What phone do you have? Some of the Motorolas are unlocked for international use.
Unfortunately I'm on Verizon. =/
Verizon has loaner phones available for intl use but I'd look into getting whatever the euro version of go-phones are.Unfortunately I'm on Verizon. =/
Basically what was said above. Last year I did 4 days in Rome, 3 days in Florence and 2 days in Venice.
I would have LOVED another day in Rome.
I stayed in some Holiday Inn in Rome, and two no names in Florence and Venice.
ROME SUBWAY SYSTEM ROCKS. Use it.
Its a big X (2 lines) and you can get to 90% of the good stuff using it.
Saint Peters... Breath taking.
Hit every street fair you can. Especially in Florence.
Negotiate.
Bring a camera.
In Florence the museum where David is is 12 euro to get in.
I am NOT a huge art fan...I like the "Known pieces". 2 nights a week they have "Coctails with David". 14 Euro, you get to see David and 2 other rooms and then go have champagne and finger sandwiches in the museum court yard. PERFECT for me.
Florence has several places where you can horseback ride through grape vineyards and olive groves and then afterwards you go to their villa and sample their wine and olive oil and eat pasta.
Pisa was AWESOME.
Be prepared to be disappointed with hotels in Venice. Not so nice.
Buy the 2 day water taxi pass in Venice.
What you think is an alley is a street. We took a half hour to find our hotel becuase the "Street" was NO wider than 6 feet.
Great food EVERYWHERE.
Eat outdoors EVERYWHERE and every meal.
YES BRING A NON FEE CC but also bring euros. Chase and TD will exchange it here on long Island for decent rates.
Be prepared to climb.
Saint Peters. Pisa. and a dozen other places we hit where I would look up and say "man, the view has got to be AWESOME from there".
And it WAS.
I ate like a roman god twice a day. Small lunch. Lost 3 pounds duringthe trip.
Cripes, I could go on... And am bouncing all over the place.
Great trip. I am not on often but PM me if you have questions. I hope to be on later this weekend.
What phone do you have? Some of the Motorolas are unlocked for international use.
Verizon has loaner phones available for intl use but I'd look into getting whatever the euro version of go-phones are.
Basically what was said above. Last year I did 4 days in Rome, 3 days in Florence and 2 days in Venice.
I would have LOVED another day in Rome.
I stayed in some Holiday Inn in Rome, and two no names in Florence and Venice.
ROME SUBWAY SYSTEM ROCKS. Use it.
Its a big X (2 lines) and you can get to 90% of the good stuff using it.
Saint Peters... Breath taking.
Hit every street fair you can. Especially in Florence.
Negotiate.
Bring a camera.
In Florence the museum where David is is 12 euro to get in.
I am NOT a huge art fan...I like the "Known pieces". 2 nights a week they have "Coctails with David". 14 Euro, you get to see David and 2 other rooms and then go have champagne and finger sandwiches in the museum court yard. PERFECT for me.
Florence has several places where you can horseback ride through grape vineyards and olive groves and then afterwards you go to their villa and sample their wine and olive oil and eat pasta.
Pisa was AWESOME.
Be prepared to be disappointed with hotels in Venice. Not so nice.
Buy the 2 day water taxi pass in Venice.
What you think is an alley is a street. We took a half hour to find our hotel becuase the "Street" was NO wider than 6 feet.
Great food EVERYWHERE.
Eat outdoors EVERYWHERE and every meal.
YES BRING A NON FEE CC but also bring euros. Chase and TD will exchange it here on long Island for decent rates.
Be prepared to climb.
Saint Peters. Pisa. and a dozen other places we hit where I would look up and say "man, the view has got to be AWESOME from there".
And it WAS.
I ate like a roman god twice a day. Small lunch. Lost 3 pounds duringthe trip.
Cripes, I could go on... And am bouncing all over the place.
Great trip. I am not on often but PM me if you have questions. I hope to be on later this weekend.
Unfortunately I'm on Verizon. =/
Wife has an iPhone 4S and I have a Galaxy S3
Florence has several places where you can horseback ride through grape vineyards and olive groves and then afterwards you go to their villa and sample their wine and olive oil and eat pasta.
I jumped the gun.
Verizon screwed up the S3 when it's supposed to work.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-33620_3-5...rizons-galaxy-s3-isnt-global-ready-after-all/
But better news for your wife's 4s. You have to call Verizon and have them unlock the GSM portion of your phone. Then you can bring it to Italy and pop in a sim card.
Oh that sounds pretty sweet. I'll have to check into that. Can I just go by my local Verizon store and do that there too? I prefer to deal with them in person. I'll look into using Wind while we're over there.
Wife has an iPhone 4S and I have a Galaxy S3
Any suggestions on one of these go-phones anyone?
Awesome, thanks for all the advice! Was the water taxi pass necessary in Venice? We don't mind walking everywhere and I assumed Venice was pretty walkable.
A water taxi pass isn't needed in Venice. The first tip Rick Steves gives is to get lost in Venice. It's the best way to explore and there's only so far you can actually go. We did this on our second day there and found this little hole-in-the-wall restaurant that was one of the best dinners we had while we were there. It was a tiny place, maybe 6 small tables inside and 2 outside, and we were the only tourists there.
Another question!
How is wifi availability in Florence, Venice, and Rome? We're thinking we're not going to get an international plan for our cell service and would like to rely on wifi for the few times we'll need to check our e-mail or whatever.
I think Italy has some regulations that affect public wifi. I was in the areas of Torino and Genoa, and there were lots of places with free wifi, but they all required you to register and to do that, you had to have access to your email. So it wasn't as simple as just finding a free wifi signal and connecting.
We just booked an ENTIRE apartment with an outdoor patio in the Trastevere (Rome) neighborhood known for its cuisine for like $95 USD/night (70€/night). Used AirBnB. Awesome deal. Hotel rooms were going for like 2x this according to Expedia.
Regarding phones: I have a Simple Choice Plan from TMO with that international feature. This means I get unlimited text and data abroad with $.20/min calls to the US.
When I was in Italy last month, all of our hotels had wifi. Some of them were pretty spotty and/or required you to be in the lobby, but in general they worked well enough to check email, Facebook, and the forums. None of the restaurants we ate at had wifi, though one of them advertised free wifi. Verify that the hotels you're staying in advertise wifi. If they have it, I think you'll be more than happy with using it in the morning/at night, without access during the day while you're out and about.
Personally, I am an addict, so I added an international data plan to my phone, along with international texting and voice. My phone bill for last month was about $100 more than usual.
You can get locally a Tre sim for 13 euros, giving you 3GB data for two months.
The other carriers have similar offers.
Yeah, I decided to use my AT&T SIM (and phone number) to make it easier on people back home. We had people watching our dog and home, so I just wanted to use my US phone number. I'm sure I could have set something up with Google Voice or whatever, but saving $80 wasn't worth the headache to me.
We just booked an ENTIRE apartment with an outdoor patio in the Trastevere (Rome) neighborhood known for its cuisine for like $95 USD/night (70/night). Used AirBnB. Awesome deal. Hotel rooms were going for like 2x this according to Expedia.