During the summer holidays, as you’ve figured out, we visited Italy for the very first time. In Italy, we explored Sorrento, Naples, Capri, Anacapri, Pompeii, Vesuvio, Positano, Amalfi Coast, and Milan. We were amazed by many spectacular sights like the grandeur of Duomo di Milano, the painted mosaic floors of La Chiesa di San Michele in Anacapri, the steam from Mount Vesuvius, the ruins in Pompeii, the churches in Naples, the luxurious shopping mall – Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, etc. In other words, Italy was beautiful.
But, we were quite taken aback by a few things. Many things were unlike what we experienced in the other countries in Europe. Therefore, I had to write this short blog post for those of you planning to visit for the first time this country with nearly 60 million people.
If you’ve visited Europe before, you would know that there are no hand faucets in the washrooms (hotel or otherwise). Now, we have a portable bidet (it came like a blessing free of cost from a hotel in Interlaken, Switzerland).
But, did you know that you had to pay to pee (in public areas of Italy)? You may say that, well, we do pay to pee in India, too. But, that’s like Rs 5. You’re not paying Euro 1 or 2 (which equals to Rs 90/- to Rs 190/- depending on the exchange rate) to visit Mother Nature!
And, that’s not all! In some places, there are no people to collect the money. Instead, there are tripod turnstiles where you have to insert the correct coin before you can move further and relieve yourself. If the turnstile only accepts Euro 1, you cannot insert Euro 2. I think my bladder became heavier just looking at the whole setup at the first public washroom I visited in Italy.
So, always keep coins with you. They come in handy especially when you’re travelling with kids.
If you’re Indian, you may know how to bargain. So, get ready to use your negotiating skills with the cab guys in Italy, right from the airport to places around you. Sometimes, they agree and then hike up the price looking at your luggage, the number of people you’re travelling with, etc.
So, it’s better to be aware and clear with the prices before getting into the cab. Or use Uber, if available in your area.
The roads in various places were narrow and winding.
So, it is advisable to drive only if you are comfortable with such roads, otherwise booking a car works out cheaper. Walking is the best!
The cab drivers in Italy drive like most of the cab drivers in India. RASH! We took a cab from the Naples Airport to our hotel in Sorrento and we had our hearts in our mouths the whole time. The cabby almost banged into a car that had stopped in front of us.
Also, don’t expect cars to stop for you when you’re waiting at a zebra crossing, like they would in most parts of Europe where I wanted to thank those people just for stopping their cars so that I could cross the road.
In many parts of Italy, you have to make sure the cars slow down before you decide to cross the road. Be extra careful if you’re with restless kids.
If you thought you could just roll out an airport trolley to keep your bags on, look again. Many airports in Italy require you to insert a coin if you want a trolley. We did not use them. Good wheels on our suitcases allowed us to roll them around easily without paying a penny.
So, keep coins with you or get suitcases with good wheels -and travel light.
The food is yummy but many good restaurants have a cover charge per head for sitting on their table (aside from the food you order). Few restaurants also have a rule where you have to order one main dish per head, except kids under the age of 5 years. We felt that this encourages wastage or overeating, both of which are not right. Sometimes, we packed the leftovers and consumed them for breakfast the next day.
So, choose your restaurants wisely.
Besides these supposedly sandy beaches (which I haven’t been to), the beaches we went to in Positano, Amalfi, etc. were filled with pebbles, small stones or sharp broken shells. Even Sorrento didn’t have a sandy beach where we could freely sit and chill on sand. The beaches there were either rocky or paid (we could get there only through a restaurant or club).
So, it is advisable to specifically check online about the type of beaches you’re planning to visit.
Famous places like Amalfi Coast, Positano, Capri, Anacapri, etc. were crowded. Even Milan’s Cathedral Square, where every tourist goes to see the magnificent Duomo di Milano, was crowded. I had to wait in a queue for 20 minutes only to get a token so I could wait in another queue to pay for the ticket. Finally, I left and bought my ticket online to visit the place the next day. Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper Museum in Milan also requires you to book your visits months in advance. Therefore, we couldn’t visit.
Many churches and other places are free to visit, but if you plan to visit a popular tourist attraction, it will be wise to book your tickets in advance to avoid wasting time in queues. After all, Italy is the third-most populated member state of the European Union.
Also, to get a glimpse of the well-known grottos in Italy, you will find long waiting lines. So, it’s better to have ample time on your hands if you’re keen on visiting them. I’ve heard they are beautiful, but we didn’t have the time or patience to wait for more than 2 hours.
Yes, the lemons in Sorrento were the size of our coconuts in India! We were overwhelmed with the sight of lemons everywhere. We had several drinks in lemons or with lemons. The whole place was filled with shops selling clothes with lemon designs on them, ceramics with lemons painted on them, various types of lemon drinks (like limoncello), lemon gelato, lemon desserts, etc. It was an amazing sight and the prices of everything were also amazing! Hahaha!
So, get ready to be mesmerized with lemons if you’re visiting Sorrento and its surrounding islands.
I loved the banana gelato at Sant Antonino the best and therefore visited it several times while we were in Sorrento.
Yes, never visit Italy right after Switzerland. We did and didn’t like the drastic change in sights. For example, Switzerland was calm, beautiful, picturesque and postcard-perfect while Italy, though scenic, had crazy traffic, huge crowds, dilapidated trains, uncleaned lanes, etc. It was a totally different experience from the snowy mountains and well-maintained landscapes of Switzerland. Therefore, we would advise you to avoid going to Italy right AFTER you’ve visited Switzerland.
Also, some metro stations in Italy didn’t even have proper signboards to guide us to the right train. So, you also have to be alert and ask around before you buy your train tickets to avoid them going to waste.
