<p>Thank you everyone for their wonderful ideas. I know I can count on CC. </p>
<p>Now off to get the princess out of bed to start packing. (She hasn’t started.) Her dad and I are far more concerned than she is about her trip.</p>
<p>This will an interim report as the travelers are past the halfway mark of their European journey. </p>
<p>They flew US Airways from Cleveland (where one traveler lived) to Charlotte to Rome FCO for around $730 pp incl taxes. Saved almost $500 pp somehow from what we were finding. Tips- Check all airports and all sites multiple times. Book on Tuesday. May was cheaper than June.</p>
<p>Stayed at the Hostel Beautiful 2, Roma Termini area (easy to get get to and from airport, convenient, clean, safe, 30 min of wifi/day, thin walls, thought they could have done a bit better).</p>
<p>Vueling airlines to Barcelona. No hassles. Easy. </p>
<p>Stayed at the Hotel El Canton and really liked it. </p>
<p>Air Europa to London Gatwick via Madrid. No hassles. </p>
<p>Stayed at Hyde Park Rooms Hotel. Again, liked it a lot. (Both were preferable to Rome lodgings.)</p>
<p>Today is Easy Jet from London Gatwick to Venice. </p>
<p>So far so good. They went over budget on entertainment (read “clubbing”) in Rome but “not bad” she says. No emergency requests for $ though, so couldn’t have been too bad. </p>
<p>Their budget for everything with 3 in a room savings and setting the bar low (safe, clean, well-located, no luxury) was $3000 pp for 15 days on the ground in Europe. She paid half and I paid half. So far, at least, it was money well spent. </p>
<p>If you have someone going over, this info might do somebody some good. </p>
<p>Almost forgot- </p>
<p>The Lonely Planet newest edition Europe on a Shoestring has been her “go to”. Her only complaint is that it should have the public trans maps in the book. She has found it invaluable. </p>
<p>As far as phone goes- we bought down her iphone for emergencies, but she only uses one of the Buy-anywhere calling cards (1hr for 10-11 Euros and she has used about …oh…5 minutes. I guess she’s busy. lol). As far as wifi, London and Barcelona were 24 hours at the lodging and lots of free local hotspots, too. Rome? Not so much. Some Italian law prohibits anonymous login or somesuch. </p>
<p>They are having a ball.</p>
<p>Edit: It’s on to Venice, Florence by train , back to Rome by train. And then home-ish. They then head to somebody’s lakehouse in KY. </p>
<p>Edit: And then maybe the Betty Ford Clinic by the sound of it. ;)</p>
<p>I am smiling every day seeing Euro coming down. This week long trip in June will start in Milano, Italy and ends in Frankfurt. Round trip airfare is around $1500. It is much higher than last year. May be some flights are cut??</p>
<p>Hopefully the weather will be good this time of the year.</p>
<p>So glad to hear the trip is going well. My #2 leaves tonight for Madrid on Air Europa, then on to Germany for the better part of next week. Oh, to be a young 20-something again!</p>
<p>Sounds like a great trip. Mine leaves for a job in Zurich for the summer on Monday. Then, onto a job for next year in France from there. Got her airfare down to $965 roundtrip (June until trip home to visit in Dec.). That was cheapest we found, but she is leaving in June and yes, May was cheaper. But most fares were higher than we found. She is not paying one cent for it and neither are we…therefore, we’ll take flights paid for by others any day!</p>
<p>curmudgeon,</p>
<p>They will be in a country so pumped by the upcoming World Cup. Hope they are prepared.</p>
<p>Ah. They are probably aware. One of her compadres is a soccer star. ;)</p>
<p>Glad to hear all is going well, curmudgeon. Am assuming the volcano has quieted downand presents no thread to air travel back to the US.</p>
<p>I’m leaving for Hungary in six hours :D</p>
<p>Cool, fiona. I suggested Eastern Europe but as usual…no va.</p>
<p>jym, that’s why they are flying in and out of Rome. So far so good. They love their place in Venice. She says it’s like private home. She pronounces Venice “chill”. I am assuming that’s positive.</p>
<p>When I was in Italy last week there was an announcement on TV that the volcano ash threat looked to be permanently over.</p>
<p>the child worked hard for her holiday with friends! Friends gained during years well-spent! more lovely talented friends ahead…</p>
<p>That was nice of you to say, Faline. </p>
<p>She is coming back stateside today. </p>
<p>She really liked Venice. They stayed in a less touristy area and had a ball with the locals.</p>
<p>o.k. More data. They stayed at the Ciprea B&B at Castello 986 C (Calle Corera) in Venice and loved it, loved the neighborhood.</p>
<p>They stayed at the Residenza Betta in Florence and I didn’t hear any complaints about the room. They did a Tuscany bike tour and it was a high point. It also busted the budget (which she had already hammered pretty badly 
but hey. She won’t be back for a while.)</p>
<p>Now it’s off to somebody’s lakehouse for a week, a month at the Betty Ford Clinic, and then New Haven. ;)</p>
<p>ahhh…bella Italia.<br>
I just returned from attending a ceremony honoring my sis’s retirement from 32 years of teaching in one old fashioned schoolhouse in a town with a courthouse designed by Jefferson with 100 historic homes in it…a town forgotten because the RR didn’t ever stop there…once the edge of America before the Revolutionary War. I wore a summer skirt with pics of San Marco Square in Venezia on it today, and when I sit down…it is the closest to Venice I will get for a few more years. 
I had my turn in Tuscany in past lives…(brilliant to stay in Castello and away from the thundering tourists near San Marco)</p>
<p>Love thinking of Mudgette on a bike in that Tuscan light seeing those breathtaking villages on hills…she can consider her Lake Week to be further soul and mind cleansing before the tough stuff and the short dark winter days of New Haven…</p>
<p>can’t help but be a bit smug about her fab social life and circle of true friends made at Rhodes College…so many doubters only four years ago! </p>
<p>Knowing she is in at Yale Med with her new pending band of brothers and sisters just makes me know I still live in a great country! </p>
<p>Go Yale!</p>
<p>curm,</p>
<p>Who knows? Maybe you’ll go to one or more of those places with her when she’s a doc, giving an important speech.</p>
<p>Now that’s a nice thought. Thanks. </p>
<p>I’ve been focusing on whether she’ll be talking to me at all after our “conversation” this afternoon about her “slight over budget-ness”. Slight, uh-huh. Yeah, right. Slight as in BP has a “slight” problem down on the Gulf.</p>
<p>^its only money. Glad the trip went well.</p>
<p>She hasn’t called yet so the conversation hasn’t happened. I am going have to be in my “happy place” when I talk to her. Right now I’m in my “what the Hell were you thinking?” place.</p>