Published: 31 March 2011

Our plan has always been to go to Italy this summer.  This thought has been floating in our household for about 6 months and yet (until this morning) not a single thing was booked.  No plane tickets, no accommodation, no train… nothing/nada/zip.  In fact, besides a very broad idea of when and where we still totally up in the air.  I thought the mere idea of thinking about it would somehow make it magically plan itself… and with getting this website set up I have let things slip a teensy bit.  I was feeling a tad overwhelmed and unsure where to begin so I decided to take my own advice; I looked at this site and went to the Obstacle 'It's Too Much Work to Plan!'.  Where to begin - well, how about the dates?  Last night we sat with the calendar and played around with the airline sites and decided on when - August 6 - 27.  By leaving on the 6th we actually arrive on the 7th which makes for just shy of 3 weeks.  Okay, next comes where.  Well, Italy was what we were thinking (and the fact that I've been taking a Continuing Ed Italian class made that a must).  But Italy is a big place - how do you narrow it down?  We'd been discussing it and had previously decided to stay north of Rome as it will be crazy hot in southern Italy in August.  I'm sure it will still be hot elsewhere in Italy, just hopefully not a tandoori oven.  As far as the cities/regions we want to visit Rome is a must-do if only for a few days, as well as Florence and the requisite Pisa.  Ideally we'd like to stay by the Mediterranean for awhile and just relax, but we'd also like to go to Venice.  Oh, and just to mix things up we have some Dutch family holidaying in the lake region of Northern Italy at that time and it would be great to stop by for a few days and visit.  So…. how does that all fit in?  This blog will document real-time planning to show the process I go through and how much I empathize and understand how complicated planning a trip like this can be!