Italy Trip

We took a bucket list trip this summer with the whole family to Italy!  

Our Italy flight was out of Newark so we flew to New York a couple of days ahead.  

We visited the Museum of Natural History on a rainy afternoon, it was great!

The next afternoon we boarded our flight bound for Milan.  

After arriving in Milan we took the regional train over to the major train station, 

and boarded our train to Rome!

Despite being super jet lagged we enjoyed exploring the area close to our Airbnb after arriving.  

The colosseum was only a 15 minute walk away!

The next morning we took the subway over to the Pantheon.  

This was one of the few things we didn't have to book ahead!  

The cash line was just as fast as for those who bought tickets in advance.  

We were also able to visit the Trevi fountain and the Spanish steps while there.  

That afternoon we had tickets booked for the colosseum (booked directly on the colosseum's website luckily, as many people who booked third party tickets ended up having their tours canceled).  

It was incredible, and we enjoyed the nearby Roman Forum and ruins just as much!

The next morning we got up extra early and took the subway to the Vatican.  We had booked tickets for the first tour of the day.  When we arrived there were huge lines outside, luckily we figured out where to go and were able to skip most of the lines.  

There was so much to see that it was a bit overwhelming, but it was amazing!  

Chase enjoyed it more than we thought, he spent 30 minutes looking at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel!

Afterwards we went back to our Airbnb for a nap, we were exhausted!  

That evening we took the subway back to the Spanish steps and went shopping in downtown Rome.  

This was one of our favorite spots for gelato!

On Friday there was a train strike in Italy, and there were very limited options for how to get around.  This was the day that we had planned to visit the gardens at Villa D'Este, and we weren't sure how we were going to get there.  There were no trains so we tried to book a taxi on the app.  We would book one and over and over they would cancel because they didn't want to go that far away from the city, it was in Tivoli about 20 minutes outside of Rome.  

Thankfully we finally had a driver that said he would take us out there!  

It was really beautiful, and the gardens were so impressive!

When we finished up we then had to figure out how we were going to get back to Rome.  

There was one train to Rome that we were lucky enough to catch.  We went back and picked up our luggage from a baggage storage place we had used and got on our next train to Florence!  (Which we were also lucky was running, Derek had to go to the train station to book tickets since there was no other way to be sure which trains would actually be running.)

Our Florence Airbnb was up 5 flights of stairs, 

we quickly realized that we had taken the 2 person elevator 

at our Rome Airbnb for granted!  

The next morning we were able to have a guided tour at the Accademia in Florence, and got to see the David statue!  The whole museum was very impressive!  

One of Derek's co-workers recommended Il Pizzaiuolo in Florence, so we went there for lunch.  

It was delicious!

We headed back to our Airbnb, planning on visiting the Santa Maria del Fiore Duomo later.  But when we checked the hours for the Duomo we realized it was about to close!  Derek, Chase, and I ran over and we were able to see this beautiful building.  

There were so many leather shops everywhere in Florence!

This was our favorite gelato in Florence, La Carraia.

Julia's favorite flavor was cookie, salted almond and coconut were really good too!

It was right by the Arno River, so we had gelato and then took a scenic walk by the river.  

We decided to head up to the Rose Garden that's situated right below the Piazzale Michelangelo.  

From here there are scenic views of the entire city, 

and we watched the sunset from the steps of the Piazzale Michelangelo.

We saw multiple couples taking bridal photos on the steps!  

And we saw a beautiful sunset!

We then headed back over the Ponte Vecchio Bridge towards our Airbnb.  Along the way we saw the Santa Croce basilica, the David statue replica, and many beautiful buildings.

The next morning we went back across the river and headed uphill toward the Giardino Bardini gardens.  

The views of the city from the gardens were amazing!  

And the gardens were beautiful!

After we finished up at the gardens we had some time to kill before our train to the next city.  We decided to have lunch at Trattoria ZaZa, where Ethan and Geneva had eaten dinner the night before to celebrate their anniversary.  We all agreed it was some of the best food from our entire trip, and they even got us in without a reservation! 

When we finished up lunch we went and retrieved our luggage from the luggage storage place and headed to the train station to catch our train to Venice.

Our first glimpse of Venice was very impressive!!

