After a several years of trying, the stars finally aligned for us to take a vacation to Italy! One of our main objectives was to visit our good friends (Patrick and Todd) in Bologna, where they relocated just prior to the pandemic. We had hoped to add on a Rick Steves tour of Italy's highlights to avoid having to do all the planning, but that didn't pan out. So we (i.e., mostly Karen) cooked up our own itinerary that stuck mostly to the central part of the country. Our basic strategies were to (a) travel mostly by train to avoid driving; (b) stay in places for several days to keep the pace manageable; (c) have a mix of sightseeing and outdoor activities; and (d) travel light, with a single carry-on bag and a small backpack each.
In addition to our excitement, we had a few areas of uncertainty as the trip approached. First, it was our first real trip to Europe, and our first "sightseeing" (i.e., non-outdoor-adventure) vacation. Karen had gone to Spain as a child, and Tom had short business trips to Germany and France ... but those didn't really count. Would we enjoy day after day of cultural input, or burn out on it? Also, our command of Italian ranged from very limited (Karen) to essentially none (Tom). We hoped this wouldn't be a major problem, as we armed ourselves with translators on our phone. A pretty significant concern was that our knees were in various stages of disrepair. Walking most of the day, every day, would certainly be a test. But we also figured we could have rest days, if needed.
So off we went. The flights and airports went as smoothly as could be hoped for. The first leg took us from Seattle to Amsterdam, over northern Canada and Greenland. Northern Canada looked like it was still in winter, with frozen lakes dotted across the tundra ... and no sight of Greenland (dark/cloudy). Interestingly, I saw the sunset and the sunrise out of the same window of the airplane about 3 hours apart (still haven't thought about that enough to completely understand it). On the second leg to Milan, there were some nice views of the Alps, the Lakes Region of northern Italy, and some farm country near Milan.
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Sunrise at 39000 feet
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The Alps
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Italian farmland. Notice the densely packed town with clear boundaries.
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