i would recommend staying in Rome for at least 3 days (1 day for the vatican and 2 or more to explore the city) if you want to see more architecture, take a train to florence or naples. maybe spend a day traveling through the vinyards of tuscany, sampling chiantis. it all depends on what you like... art? architecture? food?
you only have seven days...
i'd stay in and around rome..cause you'll barely do it justice
in that...rome itself is amazing..and you can do daytrips
to the new weird rome which i can't remember the name of..
you can go to hadrian's villa and florence is almost close enough
for a trip...but i'd relax..assume you'll come back and really
see rome...colliseum, caesar's forum, catacombs, pantheon,
campidoglio...etc.
if i were to make one special trip though it'd be to verona
to see carlo scarpa's castelvecchio...definitely worth the time.
and if you're going to brion's cemetary...i believe
aldo rossi's cemetary is around there..and i know
tadao ando's benneton think tank is there..
as well as a benneton factory with some nice details
ti be honest......... don't go to venice....... go wherever u want to go but not venice.... or if u insist.. go and then don't blame us if u have asthma (the smell ) ewwwwwwww
it would be a bit of a hike if you're only there for a week, but the almalfi coast (south of naples, near sorrento) was probably one of if not the most beautiful place i went in my 9 months in europe. very few tourists and sorrento serves up some incredible food.
Florence is my favorite city in Italy. Then again, if you only have a week you could easily fill all that time in Roma. I would suggest you concentrate your time on Roma but take a two day excursion up to Florence, check out the duomo, ponte veccio bridge, etc. and then finish up in Rome with a couple more days.
unless you want to spend half of your time in italy enjoying ferrovie dello stato (not the worst train service though) I would suggest as well to stick to Rome, maybe Naples and Florence if you think that you want to move necessarily. The other option is to decide to move north immediately - it is a 6-10h trip to verona/venezia. (padova, vicenza, mantova are all worth spending a day). The point is to chose 1/2places and enjoy them well.
There is a whole lot of classical stuff to see in Rome, some museums have been renewed (the new campidoglio museum has a lovely cafe on the top that oversees half of the city centre), you run into all the baroque churches you might have studied (+painting,sculpture...). Just for walks Trastevere is lovely on a sunny day, the fascist buildings still worth seeing...
the only tourists seeing italy in a week are those spending a day in each city and travelling by night (have even seen a 1am japanese tours around venice), trying to fit all in a week.
The weird new rome is the EUR, designed in the age of Mussolini. Its fascist architecture to the max! Now it contains a bunch of museums with replicas of original artifacts. The best, though, is a huge model of the ancient city of Rome, about 100 feet wide or more from what I remember.
The whole production feels a little weird because it is designed on such a monumental scale, but it is pretty much devoid of serious human habitation. A think a lot of lessons can be taken from EUR, for better or for worse. Was its failure largely for political reasons (i.e. the decline of fascism) or for design reasons (huge boulevards cutting through, a general feeling of agoraphobia, lack of non-civic architecture, etc.)?
Oh, to get to EUR, I think you can take the city's metro system, which you can board at the Colloseum. Another site that I liked a lot was the port city of Ostia. Not as many fat Americans as Pompeii, but it can be pretty nice, especially when the poppys are in bloom.
seven days - just stay in rome and go to the pantheon each morning before
starting off on the rest of the day....there's a lot to see in that city. brush up
on your borromini, bernini, and michelangelo.....and EUR (fascist city) is worth the trip....my favorite is some of the luigi morretti buildings that are around town. enjoy!
naples is great as described above....love the noise. there is a very amazing
exhibit of carravaggio in naples at this moment, the only time that all of his
major paintings will be assembled together...that and the pizza makes it worth a short trip - see herculaneum/pompeii while there.
not sure if the caravaggio show will be there in march - so check if interested.
Yes you can get to the EUR from the metro fairly easily. The most famous part of the EUR is the "square colliseum" you'll know what I mean if you go. I remember the big model of the Ancient Rome as someone mentioned above as well. Pretty Cool.
