ITALIA

since i have a little extra time on my hands, i am knee deep in making arrangements and nailing down our itinerary for our upcoming trip to italy in october.

venice (4 nights)
manarola (3 nights)
florence (2 nights)
siena (2 nights)
rome (3 nights)

in that order.

it was actually tricky finding a room in manarola, even though it's 3 months from now...most things were already booked. we ended up making a reservation to stay in an apartment, which looks quite lovely.

we made reservations at a b&b in florence.

the next big decision will be: "where do we want to stay in siena?" we have the option of staying in a convent, which sounds intriguing.

i just finished reading eat, pray, love (which i LOVED) and i am currently in the middle of reading city of falling angels (which if i weren't going to venice i think i would find rather boring)...and now i am on the prowl for other books and movies that can get my juices flowing for our italian adventure.

i just added a bunch of movies to my netflix queue:

featuring the legendary marcello mastroianni:
divorce italian style
la dolce vita (i can't remember if i have actually seen this or not)

featuring the italian bombshell sophia loren:
two women

death in venice
the comfort of strangers ( i think i might have seen this one?)
the wings of the dove
swept away (i saw the trailer for this one so many times i feel like i have seen the movie)
ciao, proffesore!
a room with a view ( i saw this one...but it was over 20 years ago)

for books i'm not sure how to search out what is good. i think that i would like to read some books about the history, art and architecture. this is the kind of thing that i like to know, but hate to read about when i am actually in the place. when i am there i just want to look and experience. but it's always nice to have background and context, so it would be fun to do some reading before we go.there's certainly plenty of time.

i am trying to decide:

the stones of florence
brunelleschi's dome
a thousand days in venice
italian education
extra virgin
the house of medici
a concise history of italy
the italians