Things We Learned

We plan to add a few things we've learned over these 9 weeks.

Since we knew we would be paying for about 50 nights of hotels, we needed to find moderately priced ones under $150 per night (the conversion rate between the dollar and euro is of course horrible at the moment, so we looked for rooms under 115 euro per night). That led to a lot of viewing rooms before checking in. Most European 3 star hotels have small rooms and small bathrooms. So we got fairly good at checking rooms and asking for larger ones... as you might imagine, Marcia was best at this. I think we are probably pretty savvy now. I think it was so many nights in small rooms that prompted us to splurge in Cortona.

In defense of many of the hotels, they are not newly built structures. Most of them are in old palaces and homes built 500-1000 years ago, and they must adhere to what is there. Massive remodeling is not allowed; only the minimum necessary.

We have a lot more to say and will add soon. Many thanks for the many wonderful comments you have left on this blog. Please continue... we love to read them!

I was able to add some photos to the blog below; I hope you enjoy them.

Ciao