You only have 7 days - concentrate on the wonderful things Rome has to offer. Get a good guide book - I used the Blue Book I think it is called - it is aimed more towards the architecturally minded traveler than say Fodors.
For a day trip outside of Rome - try Villa d'este - some of the most beauitful gardens and waterfalls in the world. Florence is a two hour train ride and well worth at least a day.
For in Rome - hit a few of the touristy sites like the Colliseum and St. Peters - but use your Blue Book guide (highly recommended) to find a few off the beaten track places.
Villa Borghese galleries in Rome is a fine collection of sculpture.
Go to Campo de Fiori or the piazza outside Santa Maria in Trastevere at night to hang out and soak up the local street life. Take a bottle of wine. Or two. (Chill your white wines in the fountains.) The best white wine for your money is called Est! Est! Est!
I agree that the Amalfi coast is spectacular. I stayed at Hotel Cappucin - an old monastery built into the cliff way above the sea - I have never been anywhere as beautiful as Amalfi.
Personally, I'd skip Naples - unless you are interested in Italians themselves.
Repeat - do not go to Venice.
Roma...
There are a few new buildings that are very interesting, if you are about to O.D. on old stuff...
Renzo Piano's auditorium (in the olympic neighbourhood) I loved a lot and across the street the palazzetto dello sport by Pier Luigi Nervi (just walk in and ask if its okay, they always say yes, those italians:)
There is another Nervi masterpiece, an auditorium in the Vatican but getting in is almost impossible.
Basilica San Clemente (via di S. Giovanni in Laterano)
Now this was advised to me by a Japanese guy, several churches build on top of eachother. Entering the top church makes you wonder, it looks like a standard church, but then you go down to the previous church and down and down and down, like a computer game which surprises you in every new level you enter...
Many architects hang-out at the campo dei fiori, there a small wine bar where in the evening you'll find many archi-freaks with inside knowledge of Rome...they always know some secret places in Rome that you only know if you know, you know.
The food in Rome is always a little dissappointing for me, it is good but not as excelent as in the rest of Italy...for great simple food with low budget, try the area inbetween the pantheon and the campo dei fiori...how to recognize? well, there a cue, there's no menu on paper, they'll tell you what's todays options, there's no interior decoration whatsoever . No menu also means no prices, if u wear a suit or look rich you pay more, if they like you you pay less (that's Italy) but for about 10-15 euro you'll get great food and wine.
If you speak a few words of Italian, ciao, grazie, prego, il conto per favore etc. you'll get a lot of discount all around italy :)
Another money-tip: If you drink a coffee at the bar the price one-third of what you pay when you sit down.
Personally I like 'to get lost' in Rome, just to walk or cycle around and be surprised...the area around the pantheon for example, Rome is not only the Famous places, most of Rome is in-between those places...
I think I am quite possibly the only person in the history of the world that hates Rome. I've been to about 20 cities in Europe, and it's one of the few I have no desire to revisit. Favorite desinations in Italy: Florence (Renaissance architecture), Siena (medieval architecture) and Cinque Terre (five small fishing villages perched on cliffs above the Mediterranean). Venice is a spatial wet dream but it has become a Disneyland for tourists. You can't really go wrong with European urbanism...take your camera and get lost.
Careful about that 'getting lost in Rome'! I did the first day I got there and forgot the name of my hotel. It's a little more confusing than US streets! Damn scary, to be honest.
Look around and absorb as much as you can. You can't really go wrong with any choice, unless you rush things too much.
Personally, Florence was the least fav of mine. Too much shopping and tourism, although it does have it's charm. Venice, while a shopping playground too, was so other worldly that I was blown away each time I went (and we stayed 4 months 45 minutes away, in Vicenza, so we went often).
