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Arrival and Departures in Italy
Airport Arrival & Departures Many International flights from the US come and go from Rome's Fiumicino or Milan's Malpensa. However you can find flights in and out of Naples, Bologna and Venice offered by some airlines. Many of these flights are first thing in the morning - adding some stress to your trip. How can you make a 9:00 am flight when you are 4 hours away in Tuscany the night before? To this end I have some hotel suggestions for you to consider the night before your departure:
For Malpensa (outside Milan), we suggest the Hotel Villa Malpensa is five minutes from the airport. Price includes breakfast. Has a pooll but little else to do there. Free shuttle to the airport for morning flights.
For Rome, The Hilton Rome Airport Hotel has connections to the terminals by moving walkways. Talk about convenient. Pool too.
For Bologna, we suggest the Sheraton Bologna is very close to the airport and offers a free shuttle service to the hotel.
For Naples, we suggest the The Charming International a small 4 Star place that is about 1 km from the airport. Taxi will get you back and forth.
Arrive At Your Rental During Daylight Because these are not hotels located in well marked places, but houses often found in the countryside outside a hamlet, town or city, down gravel roads, arriving in the dark is more than a challenge. It's a bad way to start your holiday. Do yourself a favor and arrive during the daylight, even if late (6:00 p.m.). If you arrive in the country at night, under these circumstances you book a hotel room near the airport the night of your arrival and make your way to the villa/apartment in the morning. You don't want to get lost during the night looking for a villa in the countryside. Please advise us in advance if this is your plan. Travel By GPS Traveling in Italy via auto and navigating the spaghetti like roads can be difficult without the proper tools: a navigator by your side and a good map. Of course you could use a "cheater" - a GPS makes it a whole lot easier, and are commonly found these days. Even so, please don't drive alone - it is difficult reading directions, looking at maps and watching the road. Electricity & House Appliances Houses in Italy are allotted a limited amount of electricity (3 - 6 kilowatts). Although it happens very seldom, using too many appliances at the same time will shut off the house breaker. This does not mean that there has been a power failure, only that a breaker in the house has been triggered. It needs to be switched back on. Similar to the U.S. and other European countries, the panel is inside the house.
1) "Se salta la corrente dove l'interuttore generale?" Reads: "If the electricity shuts off, where is the house breaker?" There may be two ("due") breakers. 2) "Che tipo di contratto avete (3KW o 6 KW)?" Reads: "What kind of contract do you have (3 KW or 6 KW)?" A small sampling of current draining appliances are dishwasher and washing machine both take 3 KW each, an iron takes 2 to 3 KW and an oven 3 KW. If you put the dishwasher and washing machine on at the same time, you have reached your max and will probably blow. Please be careful to limited the simultaneous use of electrical appliances. God Awful Music Most car rentals come with a radio and tape deck. What they don't tell you is that Italian radio is terrible. The music, by our discriminating ear, is God awful...unless you find pop music that blends Michael Jackson's worst years with Eurotrash (never a good year), a smattering of rap in Italian, You get the point. Pretty awful. Most of the radio provides this worst-of-pop and of course lots of talk. Talk, talk, talk. That is something they are good at doing, and listening to talk stations is good for learning the language and the rhythm - but take some CD's f your own. A good handful you wouldn't mind hearing a couple hundred times. Slippers & Bathrobe You are staying in a villa. It is your home, and slippers and a bathrobe are standard morning equipment, along with coffee and a newspaper. This is "SLOW TRAVEL" which means you need the standard uniform of "slow travelers" that wake in the morning, pad down to their Italian kitchen, make a coffee and relax like at home. All those hotel people are jealous of this small but significant freedom! Shopping List Villas come with linens and towels and a roll of toilet paper, basic pots and pans, coffee maker, cutlery, plates, glasses, cups and such. But the other essentials (those listed below) are your domain or the charity of the group that proceeded yours. Stock up with a few small things before you arrive at am alimentari (small grocery store), a COOP (supermercado) or if desperate a large Autogrille on the autostrada. Which ususally has a large market with meats, cheese, milk, coffee, sugar, wine, pasta, sauces and some other assorted stuff. Sorry, no produce or condiments. But it's better than nothing.
Print this page and you will be on your way to an easy landing:
1) Toilet paper; 2) Paper towels 3) Salt & Pepper 4) Butter 5) Bottled water 6) Dish detergent 7) Soaps and Shampoos For The Morning: 1) Coffee 2) Milk 3) Sugar 4) Cheeses 5) Stuffed sausage (salami in Italy is incredible). 6) Honey and jams 7) Breads 8) Brioche (a French treat embraced by Italians) 9) Assorted fruits (their Blood Oranges are very good) For Dinner: 1) Pasta 2) Sauce 3) Wine 4) Olive oil (extra virgin) Why do you need all this food when dining out in Italy, experiencing that legendary cuisine, wine and sweets is part of the experience of travel? There will be days, my friend, where your family will be exhausted from a day of touring and will fully embrace a good Italian meal at home. Be prepared by purchasing some of the local specialties. Electronic Devices Electric Current in Italy is AC and the voltage is usually 125 or 220 requiring transformers and adapters for those coming from outside the Continent. We think it advisable to recharge a battery and run from this - rather than plugging directly from the wall into your transformer and then into your precious electronics. That subtle sound and burnt electronic smell wafting in the air could be your laptop's motherboard. Why risk such things? Hey, we are the first to admit our foibles and can be too proud to have you learn by these mistakes. Worse case scenario: always have a good surge protector between the wall and your appliance. Quick Metric / Temperature Conversions Keeping the metric and temperature conversions straight is not only easy, but it's fun for the whole family! As long as you are comfortable with approximations: 1) Degrees Centigrade / Fahrenheit: Fahrenheit to Centigrade: Take Fahrenheit, subtract 32 and divide by 2 then add 10%.
Centigrade to Fahrenheit: Do the reverse.
2) Meters: 1 meter is a little over a yard (3.3 feet to be exact). 3) Kilometers: 1 kilometer = 6/10 of a mile. Figuring out mileage means multiplying kilometers times .6
4) Traveling Speeds: 100 kilometers / hour = 60 miles per hour. 120 kilometers per hour = 72 miles per hour. 5) Liter: One liter is about a quart. 6) Weights: One pound = 500 grams. Cafe Cafe, aka coffee is as much a part of the iconographic Italian as hands in motion and the buzzing sound of scooters. Coffee is like pasta - so many names to describe a cup of coffee: machiato, cappuccio, cappuccino, espresso, latte, cafe amaericano...all from grounds and water. But, it has come to our attention that some of you do not know the proper way to pack an espresso maker. With the small cup inside, do not over-pack the coffee before screwing it back together and putting a fire under these pressure sensitive devices! Simply, fill the coffee holder to the top, lightly (lightly dear student!) tamp it, and screw it back together. That's it. Wonderful, if not strong, cafe is served. For a Cafe Americano add hot water to the espresso and it's basically American. One last important note: please do not order a cappuccino after 11:00 am. Please? Bugs
Mosquitoes...the unwanted guest on the summer holiday. There are two ways of dealing with mosquitoes in Italy (there are traditionally no screens on Italian windows, just shutters):
Leaving Your Passport Number For The Police. This comes as a surprise to first (and second time) villa renters: the caretaker or owner by law must provide the local police department with the names, country of origin and passport number of all (or at least some) its guests. This is true for hotels too. So when you arrive and provide your security deposit to the caretaker, you will be asked to provide your passport as well. That's all you will need to get by just fine in Italy.
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