Last spring, my family took a trip to Italy for an epic family reunion! I am so thankful to my cousin for planning the majority of this trip because it was a logistical challenge to say the least. We had a very large group of people ranging from 7 years old to 80+. Additionally, everyone was arriving and leaving from different cities on different days... and my aunt was rolling around with a walker because she had recently injured her foot. It was quite the adventure. 😊
Rome – Part 1
My party of 3 arrived in Rome. We had 2 days to explore the city before meeting up with everyone else. We took an uber from the airport to our hotel, Hotel Navona Tower Relais, in Piazza Navona. Piazza Navona was a wonderful location to stay! It was centrally located and surrounded by a lot of shops and restaurants. There was a beautiful fountain in the center of the piazza and the whole vibe screamed “Italy”. After dropping our bags at the hotel, we were picked up right out front by our tour guide for the day.
I reserved a private golf cart tour with “My Best Tour”. After a long flight and not much rest, I didn’t think we’d want to spend hours walking around on the first day, but I also didn’t want to waste the day sleeping. This was a perfect compromise. Our tour guide took else around the entire city and we didn’t have to sit in traffic once! He was so knowledgeable and we were able to move at a pace that kept my 7 year old from complaining. Our tour included 1 hour inside the Colosseum as well, which was just right for us. We learned that many years ago, the king would flood the Colosseum and have ships battle each other! That night, we ate a delicious pasta dinner in the piazza followed by gelato!
We were up bright and early the next morning (hooray for jet lag) and had no problem making our 8 AM entry time for the Vatican museums. Being there so early meant no lines yet, so we walked right into the museum. We spent the next 2 hours exploring and at one point thought to circle back through, but it was completely packed. Lunch today was an American Kid special at McD’s for a happy meal. Fun fact, the happy meals in Italy come with a side of parmesan cheese. Later that day, we went to see Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary. That was a bit underwhelming in compared to all of the other amazing things in Rome!
Before dinner at Osteria Da Fortunata, we explored the ruins buried beneath the piazza. It was very cool. Dinner was unfortunately sub par and I learned the hard way that there are bad Italian restaurants in Italy.
The next morning, I picked up our rental car from Europcar and we drove South to Bagnoli Irpino, where my Dad’s side of the family is from. We spent a few days visiting with family and eating a TON of food. I was 12 years old the last time I visited and not much has changed. Everyone watched us parade around the piazza in our large group.
Mount Vesuvius / Sorrento
From Bagnoli Irpino, we drove to Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii. I almost drove off the side of the volcano more times that I would care to admit, but eventually we made it to the parking area and took a shuttle to the entrance. My son took one look at how high up the hike was and immediately decided to wait at the bottom with my Aunt. It wasn’t a terrible hike, but the path was very gravelly and it was easy to slip around. Once we made it to the top, we could look down into the crater.
After hiking back down, we drove over to Pompeii to meet our tour guide. My son does not do well on organized tours, so we cut off from the rest of the group to move at our own pace. I learned that only a very small part of Pompeii has be excavated. There is a lot more that is not yet uncovered. Overall, this was a good educational stop and very cool to walk outside, but the indoor section of the museum itself was a bit underwhelming.
After the tour, we grabbed lunch at Ristorante Pizzeria La Gare. It was average, but that is expected given its proximity to a tourist attraction.
We ended the day in Sorrento, where I dropped off my rental car and checked in to our next hotel.
Sorrento was my favorite stop by far! It is the cutest town to walk around. There are a lot of shops and restaurants and everything is easy to navigate. I ate some limone gelato inside of a giant lemon and grabbed some late night bites and wine at a local bar. Sorrento has so many good shops for souvenirs and trinkets, and Nino & Friends was amazing!
The next morning, we all got picked up to head to an all-day foodie tour with Il Turuziello. We started the tour in a little café, where we enjoyed an espresso. Our guide took us up to their family’s lemon farm in a very small truck that zoomed through streets more narrow than my wingspan. We walked through the lemon trees and then enjoyed an olive oil tasting. After the tasting, we learned how mozzarella is made and got to taste the deliciousness each step of the way. It was a very fun, hands-on, full day activity! That night we ate the best gnocchi of my life at Oysteria di Famiglia.
The next day, some of our group headed on a bus tour to the Amalfi Coast. My family took a ferry boat to Capri. Unfortunately, it was too windy to go to the Blue Grotto, but we had a lovely day walking around the island. After another gelato, we jumped on a bus to Anacapri to take the funicular to the top of Mount Solaro. That experience was a lot of fun! After another night of delicious food, we went back to our hotel for the last night in Sorrento.
Florence
The next morning, we jumped on the Circumvensia train to Naples. From there, we switched to the Frecchia Rosa, which brought us to Florence and our next leg of the trip. We stayed near the train station, which admittedly, was not the best area. It was close enough to walk to the Galleria Accademia to see The David, which was definitely worth a visit. That night we had dinner nearby and then went to Rivoire Firenze for hot chocolate.
We split from the group the next day as they were going shopping and we headed to Pisa. It was a quick 1 hour train ride to Pisa and a nice walk from the Pisa train station over to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We did not go in the tower, but were able to enjoy the view fully from the ground. We took our required tourist photos and then grabbed lunch and gelato nearby. This was a fun and easy day trip from Florence.
That night, we met up with the group for dinner at Antica Osteria 1 Rosso. It was a cute restaurant, but comparatively not the best meal on our trip.
My husband’s birthday was the following day and we all headed out to wine country to celebrate. We stopped in a few different vineyards in Montepulciano. We also stopped for snacks, including sheep’s milk gelato in Pienza. Our last vineyard in Montepulciano included lunch.
Rome – Part 2
We boarded the train back to Rome the next morning. For our last day in Rome, we decided to stay out by Villa Borghese and explore the large park, Borghese Gallery, and Zoo! We met up with some local friends for dinner that evening and then grabbed a plane back to Boston the next morning. Overall, we had a really great time. Rome and Sorrento were my favorite cities by far. The beautiful architecture of Rome and the all-day cheese/lemon/olive oil tasting in Sorrento are not to be missed! I know I will be back again!