Good times. And don't worry about drinking too much wine - no hangovers! Trust me ;-)
scarpa is easy to see in venice - IUAV (architecture university) is just across from the train station, and there is more than the entrance to see (and the bookshop is a good place for maps), Querini Stampalia is open to all (being a library, you might have to sign in) and in front it has his bridge (the only one done in VE lately, and famously built overnight to comply with the odd traditional laws...)
and since it has only about 12000 architecture students you might be able to find someone helpful around for tips...
milan, venice, verona, como, trieste.... forget them. it's not worth the trip to run through them.
stay in and around roma, and explore the hell out of it. in one week, you won't see but a fraction.
the italian wine contains no sulfites, and i believe that's why the lack of a hangover... besides, everyone is your best friend when you've had too much wine.
if your fling into rome - stay there-you will never see the whole city in 7 days. if you do get bold and decide to travel---definatly goto venice -those other guys dont know what they are taking about! Venice is like no other city you will ever see. and the nite life is great!-piazza san marco(at nite of course--during the day its a mad house) and how could i forget scarpa cemetery which is just outside of the city. and many other scapa pieces around the water filed city. he was a professor @IUAV --- try to goto a party @ the university its the bomb!
and the chicks in venice are unbelievable!!!! upside down apples! just picture girls that walk around all day walking up and down bridges- no cars, no McDonalds. the only fat person i saw was from the US!!!
South a little ways from Rome is Paestum, a number of Greek temples in a field. Better intact than the Acropolis, though predating those buildings, I think. It's the kind of place that really moves people.
Dec 17, 04 6:37 pm ·
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Where to go in Italy?
hello--
going to Italy in March-- what do those in the know recommend? I am there fro seven days-- flying into fco in Rome.
Thanks
i would recommend staying in Rome for at least 3 days (1 day for the vatican and 2 or more to explore the city) if you want to see more architecture, take a train to florence or naples. maybe spend a day traveling through the vinyards of tuscany, sampling chiantis. it all depends on what you like... art? architecture? food?
carlo scarpa's brion-vega cemetery
san vito d'altivole, near treviso
you only have seven days...
i'd stay in and around rome..cause you'll barely do it justice
in that...rome itself is amazing..and you can do daytrips
to the new weird rome which i can't remember the name of..
you can go to hadrian's villa and florence is almost close enough
for a trip...but i'd relax..assume you'll come back and really
see rome...colliseum, caesar's forum, catacombs, pantheon,
campidoglio...etc.
if i were to make one special trip though it'd be to verona
to see carlo scarpa's castelvecchio...definitely worth the time.
and if you're going to brion's cemetary...i believe
aldo rossi's cemetary is around there..and i know
tadao ando's benneton think tank is there..
as well as a benneton factory with some nice details
go to Genoa, it's a great city to explore and it's not filthy with american tourists
while you're there take a trip to Cinqueterra, and check out works by Piano, Rossi...and eat lots and lots of focaccia
uuuuh, genova sucks! (personal opinion)
go to rome for the tourist experience or naples for a real cultural shock!
trust me, i'm italian! (haha)
ti be honest......... don't go to venice....... go wherever u want to go but not venice.... or if u insist.. go and then don't blame us if u have asthma (the smell ) ewwwwwwww
Naples is insane! I was not prepared for that at all!
Once there, do not miss a hydroplane and cappuccino cruise to Capri, simply majestic.
it would be a bit of a hike if you're only there for a week, but the almalfi coast (south of naples, near sorrento) was probably one of if not the most beautiful place i went in my 9 months in europe. very few tourists and sorrento serves up some incredible food.
if i were to go back, that's where i would go.
Florence is my favorite city in Italy. Then again, if you only have a week you could easily fill all that time in Roma. I would suggest you concentrate your time on Roma but take a two day excursion up to Florence, check out the duomo, ponte veccio bridge, etc. and then finish up in Rome with a couple more days.
unless you want to spend half of your time in italy enjoying ferrovie dello stato (not the worst train service though) I would suggest as well to stick to Rome, maybe Naples and Florence if you think that you want to move necessarily. The other option is to decide to move north immediately - it is a 6-10h trip to verona/venezia. (padova, vicenza, mantova are all worth spending a day). The point is to chose 1/2places and enjoy them well.
