Planning Part #2 - The Itinerary and Evernote

3 weeks from today we leave!

So below is the gist of the itinerary that Christopher and I will be using for our trip to Italy. Before, I give you the itinerary...some have asked how we decided on these cities. For those of you who know us well, lets just say we are both the opposite of passive (that's a kinder way of saying we are strong willed). :) However, when it came to choosing these cities, we both agreed on all of them. Amazing! 

• 1st - Rome. This is where we we will fly in on the 10th and stay till the 15th of April. Self explanatory.

http://wikitravel.org/

• 2nd - Assisi. Christopher read a book called Chasing Francis and since then he has wanted to go experience this city for himself. We will stay here from the 15th to the 17th of April.

http://www.travelitalytravel.com/

• 3rd - Florence. Everyone has told us this is their favorite city in Italy. We of course wanted to experience Tuscany...so we settled on this as our city of choice. We will stay here the 17th to the 22nd of April.

http://www.destination360.com/

• 4th - Bolgona. This is the city of food. So with us both being pretty big foodies...we had to make plans to stay here a few nights. We will stay here the 22nd to the 25th of April.

http://www.worldfoodieguide.com/

• 5th - Milan. This is the city of my choice. This is where fashion and art meet for the most finest experience. Side note - I am just in love with the little cottage/b&b we are staying at here. Check it out http://www.cocoonbb.com/. We will be staying here the 25th to the 29th of April.

http://www.flickr.com/

• 6th (and final city) - Venice. I am very excited about this city as well. We are staying on the island of Lido during this leg of our trip. We will be here from April 29th to May 4th. We are also going to visit Burano and Murano while we are so close.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bcnbits/2987495994/

So Evernote.

Its a great tool (that works amazing on Apple products...allowing you to sync notes from your iphone, ipad, and MacBook). The reason I really like it is because I can lay out all of the random thoughts in my head (...and trust me there are a lot of them) related to a topic (I.e. Italy). It can be pictures, attachments from my email, weblinks I need to go back to, images of google maps, etc.

Ok thats it for tonight... what else should I write about before the trip? hmmm...we shall see?


Ciao!

Planning Part #1 - The Pilgrimage

Pastor Dan has really encouraged me to blog about our trip to Italy. I think so that he can live vicariously through the pictures and stories, but also that I can keep these memories alive many months and years after we get back from Italy.

Christopher has said that he is going MIA when it comes to email in Italy. I am going to follow that plan as well I think. :) Blogging doesn't count for email right?

The picture of our travel books below is definitely the first important part of this pilgrimage.

Why am I using the term pilgrim and not tourist you may ask? I don't know just yet...I think a pilgrim is on a journey and looking for something more than maybe a tourist. I think we are definitely both thinking as this trip as a pilgrimage. Also that term came up over breakfast this morning with a couple from our church...so I think I am going with it.







So back to the books. I highly recommend getting different perspectives from all types of books. I am a planner so I definitely like to do as much research as I can before we go. Rick Steve's travel guides and Fodors and Lonely Planet books have definitely stood out to me so far.

I think in my next "planning post" I am going to show how I have been using Evernote to break down the planning of our trip even more. Also I will explain the cities and key places we will be going.

I am so excited about this trip!

Ciao!


-Post by AP

Italy

So I am thinking of working on a blog series where I share about the planning of our trip to Italy and then blog when we actually get there. I don't know. It may not happen but I definitely want to put in writing some of our trip plans and excitement!! It's going to be so much fun. T-minus 34 days till our trip!




This was an interesting book we checked out from the library. Yes, that has been our go to place for resources on Italy...and it's free!! Somehow the origin of this blog years ago still rings loud throughout even today (shop smarter, play harder).

Free music site

I was at a conference this week and heard about this site for free music. Its pretty amazing. Artists who are trying to hit it big and those who have already hit big post free albums to their fans.

http://noisetrade.com/

The creator of the site is Derek Webb. He was in the group Caedmon's Call for 10 years.

No strings attached except your email address they need.

I am a big fan of free....especially music!

Merry Christmas

Christmas 2010!



- Posted by Amanda P.