I wanna’ be an Italian tour guide (part 1 of 4)…

I can pretty much count the regular readers of this blog with one hand. In a few weeks, one of those regular readers will be going to Italy with his then-wife/now-almost-wife (who I believe is an occasional stopper-by here as well) for their honeymoon. As I’ve tooled around Italy twice, I told them I’d make some suggestions/recommendations about places to see or go to, and with this series of postings, I now do so. The following three posts will cover Venice, Florence and Rome, with Rome being the most extensive post because there’s just so much to see and do there (while I believe that you are also going to be hitting Milan and the Amalfi Coast, I’ve been to neither yet and therefore have no comment on them). There is obviously plenty that has been left out of these posts – they simply highlight some of my personal favorites.

The sources of the upcoming information are my busted-ass memory, photo albums from both trips, the tour guide books I still have from those trips, and some browsing around on the ‘net. Speaking of tour guides, I highly recommend the Rick Steves series of tour books. He’s got an overview one on all of Italy, as well as city ones for Rome and Venice. Although his maps are mostly rubbish (unless he’s severely updated them in the last couple of years) and his directions are sometimes a little confusing, his discussions and recommendations of various sights, restaurants, etc. are usually spot-on (many of the things below were originally learned of thanks to Rick).

My one general comment about Italy that is universal for all of the places you may go, is this – eat lots of gelato. For some reason, nobody has figured out how to make this stuff in the states, and we really don’t have anything that compares to it. Amazing. And there are tons and tons of tasty flavors for your eating pleasure (my personal favorite is this purple one that’s a mixed berry flavor).

Finally, be warned – these posts are rather lengthy....