Your flights are booked, you know where the embassy and hospital are, you may have a list of restaurants you want to try or sights you want to see. You’re a few days out from your trip, and you’re starting to pack. I tend to start packing about 3 days before the trip. Generally, what I take on the trip isn’t stuff that I use when I’m home, so I can pack early. If I find that I’m missing something necessary, I can get on Amazon and get it shipped to me within a day or two and still be ok. If you’re like my friend Cristina, you’ll start packing the night before the trip and spend about 8 hours trying to sort through things to figure out what to bring and what to leave behind. Either approach is valid (but mine is better). Wherever you’re going, there are probably a few things that are staples for almost any trip.
Before Your Trip
Congratulations! At this point, you’ve hopefully booked your flight and your hotels, you know where you’re going and when. You haven’t started packing yet (that’s next week’s post), but you’re starting to get excited about the trip. There’s a couple of things that you’ll want to do to make sure your trip goes smoothly.
Pre-Planning
There’s a lot to do when you’re getting ready for a trip. From the time that you start thinking about getting out of town to the time that you finish doing laundry and getting the airplane funk out of your clothes after your return, there are a lot of things that need to be covered. I’d like to dedicate a few posts to some of that planning process. These are tips and tricks that I’ve picked up (or made up) over the years. Feel free to add your suggestions in the comments!
Travel Bags
As I prepared for my last trip and started to think forward to my next trips, I realized that the bags that I have, while adequate, weren’t going to cut it. One bag is purely a duffel style. It’s great and has a large capacity, but uncomfortable to carry for a long period of time. The other is more of a backpack, but it doesn’t sit well on your back. I’ve used it for years, but it’s not quite ‘right’ for a long trip. So off to the internet I went, looking for something better.
Naples
I highly recommend visiting Naples. Fly in, tour the city for a few hours, and then go somewhere else.
Michelin Stars and Rossellinis
Do you know where the Michelin restaurant star rating system came from? I didn’t, until I started researching this trip. Michelin, the tire company that uses the Stay-Puft marshmallow man as a spokesperson, used to put out a guidebook for people on road trips. This was back in the days when the internet wasn’t even a real word yet. In the guidebook, they’d list all of the restaurants that you could stop at along your travels. I remember going on family road trips in the 80’s and using the AAA guidebook in the same way. But apparently the folks at Michelin took it one step further. They started rating restaurants. Any restaurant with at least one Michelin star is worth going to. It’s not like Yelp, where a roach coach can get a star. A one Michelin star restaurant is likely a better restaurant than you’ve been to in the past year, possibly better than you’ve ever been to.
Ravello
Ravello, a tiny little town in the heart of the Amalfi Coast in Italy. Nestled among the mountains, this village offers breathtaking views of the coast and the surrounding… never mind. I can’t write like that. It is a great little town, though, with great views. There’s not a whole lot to do here other than eat and drink. Since those are two things that I’m really good at, it’s not a bad place for me to hang out for a few days.
Cooking at Acquolina
Today was a fun day in Venice. More specifically, we were in Lido, a large island just outside of Venice proper. I’m not sure if it’s actually part of Venice, but you can take the vaporetto (the water taxi) there, so I’m guessing that it is. We had a cooking class set up at the Acquolina cooking school, led by Marika. There were a total of 6 students, Cristina and I, 2 other Americans and 2 Canadians. Marika was a very friendly and engaging instructor, walking us through the process of making good pasta dough (and why Italian pasta is better than you find anywhere else), making fettuccini, ravioli and gnocchi from scratch.
The Rialto Market
The Rialto market is one of Venice’s most well-known sites. Go early in the morning (8A-ish) so you get the full experience of fresh fish and seafood, tons of fruits and vegetables and the vendors hawking their wares. We made the mistake of going later in the day when we went the first time, and we were greeted by sad leftover fish parts and plenty of produce that had seen better days.
The Vaporetto
Ah, the vaporetto. It’s like being on a motorboat with a bunch of people who treat it like a local bus. Well, that’s exactly what it is. It’s a bus boat. For all I know, vaporetto translates to “bus boat”. Or possibly to “cattle car on the river.”