Day One - Milan/Florence
We flew from Denver to Milan, arriving early morning local time. We explored Milan a bit, taking in the beautiful Duomo before we took a train to Florence to meet up with Chris and Andrea.

Day Two - Day Three -- Florence
For the first night, we stayed at a hotel right near the train station. The next day we walked 45 minutes to a beautiful hotel overlooking the Arno river.

Day Four - Day Seven -- Rome
Travelled by train to Rome, and stayed in a Monestary near the Vatican. The next day, we took a bus and stayed at a hotel in the heart of Rome for the rest of our stay their.

Day Eight- Day Nine -- Venice
Took the train to Venice and stayed on the Grand Canal, just across from the station. Although Venice was our least favorite stop on the trip, we still had a great time and checked off one of those ultimate todo's in life - taking a gondola ride in Venice!

Day Ten - Day Eleven -- Near Sacile
Traveled by train to stay with Tim, Beth and Marcus Mazzola. They live North of Venice, near the Air Force Base their. Tim and Beth were gracious hosts and it was wonderful to see their beautiful restored villa in the Italian countryside.

Day Twelve -- Milan
Flew home to Denver! We wish we could say it was uneventful - but after a 5 hour delay in Washington D.C. due to weather, we finally made it home! We were especially thankful for Dan and Deb who picked us up at DIA, so late on a Friday night.

Note - these are just the highlights - to read more details - see our Journal.

If this vacation looks interesting, maybe you would like to take a vacation like this yourself. Going to need a good vacation rental while you are there. Also, once you are done traveling to Italy, why not scoot over and look at the wonderful Caribbean vacation rentals, or maybe even a good Caribbean villa to rent for a vacation in the Caribbean.