Upon arrival in Venice we weren't sure if we should take a water bus or just walk to our Airbnb.  We decided to just walk, which ended up being a lot more difficult than we anticipated.  We had to cross 7 bridges, with stairs going up and down at each one, hauling our luggage.  We were all pretty wiped out by the time we got to our Airbnb, where we had to climb 3 long flights of stairs to get to our apartment.  The apartment did have beautiful views of a canal right outside the window though!

We explored a bit that night, and grabbed some pizza for dinner.  

There was lots of blown glass and glass figurines in many of the shops in Venice.

The next morning we had breakfast at "Fluffy Brunch," a puffy pancake restaurant. 

 It was actually really good!

We then walked over to St Mark's Square.

We did a lot of walking in Venice!  The only other transportation is by boat.

The Rialto Bridge

This was the view from our Airbnb window.

That night we took a water bus down the Grand Canal.  

The city is so beautiful!

We were all starving by the time we got off, so we stopped for dinner at Trattoria Pizzeria da Gioia, 

which we all agreed was just OK.  

                                        

The Rialto Bridge

This Airbnb was especially spacious, it worked out great!  

The next day we were able to get a late checkout 

and they let us store our luggage in the apartment until we had to leave,

which was so helpful!!  

We thought about taking a gondola ride, but it was pretty expensive, and they couldn't fit more than 5 people in a gondola at once, when we had 6, so we ended up not doing it.  

Derek and Julia took a traghetto ride, which is basically a ferry gondola that takes you across the river, so they at least got the experience!  

More gelato, always!

Later that afternoon we took a train to Milan. 

There was a rainstorm when we first arrived, but we hopped on a bus and got off close to our Airbnb.  

That night we picked up a few groceries and made dinner at the Airbnb.  

The next day was our Lake Como day!  

We took public transportation (this day was a tram) to the train station

where we hopped on a train to Varenna.  

We looked around a bit in Varenna, but decided to take a ferry ride over to see Bellagio and Menaggio.  

It was so beautiful!

In Bellagio we explored the shops and stopped for lunch.  

The view from the hillside going up to the shops was amazing!

Bellagio was the first stop, and then we grabbed the ferry over to Menaggio.  

We explored a bit, and then headed back on the ferry to Varenna.  

And we took the train back to Milan that evening.  

The next day was our last day in Italy!  We took the tram over to the Duomo area.

We saw the breathtaking Duomo and visited the upscale shopping mall, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.  

We even got to see the olympic rings still there from the 2026 winter olympics.  

Last gelato!

We were able to arrange for an extra late checkout from our Airbnb that day,  so we stored our luggage there.  But we were also able to go back there to relax a bit before we had to catch a bus to the Milano Centrale train station, and then we took the Malpensa Express train to the airport, where we caught the hotel shuttle to our close-to-the-airport hotel.  

The only food place that was open nearby was this sketchy looking pizza place.  Chase and I went over to order food.  The menu was in Italian so I had to use Google translate to try to figure out what was on them.  They were about to close too, but they stayed open a little late for us.  I ordered 6 pizzas, thinking they were small pizzas.  I was very surprised when they handed us 6 full size pizzas!  And the toppings were a bit odd, like fries and cut up hot dogs.  On the vegetable pizza I ordered there were long slices of eggplant.  It was definitely not our top pizza of the trip, but at least we didn't go hungry, haha!  

The next morning we flew from Milan to New York.  

Our flight left Milan at 9:45am but with the time difference we arrived in New York at only 12:30 in the afternoon.  

Chase had gotten a cold while we were in Italy, and hadn't felt well after the time we arrived in Venice.  Unfortunately he passed his cold along to Ethan, so Ethan was pretty miserable on our flight back.

Ethan and Geneva decided to call it a night pretty early, and with the time difference it felt pretty late already.  

The rest of us took a scenic boat ride to see the New York skyline and the Statue of Liberty.  The boat wasn't crowded at all, and the weather was perfect!

We grabbed an early dinner and got to bed early.  The next morning we had to catch an Uber at 4:30am to head to the airport, luckily since we hadn't adjusted to the time change yet it didn't feel early at all.  

We hopped on our flight, which took us through Denver (unfortunately our layover there was a bit long), and we were glad when we finally arrived at home in Salt Lake!  

But we were also so grateful to have had the experience of going on this trip!  We will never forget it!