Italy, as a country, is a lovely place to visit. But, according to our experiences, you just need to keep a few things in mind so you don’t get overwhelmed or disappointed on your first visit. We didn’t do enough research like we normally do, before we fly to a new country, so we were quite surprised by a few things.
Anyway, this is a lesson learnt for the next vacation. I hope this helps you plan before your first trip to the tenth-largest country in Europe. Write to us in the comments below if you have experienced something different on your first trip to Italy. We would love to know.
Photo by Pixabay
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32 Comments
I visited the exact same places 10 years ago for my honeymoon. Back in 2014 the tourists were fewer so some of these issues didn’t exist, but paying for loos etc. isn’t new – that’s something you have to do in many high profile tourism spots such as London! And yes I agree about the chaos of Italy, but I loved it – it reminded me of India 🙂
It sure did, hahaha!
You look stunning in the pictures. I loved your pieces of advice and yes it is a beautiful place to visit. I am planning to visit Italy next year. Will bookmark this post for reference. Thanks for sharing.
good and helpful tips. especially about the loos and the crowds… knowing what to expect, one can plan and be mentally in a space to enjoy that experience.
Wow Cindy these are some great and helpful tips for me as a traveller. I found the paid trolley and bargain part most useful as I had no idea that the airport can rent trolley too. I hope you have enjoyed your trip Amazingly.
Italy’s rich history and culture have always fascinated me, and I wish to immerse myself in it, to see firsthand the places I’ve only read about or seen in movies. I hope to make this dream a reality and will keep these tips in mind.
Your post is such an eye-opener, Cindy. I’ve been fascinated with Italy and was making plans to visit someday. This helps a lot. People never discuss less than magnificent experiences like you did.
I hope this helps when you finally visit Italy, Varsha!
Love how you curated this article. Very informative and helpful especially for first time travellers and what to expect. Most of the time, we’re bombarded with all the good stuff a trip could be and get too much excited with the hype only to forget simple yet essential things to know such as loo-issues. I love this content and would love to read more about other places especially the ones I would love to visit someday.
Glad you liked it, Jeannine!
Actually Italy is much like India! So it wasp not much of a cultural shock to us. Switzerland on the other hand is like paradise and hence we get a reality check once we are back.
Veeeery true, Mandira!
Thanks for sharing the tips, Cindy. I get the cover charge but insisting on ordering one main per person is a bit too much. Like you said, it probably leads to a lot of waste too. Food waste is the worst.
Seriously, I dislike wasting to another level, Ritu!
Thanks for sharing the tips. You are correct, sometimes the idea of a place we have in mind is different than what it actually is. We surely need to be well prepared before visiting.
The most bang on point of this travel blog is LOO DILEMMA. This is indeed a serious concern and especially for the girls and females. I have been to Europe but not Italy and I already started visualizing I am in a queue and in high pee mode… Ma kya Karungi Yar. I loved this post of yours in travel category as its much much beyond than regular travel posts I get to read. It is informative and next time when I will plan for the trip will keep all ur points in mind. Thanks Cindy
Thanks, Samata. Do share and pin this post for future purposes.
Very useful travel tips, Cindy and one that most first-time travelers to Itay would certainly need.
This is quite a helpful post, Cindy. We are usually unaware of the difficulties we may face while visiting a place for the first time. Your guidelines can save many people from disasters! 😉 if you know what I mean
Yes yes! Hahaha!
The paid public toilets are a thing across Europe and not just in Italy (at least the countries we’ve visited so far, which are 8) and so is that one main dish per person thing at most restaurants. In fact, sharing of the dishes isn’t allowed either, which I too find wasteful.
We’re yet to cover the Italian cities you’ve mentioned here so this will be a great help. Thanks for sharing. Also a bigger thanks for sharing the link to the portable bidet. That’s gonna be really useful because despite begin expats for almost five years, we still miss the Indian jet spray. Sigh!
Hahaha true. Somehow we did not encounter such things in Switzerland which we visited before Italy. One restaurant in Switz had that one per head rule, but in Italy many restaurants had that.
Most practical trips for those who want to travel. Our guide did tell us during our Europe tour that peeing is costlier than beer !
Hahaha!
Those are the most practical tips I have ever come across,I knew about the rocky beaches and the toilet part but the rest of it was unknown to me, and it is these insider tips that can make your trip memorable or a nightmare. Thanks, Cindy!
Glad you found them helpful, Preeti!
It is a very very helpful post Cindy that too straight out of first hand experience. Tourist sites are always crowded everywhere n that’s disappointing… You feel like cattle in a herd😅. And yes I can understand the drastic change from Switzerland to Italy. If you all had done the reverse, maybe Italy would’ve appealed more.
I’m sure it would have, Kaveri. Italy nevertheless is a beauty!
Thanks for the things to remember before a trip to Italy, Cindy. We usually glorify the places we visit. It is good to share what went wrong. Italy is on my bucket list and I have bookmarked this post for reference when I do visit. I loved the lemons most of all 🙂
Oh, it’s a beautiful scene but we were just overwhelmed by the sight of them everywhere. It’s like lemon world.
WONDERFUL tips Cindy! I really faced toilet issues in South Korea for two days and then had to ask a guide. They were the upmarket ones that Japan has. So, your advice is good. I also like the fact that you have mentioned that one needs to see the chaos before the peace, so Italy before Switzerland.
Oh wow! Italy sounds a lot like India, crowded, narrow roads! 😉 Very important tips though. Mandatory to order one main for every member sounds almost draconian. Cover charges seems okay to me, after all they have invested in real estate, and so using their space seems okay to me, IMHO. Thank you for these pertinent tips. Will keep in mind, if and when I travel to Italy.