Italy travel and experience, go someday and experience it!

Hi all,


Just back from a trip to Italy where we visited Rome for 3 days, Tuscany countryside for 4 and Florence for 3 more days. I must say it's a beautiful country from the small part I saw. We started in Rome and saw all the sights worthy to us to see but Rome is a big city and very dirty, not our cup of tea. Florence is another large city but much cleaner and easier to walk we found. In Florence your in a large valley with beautiful countryside surroundings and a lot of History worth seeing and the ancient art work and sculptures were amazing. We really enjoyed Florence but again it's a city.

To break up the visits to the city we spent some time about 30 miles outside of Florence in the Tuscany country in a little village called "Montefioralle". We took the bullet train from Rome to Florence. $55 for both of us which was very good IMO. This is very old small medieval village/castle that was run down and then rehabilitated by the local residents of Greve and other surrounding areas. It's amazing and the country is amazing. Wild boar and Red deer abound. This was the highlight of the trip for us. We rented a small car at the train station in Florence and drive all over the area, ate great food, drank great wine, met fantastic locals. We rented the car and got right of Florence as you don't want to try and drive around the city of Florence. I must say the people we met in this area were very welcoming and appreciative of USA residents. So in our journey to the Tuscany area of Montefioralle we stopped at the Florence American Cemetery and Memorial and this place was just, well, ….. made me so proud to be an AMERICAN and brought me to tears. The sacrifices our Veteran grand parents and great grandparents made back during WWII is all on display here and memorialized. I believe there are 4 sets of brothers buried here. I was so overwhelmed we ended up sitting and walking the grounds for a good 2 hours. This land and place was donated by the Italians some time ago and there is also one down by Rome. If you go to Italy ever and are in the area DON'T miss it, you'll regret it if you do. Here's some pics to enjoy…. I know this isn't about hunting or shooting but just thought you'd enjoy my short story and experience.

Best, Joe Stumpf
Tucson, Arizona

More Pics

Look closely at the map photo. It's about 60 feet by 20 feet. It's a mosaic made from tile and marble. Also zoom it in and you can see how the troops battled across Italy and drove out the Germans, liberating Italy!

JAYgs8163 said:

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Well done! Florence is my favorite among the big Italian cities.

Visiting Italy with 3 generations of our family was the trip of a lifetime. We landed in Venice, where we stayed for a few days before moving on. We stopped in Pompei, stayed in Florence, took time out in Tuscany, spent time on the Amalfi coast (sailed into the Blue Grato). We ended our trip with a few days in Rome visiting the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel and the Colosseum.

I took over 1,000 HD images on that trip. Once a year, we all get together for "Italian Night", at my daughter's house, where we run the images in a slide show backed by Italian music. Long before we get there, the house is buzzing with homemade pasta drying on racks all over the kitchen and the smell of fresh sauce with an aroma that can be detected 3 doors down. Wine is carefully selected from the wineries that we visited in Tuscany and shipped to the door.

Visiting Italy was a terrific experience and reliving it with all of the sights, sounds and tastes that we enjoyed there may be even better.

Varmint Hunter said:

Visiting Italy with 3 generations of our family was the trip of a lifetime. We landed in Venice, where we stayed for a few days before moving on. We stopped in Pompei, stayed in Florence, took time out in Tuscany, spent time on the Amalfi coast (sailed into the Blue Grato). We ended our trip with a few days in Rome visiting the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel and the Colosseum.

I took over 1,000 HD images on that trip. Once a year, we all get together for "Italian Night", at my daughter's house, where we run the images in a slide show backed by Italian music. Long before we get there, the house is buzzing with homemade pasta drying on racks all over the kitchen and the smell of fresh sauce with an aroma that can be detected 3 doors down. Wine is carefully selected from the wineries that we visited in Tuscany and shipped to the door.

Visiting Italy was a terrific experience and reliving it with all of the sights, sounds and tastes that we enjoyed there may be even better.

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Awesome place it is! This is an excellent idea. I ended up getting a couple of cases of wine shipped along with a selection of Olive oil and Balsamics.

JAYgs8163 said:

Awesome place it is! This is an excellent idea. I ended up getting a couple of cases of wine shipped along with a selection of Olive oil and Balsamics.

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Just a few pics from Italian Day 2024, which is always in October.

Excellent! We were in the area by Greve and it was fantastic. Wild Boar and Red Deer Salumi and Sausage.

Great pics! We are set to do a Med Cruise to Italy, Greece and Turkey. Flying into Rome, flying out of Greece. I hope we get some of the same experiences that will make it worthwhile.

Nice! Was this a diy trip or did you have someone set it up? Wife wants to go but I'm a little adverse to a diy trip. I don't have a clue about the where and what to do.

cajun said:

Nice! Was this a diy trip or did you have someone set it up? Wife wants to go but I'm a little adverse to a diy trip. I don't have a clue about the where and what to do.

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It was a DIY trip and very easy to plan. Did all AIRBNB for accommodations. Bought flight directly from Delta. Got TSA precheck and global entry done to speed us up in US airports. This biggest issue was our connection in Paris. Entering customs there was a cluster and caused us to miss our connecting flight. If we were to go again we would try and fly direct to Rome or Florence from the US as opposed to connecting in Europe. For 11 nights we spent about 2600 for our accommodations. They were all very nice places. We stayed very close to the Vatican in an area called "Prato" which is considered a very good and safe neighborhood.

You can DIY it but you just need to commit the time together to make the plans and do your research. We did all of our tours on VIATOR and they were great. Look at the reviews and do the "small group" tours. We did a total of 4 tours. 2 in Rome and 2 in Florence. Spent about $1000 on the tours. Rome was the Coloseum/Forum and Vatican tours. Florence was the Duomo and the Ufizzi and Academia tour. All were excellent.

JAYgs8163 said:

Excellent! We were in the area by Greve and it was fantastic. Wild Boar and Red Deer Salumi and Sausage.

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Now that's living large!

I can relate to all of your photos. Truely a great place for a vacation and a very meaningful place for those of Italian descent. My mother-in-law could not stop crying as she walked around the Vatican. It was breathtaking.

My wife and I went in 2021 when it opened after covid. We really enjoyed our trip. We went to Rome and Florence. I would have to say, I enjoyed Florence over Rome. We did most of the main attractions. But for me the food stole the show. Everywhere we ate at was delicious. By far some of the best food I have ever had. We even ate at one of the best steakhouse's in the world. We finished our trip with a pizza making class in Florence. That was really fun. I would definitely go again, but would do the smaller towns on the next trip.