Planes, Trains, and Automobiles!

We've been sitting here tonight, spending time TRYING to understand travel modes and costs for various places inside and outside of Italy and we've come to understand a few things:

1. It's more straightforward to get train fares via another country's system for travel in and through Italy than it is through Trenitalia (the national system here in Italy)--at least online. Gretchen was more successful using Deutsche Bahn's site.

2. It's actually less expensive in some circumstances to fly to Dublin than to go to almost anywhere in Italy. How can this be? (Check out Ryan Air...they fly to Dublin from Turin...and occasionally do it for under 40 Euro round trip!).

3. Kids are kids, except when they are not. Kids are defined differently throughout Europe. In some places, under 16 are kids, some under 12, some in their 20's...which makes booking and getting straight forward pricing kinda confusing.

4. Car rentals end up being generally cheaper than train travel for many of the Italian destinations...trouble is...driving and parking in Italian cities is a bit of a mess, so we have to choose where we drive carefully (and having driven around the world, I don't frighten at the prospect of driving very easily...but seeing the wacky patterns and behaviors here definitely has me thinking twice).

I think we've resolved that I'll check with the place I'm working (more on that later) to see if they have a travel agent/agency and/or visit with a local travel agent to see if its easier to go through them for our long weekends away. Otherwise, we could end up spending the same amount it costs to travel around the world to just travel around Italy!

Oh well...I'm enjoying tonight's beer (a Moretti Baffo D'oro) as I write this and wind down for the evening.

Tonight's beer...