I have come to the conclusion that Italy is my love language. The beautiful landscape, city scapes, the art, style, way of life. I have absolutely fallen in love with Italy.

We spent 10 days exploring Italy and went to Rome, Florence, Siena, Cinque Terre, and Venice. Whew! That was a considerable amount of traveling, especially in a heatwave.

We started our journey in Rome, where we stayed with a local Roman family. We met a family friend in Guatemala who is actually from Rome. When he learned we were traveling to Rome he reached out to his mom to see if we could stay with her. Luckily for us she sad yes, and what a special experience it was! She was so sweet and accommodating, she even had breakfast and coffee available for us each morning. His brother showed us around Rome, and we enjoyed some local street food with him from Trapizzino!

We were able to run all around Rome in a few days, although we wished we had stayed for at least five days! We were able to see the Vatican and the Coliseum. We met an incredibly sweet couple from Canada during our tour of the Coliseum and ended up spending the entire day together. We had an amazing lunch at Dar Bottarolo where we shared many laughs with the staff of the restaurant and had the best carbonara ever.

We then made our way to Florence, we opted to book a room in an Italian home. We were 45 minutes from Florence and one hour from Siena. So we figured we would see both cities! The airbnb we booked was charming, and the hosts were so incredibly kind. We spent time talking with them about our travels, they offered us a cooked breakfast each morning and of course cappuccinos! Siena was a beautiful Tuscan town, where we caught some enchanting views of Tuscany. We spent the next day in Florence, wondering the city (since we didn’t buy any tickets in advance we missed the statue of David), enjoying the views. Definitely one of the highlights was hiking up to the Bardini Garden where we actually heard the famous Calcio storico game taking place in the center of Florence.

The next leg of our trip was to Cinque Terre, not as well known for Americans but definitely a European hotspot for summer vacations. Boy was it packed! This area is picturesque with dramatic mountains and colorful towns hovering the coastline. We found one of favorite meals in Italy in the village of Manarola at Fooderia Manarola. The owner Davide was kind and passionate about his food. He explained how it can be a bit challenging bringing new street food ideas into the very traditional Italian food scene. Definitely stop by for lunch if you visit! I loved the octopus special. We stayed in La Spezia and opted for airbnb. We enjoyed having a studio to ourselves that was updated and with AC! It was a much cheaper area vs staying in the five scenic towns of Cinque Terre, but so accessible to the train station.

We concluded our time in Venice, booking a very typical Venetian style hotel using our credit card points. We stayed at Al Duca a Venezia this was our “luxury” stay during our 10 day tour. Venice is definitely so much fun to take photos of, but overall I would say the vibe of the city is lackluster. We’ve encountered some not-so-friendly service and shitty food. We do however recommend La Zucca while the service was alright, the food was amazing! They change the menu everyday, so you guessed it —it won’t be translated to english so be prepared to translate on your phone and maybe the server will tell you what’s what with a little attitude (lol). I also HIGHLY recommend checking out the most beautiful theater I have ever seen, Teatro La Fenice. I also suggest getting up at sunrise to run around and take photos prior to the crowds arriving.

All in all, Italy was incredible! We will probably never come back in the summer again and opt for shoulder season travel as it gets expensive quickly and the heat is no joke. I hope your find my recommendations helpful and let me know below if you’ve been to Italy and where you favorite place was!