There is a whole lot of classical stuff to see in Rome, some museums have been renewed (the new campidoglio museum has a lovely cafe on the top that oversees half of the city centre), you run into all the baroque churches you might have studied (+painting,sculpture...). Just for walks Trastevere is lovely on a sunny day, the fascist buildings still worth seeing...
the only tourists seeing italy in a week are those spending a day in each city and travelling by night (have even seen a 1am japanese tours around venice), trying to fit all in a week.
The weird new rome is the EUR, designed in the age of Mussolini. Its fascist architecture to the max! Now it contains a bunch of museums with replicas of original artifacts. The best, though, is a huge model of the ancient city of Rome, about 100 feet wide or more from what I remember.
The whole production feels a little weird because it is designed on such a monumental scale, but it is pretty much devoid of serious human habitation. A think a lot of lessons can be taken from EUR, for better or for worse. Was its failure largely for political reasons (i.e. the decline of fascism) or for design reasons (huge boulevards cutting through, a general feeling of agoraphobia, lack of non-civic architecture, etc.)?
Oh, to get to EUR, I think you can take the city's metro system, which you can board at the Colloseum. Another site that I liked a lot was the port city of Ostia. Not as many fat Americans as Pompeii, but it can be pretty nice, especially when the poppys are in bloom.
seven days - just stay in rome and go to the pantheon each morning before
starting off on the rest of the day....there's a lot to see in that city. brush up
on your borromini, bernini, and michelangelo.....and EUR (fascist city) is worth the trip....my favorite is some of the luigi morretti buildings that are around town. enjoy!
naples is great as described above....love the noise. there is a very amazing
exhibit of carravaggio in naples at this moment, the only time that all of his
major paintings will be assembled together...that and the pizza makes it worth a short trip - see herculaneum/pompeii while there.
not sure if the caravaggio show will be there in march - so check if interested.
Yes you can get to the EUR from the metro fairly easily. The most famous part of the EUR is the "square colliseum" you'll know what I mean if you go. I remember the big model of the Ancient Rome as someone mentioned above as well. Pretty Cool.
You only have 7 days - concentrate on the wonderful things Rome has to offer. Get a good guide book - I used the Blue Book I think it is called - it is aimed more towards the architecturally minded traveler than say Fodors.
For a day trip outside of Rome - try Villa d'este - some of the most beauitful gardens and waterfalls in the world. Florence is a two hour train ride and well worth at least a day.
For in Rome - hit a few of the touristy sites like the Colliseum and St. Peters - but use your Blue Book guide (highly recommended) to find a few off the beaten track places.
Villa Borghese galleries in Rome is a fine collection of sculpture.
Go to Campo de Fiori or the piazza outside Santa Maria in Trastevere at night to hang out and soak up the local street life. Take a bottle of wine. Or two. (Chill your white wines in the fountains.) The best white wine for your money is called Est! Est! Est!
I agree that the Amalfi coast is spectacular. I stayed at Hotel Cappucin - an old monastery built into the cliff way above the sea - I have never been anywhere as beautiful as Amalfi.
Personally, I'd skip Naples - unless you are interested in Italians themselves.
Repeat - do not go to Venice.
Step into as many churches as you can while Rome - Rome is known for these Baroque jewels
Roma...
There are a few new buildings that are very interesting, if you are about to O.D. on old stuff...
Renzo Piano's auditorium (in the olympic neighbourhood) I loved a lot and across the street the palazzetto dello sport by Pier Luigi Nervi (just walk in and ask if its okay, they always say yes, those italians:)
There is another Nervi masterpiece, an auditorium in the Vatican but getting in is almost impossible.
