Katy Ereira

Northern Italy: Travel Plans

In two days I am off to Italy - the third annual mother-daughter overseas excursion. (Others in the series: Japan 2009, Fuerteventura 2010) After last year's laid back beach holiday we opted for a 10-day package holiday to Garda, Lake Garda for approximately £400pp half board. Essentially we just wanted somewhere cheap and cheerful to serve as a hub, where we can access other places in Northern Italy easily using public transportation.

We land at Verona airport on Wednesday morning but catch a transfer to Garda right away. There are regular buses from Garda to Verona, though, so no doubt we will be spending some time there. Verona is of course famous for its artistic heritage as well as being the setting for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

In addition to visiting Verona, we have booked a night's stay in Venice from 25th to 26th May, and I also hope that we can visit Milan. I am of course taking my trusty GPS device with which I hope to partake in some Geocaching in the cities as well as around Lake Garda and the mountains. Must remember to pack my walking boots!

I can already tell that my smartphone is going to come in incredibly handy during this trip. Using 3G data overseas is expensive, but at least I can pre-load Open Street Map data onto my phone for offline use. I intend to buy a data bundle to use 3G abroad for slightly cheaper so that I can book train tickets online, use Google translate to decipher menus, tweet things, and check my email every so often!