SOUTHERN EUROPE
Italy
Rome, Venice, Florence, Milan — history you can walk through, and dinners that last for hours.
Italy is where my love of history and my love of food refuse to stay in separate rooms. We gave the country two weeks and four cities, and we could happily have given it twice that.
We learned to do as Italians do: a long lunch, a slow afternoon, an evening walk before dinner. The pace is the point.
Rome
Rome is a city where antiquity simply leans against the everyday — a two-thousand-year-old column at the corner of a busy street. We booked the major sites in advance and then deliberately left whole afternoons empty for wandering, which is when Rome is at its best.
Venice
Stay overnight. The day-trippers leave in the late afternoon and the city exhales, and the quiet back canals become yours. We got pleasantly, thoroughly lost, which is the only correct way to see Venice.
Florence
Florence rewarded our museum-loving family more than anywhere else. We bought timed tickets well ahead, went early, and balanced the great galleries with simple pleasures — a climb for the view, a market lunch, gelato in the late sun.
Milan
Milan is often rushed through, and we are glad we did not. The cathedral alone is worth the stop, and the city's quieter, more modern confidence made a nice counterpoint to the open-air museums elsewhere.
Food
Eat regionally and seasonally — the menus change as you move down the map, and that is half the joy. We followed the rule of looking for small places full of locals, and were almost never wrong.
Tips & practical notes
- Book the headline sites (Vatican, Uffizi, Accademia) weeks ahead with timed entry.
- Trains between cities are fast, comfortable, and far nicer than flying.
- Validate regional train tickets before boarding.
- Many churches require covered shoulders and knees — carry a light layer.