Basilica San Clemente (via di S. Giovanni in Laterano)
Now this was advised to me by a Japanese guy, several churches build on top of eachother. Entering the top church makes you wonder, it looks like a standard church, but then you go down to the previous church and down and down and down, like a computer game which surprises you in every new level you enter...
Many architects hang-out at the campo dei fiori, there a small wine bar where in the evening you'll find many archi-freaks with inside knowledge of Rome...they always know some secret places in Rome that you only know if you know, you know.
The food in Rome is always a little dissappointing for me, it is good but not as excelent as in the rest of Italy...for great simple food with low budget, try the area inbetween the pantheon and the campo dei fiori...how to recognize? well, there a cue, there's no menu on paper, they'll tell you what's todays options, there's no interior decoration whatsoever . No menu also means no prices, if u wear a suit or look rich you pay more, if they like you you pay less (that's Italy) but for about 10-15 euro you'll get great food and wine.
If you speak a few words of Italian, ciao, grazie, prego, il conto per favore etc. you'll get a lot of discount all around italy :)
Another money-tip: If you drink a coffee at the bar the price one-third of what you pay when you sit down.
Personally I like 'to get lost' in Rome, just to walk or cycle around and be surprised...the area around the pantheon for example, Rome is not only the Famous places, most of Rome is in-between those places...
In boca lupo...
I think I am quite possibly the only person in the history of the world that hates Rome. I've been to about 20 cities in Europe, and it's one of the few I have no desire to revisit. Favorite desinations in Italy: Florence (Renaissance architecture), Siena (medieval architecture) and Cinque Terre (five small fishing villages perched on cliffs above the Mediterranean). Venice is a spatial wet dream but it has become a Disneyland for tourists. You can't really go wrong with European urbanism...take your camera and get lost.
Careful about that 'getting lost in Rome'! I did the first day I got there and forgot the name of my hotel. It's a little more confusing than US streets! Damn scary, to be honest.
Look around and absorb as much as you can. You can't really go wrong with any choice, unless you rush things too much.
Personally, Florence was the least fav of mine. Too much shopping and tourism, although it does have it's charm. Venice, while a shopping playground too, was so other worldly that I was blown away each time I went (and we stayed 4 months 45 minutes away, in Vicenza, so we went often).
Good times. And don't worry about drinking too much wine - no hangovers! Trust me ;-)
Oh, if you do go to Venice, get a map with Scarpa's work. Just great stuff and a timeless integration of modern ideals and historic form.
scarpa is easy to see in venice - IUAV (architecture university) is just across from the train station, and there is more than the entrance to see (and the bookshop is a good place for maps), Querini Stampalia is open to all (being a library, you might have to sign in) and in front it has his bridge (the only one done in VE lately, and famously built overnight to comply with the odd traditional laws...)
and since it has only about 12000 architecture students you might be able to find someone helpful around for tips...
milan, venice, verona, como, trieste.... forget them. it's not worth the trip to run through them.
stay in and around roma, and explore the hell out of it. in one week, you won't see but a fraction.
the italian wine contains no sulfites, and i believe that's why the lack of a hangover... besides, everyone is your best friend when you've had too much wine.
have fun.
if your fling into rome - stay there-you will never see the whole city in 7 days. if you do get bold and decide to travel---definatly goto venice -those other guys dont know what they are taking about! Venice is like no other city you will ever see. and the nite life is great!-piazza san marco(at nite of course--during the day its a mad house) and how could i forget scarpa cemetery which is just outside of the city. and many other scapa pieces around the water filed city. he was a professor @IUAV --- try to goto a party @ the university its the bomb!
and the chicks in venice are unbelievable!!!! upside down apples! just picture girls that walk around all day walking up and down bridges- no cars, no McDonalds. the only fat person i saw was from the US!!!
South a little ways from Rome is Paestum, a number of Greek temples in a field. Better intact than the Acropolis, though predating those buildings, I think. It's the kind of place that really moves people.
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