1) YAY TRAVEL. You'll love it. Take as long as you possibly can.
1B) Everywhere you go, people will speak English. Really. Don't worry about language problems. If you're concerned, buy one of those point-picture book things for emergencies - I bought one for my last trip to China/Mongolia (where there _are_ language difficulties in being a traveler) and it stayed in the bottom of my bag. You're used to being flexible (I'm in awe of your relief work) - and that will put you far ahead of mere mortals abroad.
2) I loved Venice and the tinytiny towns separated by OMG gorgeous valleys of olive trees, crops, and grapevines of the Tuscany region. (This pix sums up what I loved about that region - we stopped for 1h, and I could have stayed for 3d, just walking, however, the castle/town was quite touristy and probably deathly expensive; I bought the above at a little hole in the wall outside of the town that catered to locals looking for a snack: http://www.flickr.com/photos/clstal/795359103/ ) Italy pix from that trip/tour: http://www.flickr.com/photos/clstal/tags/italy/ Venice was my ABSOLUTE FAV place of the whole trip but it is heart-attack-inducingly expensive. Hotels are insanely expensive (unless you want to spend hours/frustration/getting lost/unpleasantness and stay in less central locations, food is expensive, but at least (unlike the rest of Italy, in my experience) amenable to wandering near your hotel and finding good restaurants, likely because your hotel is in a central location frequented by tourists AND locals... which makes all the difference in the world, in my opinion. This lady just got back from Venice - and might have advice on places to stay, if you're interested: http://www.yarnagogo.com/blog/2012/03/in-venice.html
3) I took the Globus tour w/ my mom a few years ago. They were great, 100% professional, accommodating, and the tour guide lady was well-suited for the task. My only complaint was that on the one or two tour-provided meals, the food sucked - the places that can accommodate a tour bus full of people don't cater to locals and therefore can serve sub-par food as long as they can do it quickly. Not the fault of the tour company, this is a problem of feeding the masses. The globus tour was _not_ food-focused, something I regret to this day and would consider a major drawback (and is the reason I'd like to go back) - we passed through so many regions famous for food/wine/whatever and those were never featured or mentioned by the tour. If you do take a tour, book yourself several days ahead of the tour so you can get over the atrocious jet lag and acclimate, so when the tour starts, you aren't miserable when you're supposed to be viewing once-in-a-lifetime artwork/places/etc. The tour place can rec a location or give you the name of the hotel where the tour starts... and you can book there or nearby using hostels.com or one of the other international hotel sites.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2012-04-01 05:13 pm (UTC)1) YAY TRAVEL. You'll love it. Take as long as you possibly can.
1B) Everywhere you go, people will speak English. Really. Don't worry about language problems. If you're concerned, buy one of those point-picture book things for emergencies - I bought one for my last trip to China/Mongolia (where there _are_ language difficulties in being a traveler) and it stayed in the bottom of my bag. You're used to being flexible (I'm in awe of your relief work) - and that will put you far ahead of mere mortals abroad.
2) I loved Venice and the tinytiny towns separated by OMG gorgeous valleys of olive trees, crops, and grapevines of the Tuscany region. (This pix sums up what I loved about that region - we stopped for 1h, and I could have stayed for 3d, just walking, however, the castle/town was quite touristy and probably deathly expensive; I bought the above at a little hole in the wall outside of the town that catered to locals looking for a snack: http://www.flickr.com/photos/clstal/795359103/ )
Italy pix from that trip/tour: http://www.flickr.com/photos/clstal/tags/italy/ Venice was my ABSOLUTE FAV place of the whole trip but it is heart-attack-inducingly expensive. Hotels are insanely expensive (unless you want to spend hours/frustration/getting lost/unpleasantness and stay in less central locations, food is expensive, but at least (unlike the rest of Italy, in my experience) amenable to wandering near your hotel and finding good restaurants, likely because your hotel is in a central location frequented by tourists AND locals... which makes all the difference in the world, in my opinion. This lady just got back from Venice - and might have advice on places to stay, if you're interested: http://www.yarnagogo.com/blog/2012/03/in-venice.html
3) I took the Globus tour w/ my mom a few years ago. They were great, 100% professional, accommodating, and the tour guide lady was well-suited for the task. My only complaint was that on the one or two tour-provided meals, the food sucked - the places that can accommodate a tour bus full of people don't cater to locals and therefore can serve sub-par food as long as they can do it quickly. Not the fault of the tour company, this is a problem of feeding the masses. The globus tour was _not_ food-focused, something I regret to this day and would consider a major drawback (and is the reason I'd like to go back) - we passed through so many regions famous for food/wine/whatever and those were never featured or mentioned by the tour. If you do take a tour, book yourself several days ahead of the tour so you can get over the atrocious jet lag and acclimate, so when the tour starts, you aren't miserable when you're supposed to be viewing once-in-a-lifetime artwork/places/etc. The tour place can rec a location or give you the name of the hotel where the tour starts... and you can book there or nearby using hostels.com or one of the other international hotel sites.
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