enjoyed getting lost in the streets and discovering local gems that you will not find in that guide book.

• Flight into Milan
• Florence (Day 1 through Day 7)
• Chianti Classico (Day 2)
• Camogli (Day 7 through Day 8)
• Genova (Day 8)
• Asti (Day 8 through Day 13)
• Torino (Day 13 through Day 14)
• Flight out of Milan

Stay tuned for detail trip experiences! Our first trip to Italy is how the Packing in a Carry On for Long (or Short) Trips got started and we carried those same principles to our second Italy trip, as well as all our other travel destinations.