Plane Tickets

Christian and I bought our plane tickets the other night, so I guess its official! We fly Air Canada through Toronto and arrive in Florence (from Rome by train) on April 8th in the afternoon. We will be staying at the Villa for the days before the wedding, as well as the night after.

Air Canada, eh?

We've found some awesome deals on airfare to Rome through Air Canada. See link below:

http://www.aircanada.com/en/us/offers/air/int_nov07/int_nov07.html

You'll have to connect through Toronto, but we found a deal from Rochester to Rome (for my sister) through Toronto for only $200 roundtrip!

The sale ends January 8th.

Trains from Rome to Florence are pretty much hourly, and the trip is only 1 1/2 hours. The following excerpt is from Frommers.com

Florence is Tuscany's rail hub, with connections to all the region's major cities. To get here from Rome, you can take the Pendolino (four daily, 1 3/4 hr.; make sure it's going to Santa Maria Novella station, not Rifredi; you must reserve tickets ahead), an EC or IC train (24 daily, just under 2 hr.), or an interregionale (seven daily, around 3 hr.). There are also about 16 trains daily from Milan (3 hr.) through Bologna (1 hr.).

Most Florence-bound trains roll into the Stazione Santa Maria Novella, Piazza della Stazione (tel. 800-888-088 toll-free in Italy, or 055-288-765; www.trenitalia.it), which you'll often see abbreviated as S.M.N. The station is on the northwestern edge of the city's compact historic center, a 10-minute walk from the Duomo and a 15-minute walk from Piazza della Signoria and the Uffizi. There are loads of budget hotels immediately east of there around Via Faenza and Via Fiume.

only 6 months to go!

We received some information from our wedding planner about two unique hotels close to the Villa where we will get married (and not far from the city center). See links for more information:

www.lepiazzole.com
Villa Le Piazzole Montartino
in the Florentine hills near the villa, but a little further from town than the other hotel. This looks like a "quieter" location. They offer not only rooms, but also more apartment style accommodations for larger groups of people.

www.residencemichelangiolo.it
Residence Michelangiolo
villa/hotel within 5 minutes walking distance to historical center of Florence

We don't anticipate needing to reserve blocks of rooms due to the small amount of people who will be coming, so please go ahead and secure your own reservations if you are planning on joining us. Immediate family will be staying in the Villa with us!

Passports

As I'm sure you've all heard, the U.S. passport office has been bombarded with passport requests due to some travel security changes. If you are planning on making the trip in April with us and don't already have a passport, now is the time to get one. And if you do have a passport, check the expiration date!

Click on the link below for more information.

http://travel.state.gov/passport/passport_1738.html

Villa!

Below is the link to the villa where we will be getting married in Arcetri, Italy (about 10 minutes drive from Florence city center):

www.villapoggiosanfelice.com

Travel Websites...

Below are several websites I like to search for flights, hotels, and car rentals.

www.kayak.com
www.priceline.com (www.biddingfortravel.com is very useful to)
www.vayama.com

for cheap flights within europe

www.easyjet.com
www.ryanair.com