The Plan

The house in the photo at the top of this blog is a trullo, a traditional cone-shaped home in Puglia, in southern Italy. It is a VRBO rental that we've booked for 6 nights in mid-June, and will be the base for that part of our trip. Our trip will first land in Rome, after a few hours stop at Heathrow. We will arrive in Rome in mid-afternoon so after checking into the Hotel Rimini, near the Rome train station, it will be a brief walk around and dinner, after a long day of travel.

Then an early morning start as we have booked a "skip the lineup" tour of the Vatican Museums and especially the Sistine Chapel, with breakfast in the Vatican courtyard. The Vatican is about a 25 minute Metro ride from the Hotel Rimini. After breakfast, we will take the rest of the day to walk around Rome, walking by some of its most famous sights...the Trevi Fountain, the Forum, the Colosseum, and others. We are not big fans of big cities and especially crowds, so we are happy just to walk by and not join a tour.

After enjoying a lunch, with gelato of course, it will be back to the Hotel Rimini to pick up our luggage and walk across the street to Roma Termini, to board InterCity Notte 1975, an overnight train with sleeping accommodations that will take us to Siracusa, on the island of Sicily. The train will be loaded onto a ferry at the toe of Italy to take us to Sicily.

We will spend our first night in Sicily at the Il Duomo hotel on the Piazza Duomo in Ortigia.

Ortigia is an island near the city of Siracusa.

From there, we will rent a car and drive to Ragusa, where we will spend the next 3 nights.

From Ragusa, we will visit Modica....

and Scicli...

And since Sicily is the home of cannoli, we will of course enjoy a piece or two...

From Ragusa, it will be back to Ortigia for one night before boarding another train back to the Italian mainland - once again using the ferry - to Bari in Puglia.

The Trullo where we will spend the next 6 nights is located near the town of Martina Franca, southwest of Bari....

From our trullo, we will make day trips to places like Alberobello, famous for its large number of  trulli homes...

Ostuni, the white city:

Cisternino:

Locorotundo - the "Round Place":

Ceglie Messapica

Perhaps a beach or two....such as Punta Prosciutto:

From Puglia, it's back onto the train to Milan, spending a night in Milan before boarding a train to Tirano, leaving from the magnificent Stazione Milano Centrale...

In Tirano, we will board the spectacular Bernina Express, taking us through the Italian Alps on our way to Zurich...

One night in Zurich, then to London and Old Sodbury in Gloucestershire for a few days with family, before returning to Vancouver.

Departure day from Vancouver is May 30 so look for an update soon after.

Thanks for visiting.