We could tell we were going to love Genoa as soon as we pulled into port. The city rises from the water to the surrounding hills. It looks both modern and historic and was teaming with Christmas lights. Genoa is the home port of MSC. The MSC Orchestra received “rock star” parking at the old …
The Cruise Port of Civitavecchia, Italy provides access to Rome. We arrived into port at 7:30am well ahead of the 9am scheduled arrival. Although we were early the wind was howling and the rain was pouring down. We spent breakfast watching the sea break over the breakwaters and discussed our plan. This was my sister’s first …
This post contains affiliate links. We ended up at Cruise Port Messina with access to Taormina and Mount Etna, completely unprepared. Our MSC Christmas Mediterranean Cruise faced several disruptions due to rough weather in the Mediterranean. Instead of heading to Malta we were re-routed to Messina in Sicily. We booked an MSC transfer to Taormina …
San Gimignano was a blip on our itinerary. It was quite literally a footnote just in case we had some time to kill. But as we were enjoying the meal we had lovingly cooked at our family cooking class, the hostess asked if we were headed to San Gimignano. We said we weren’t sure we …
The town closest to our Christmastime Italian villa was Santa Brigida. On our last day in Italy we decided to stay close to home and explore this small town. I’m glad we did, because although it probably won’t make your must-see list it reaffirmed that getting off the beaten path is always a good idea. …
Pisa and Lucca are neighboring Italian cities that provide completely different experiences. We visited them both on the same day and enjoyed what they each had to offer. Visiting them as a pair will round out your trip, one for checking off a must-see and the other providing an authentic experience. Pisa Pisa was our …
Although we stayed in a villa outside of Florence we ventured into the city on Christmas Eve and Christmas to enjoy all the city has to offer. We opted to take the train into Florence. Certain roads in Florence require a special pass to drive on. The maps are confusing and the fines are high (90€). It …
We decided to spend our first Christmas as a family of five in Italy. The trip was divided into two parts. We started in Rome where we explored the city with kids and baptized our new little one. We then moved the whole group to Tuscany, enjoying more space and adventure. We were treated to (mostly) …
Wine tasting tops the list on most Tuscan itineraries. I’ve read lots of comments online that say taking the kids wine tasting is impossible. Even more state that wineries aren’t open in the winter. I’m here to tell you that wine tasting, in winter, with kids in Tuscany is lovely with a bit of preparation. …
This was the type of day that makes your trip. I scoured the Internet high and low for a cooking class that would accommodate our group which included cooks of varying levels and our kids – two four-year-olds and two two-year-olds. The few classes that took kids were pizza making classes. We had a pizza oven …