No Trip in 2017; Revisiting Our Italy Trips Plus Great November 2017 Airfare!

British Airways November 2017 fare: $453.99 round trip from Boston to Milan (Linate Airport)!!!

For the first time in four years, we are not going to Italy in the Fall. Upon our return last November, we closed on our "new" house and put our "old" house on the market. So here we were loading U-Haul trucks throughout December for our move, right after we received an almost immediate offer on our house. With improvements also to be made on the new place, we knew we would have little time or inclination to travel too far this year.

That leaves me with no travel planning this summer which has left kind of a void in my favorite pastime - booking plane tickets, reserving fast train seats and renting self-catering apartments or a hotel room in Florence, Bologna, Sorrento, Milan or Cinque Terre. Suffering some withdrawal pains here suddenly, I decided to share some more photos from our four Italy adventures in 2011, 2014, 2015 and 2016.

I hope you find something to whet your appetite and to urge you on to Italy. I know there are still places we'd like to visit. We would also like to spend a week in a couple of places that we have already gone to like Riomaggiore and Sorrento. Of course, we love Florence still, and I have really been excited about Bologna after visiting on two trips and would love to spend more time there, too. So many places, so little time...

One surprising development today, is that airfares for November 2017 are even lower than we have ever paid. Yesterday, I was alerted to a British Airways round trip fare to Milan's Linate Airport for $453.99 each! And, the flight times and durations were also very good (no long layovers). Since we traveled last November on Aer Lingus for $667.00 RT each with only two carry-on bags, the British Airways fare represents considerable savings of $$426 (for 2 RT tickets) even if we have to pay extra for our carry-ons (which I have yet to research).

Still, we won't plan a trip for this year, but you still could! Now would be the time to start your search for a great airfare, lodging, train tickets, individual tours or car rentals. Please see past posts here for great worthwhile information on making plans and reservations. Italy IS waiting for you - get going!

Now, here on some photos from our four trips to whet your appetite:

2011 Cinque Terre

2011 Lucca

2011 Cinque Terre

2011 Greve in Chianti

2011 Venice

2011  Venice

2011 Florence

2011 Florence

2011 Florence

2015 Siena

2015 Siena at Cane e Gatto

2015 Milan at Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II

2015 Milan Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II

2015 Milan

2015 Milan

2015 Milan

2015 Varenna, Lake Como

2015  Lake Como

2015 Varenna, Lake Como

2015 Florence

2015 Florence Sasso di Dante

2015 Florence Palazzo Pitti

2015 Florence Palazzo Pitti

2016 Bologna

2016 Bologna

2016 Sorrento

2016 Sorrento View of Vesuvius from Sorrento

2016 Modena

2016 Modena Lunch

2016 Almafi

2016 Almafi

Milan To Varenna To Bellagio and Back

Narrow street/alley stairway, Lake Como

Bellagio View

View from Ristorante Vecchia Varenna outdoor seating.

Lake Como, View from the ferry

  Getting to Lake Como from Milan was fairly easy. The Milano Centrale Train Station was less than a 5 minute walk from our Hotel Mythos (we booked our room through booking.com). We bought our "andata e ritorno" (round trip) tickets for 6,70 euros each for the two of us (26,80 euros total - about $30). The regional Trenord train would take us from Milan to the Varenna-Esino station. We validated our tickets before boarding our train; more about this in another post, but always be sure to validate your train tickets prior to boarding or you could be in for a BIG fine of 50 euros! It was a nice one hour trip with some beautiful mountain and lake views.
  We arrived at the Varenna-Esino station at 9:30 in the morning. The town of Varenna and the waterfront was an easy 5 minute walk down the hill from the station. Just follow the signs. The ferry ticket booth was our first stop. Round trip tickets to Bellagio cost about 10,40 euro for two. Since we had about an hour wait for the next ferry, we found a cute little place for coffee (please see the previous post).
  What a beautiful boat ride it was under a clear sky with the temperature near 65 degrees! Though we were cautioned that there might not be restaurants open past the first week of November, there were several open in Varenna and Bellagio right on the waterfront. Much of Bellagio is built into a hill providing for some ancient stone stairways in the narrow alleys between streets. We enjoyed walking the stairways to the opposite side of the town where sailboats were nestled near the shore. After checking out the town's restaurant menus, we boarded the ferry back to Varenna for lunch.
   The place we chose for Debbie's birthday lunch was the cozy Vecchia Varenna Ristorante right at the water's edge. The moderately priced menu was just a bit too gourmet for me, but we both were able to choose wine, antipasti and entrees that we liked.  Our waiter was also kind enough to bring our shared dessert with a single birthday candle for Debbie. Here is my Tripadvisor review.
   We ended the birthday celebration with a glass of wine and snacks ( 3 euros per glass) at L'Orso Pub & Osteria, once again seated outside enjoying the beautiful lakefront view. At the end of this wonderful and relaxing day on Lake Como, we walked back to the train station for the trip back to Milan.

Lake Como in November

On our recent trip to Italy, we wanted to celebrate Debbie's 65th birthday at Lake Como on November 9th. We were hoping to find a nice place for lunch on a day train trip (one hour on Trenord) from Milan. As I researched Lake Como on Tripadvisor and Rick Steves, I kept reading that there may not be many restaurants open after November 1st, especially on a Monday. I contacted a few that were open in November, but they didn't open on Monday.  Since the weather forecast was so fantastic, we decided to go and took the train to Varenna. We got there right on time at about 10 AM. We found a wonderful little place, Varenna Caffe, right on the water. (please see my photo below). We sat outside with our caffe Americano and a muffin and totally enjoyed the view.  From the Caffe Varenna, we took the ferry to Bellagio and back...More on this great day trip on my next post.

Varenna Caffe View

Here is my Tripadvisor review for the Varenna Caffe.