Yeah, I know, I’m a bad blogger but what with working and the kids…excuses, excuses. But now, since I’ve removed one of those impediments (no I didn’t get rid of the kids), I’m hoping to have more free time here.

Well, The Italy 2005 Extravaganza is shaping up nicely. Most of the high level planning and reservations have been taken care of. Here’s the current itinerary:
Depart May 12 from JFK for Roma. We’ll land about eight in the morning and hope to have someone from Roma Limo pick us up and take us to their offices at the Sheraton in EUR. We’ve rented a car through Auto Europe and are scheduled to pick it up there on Friday morning.

From there, we’ll hit the road and head to Silvi in Abruzzi (hopefully about a 2 1/2 hour ride). We have reservations that evening at Le Macine just outside Silvi. Our current plan is to have lunch at a Buon Riccordo restaurant nearby, Vecchia Silvi and dinner at the Agritourismo. Chris says it looks so great there, he may never want to leave.

Side note: If anything planning this trip has accomplished so far, it’s been to increase my desire to explore Abruzzo.

On Saturday May 14, we’ll drive down the coast for our stay outside Ostuni at IL Frantoio. So far on our agenda is a day trip to Bari (okay for lunch at another BR place), a day trip to Alborabello (yet another BR place) and one more day trip to Lecce. The other days – well beach time. Heck depending on the weather, I’m not sure what we’ll actually accomplish and what we won’t.

On Friday May 20th, we depart and make the long drive to Frascati to stay at yet another BR hotel/restaurant, Cacciani. We hope to arrive there mid to late afternoon, relax a bit, have dinner, and explore the town the next morning before we drive to Montalcino for our week’s stay.

Originally we rented, Ruga Alta through Project Travel International but two weeks ago Luigi contacted us to tell us that construction would soon be starting on the building next door to Ruga Alta and they believed it would interfere too much with our enjoyment of our accomodations and offered to move us to Vicolo Due another appartment, down the street which is actually an upgrade but they offered it to us at the same price. We believe Luigi has been more than fair with accomodation change and we’re still happy we booked with him.

On tap for our time in Montalcino: we’re spending a day with Peter Kilby, a trip to San Galgano, meeting Kaydee (from slowtalk) for lunch and a lot of wine tasting and relaxation.

I’ll be back as we get into the nuts and bolts of daily activities. Enjoy.