travel abroad – Boozy Blondes

The Boozy Blondes are wrapping up their Season 4 Italy tour with an episode all about Rome! Are you planning a trip to the Eternal City? This episode will help you plan for some of the hot spots you don’t want to miss!

First things first – the DOE. Chrissy continues to try to warm Molly up to spritzes, but it’s not going so well. Molly reluctantly sips the Campari Spritz Chrissy made because, well, “when in Rome!”

If you’re traveling by plane to Rome, chances are you’re flying into Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport. From here you can take an Uber to train to your destination. The girls stayed in the neighborhood of Trastevere, and you can hear an episode dedicated to this beautiful community in Episode 088 (listen here!).

One must-see stop when in Rome is Vatican City. Its headquarters to the Roman Catholic Church and full of cultural, religious and historical significance. The girls toured the Vatican Museums, St. Peter’s Basilica, St. Peter’s Square and the Sistine Chapel. Understandably so, Vatican City is a popular spot and gets extremely crowded with tourists. The girls planned for the crowds and booked the earliest tour possible through The Tour Guy for about $150 per person. This 3-hour tour included:

Skip-the-line entry to the Vatican
Pio-Clementino Museum, Gallery of the Candelabra, Tapestries and Maps
Raphael Rooms and School of Athens
Entry to the Sistine Chapel
Entry to St. Peter’s Basilica
A Professional, English-speaking guide
Max group size of 10

The girls highly recommend the tour, especially if it’s your first visit. There is so much to take in! One pro tip is to dress for the weather – much of the tour actually takes place outside, and the girls were not prepared for that! Other tips include:

Go as early as you can to beat the largest crowds
You are allowed to take pictures (no flash) everywhere except inside the Sistine Chapel
Dress modestly – your shoulders and knees must be covered
Bags are allowed but must be small backpacks or purses

Following your tour, there are cute restaurants close by where you can grab a cocktail (or espresso) before your next adventure! For the girls it was touring the Colosseum, but unfortunately due to the miserable weather, they skipped it. This is the tour they had booked again through The Tour Guy for you check out.

One of the best experiences the blondes had was renting e-bikes and exploring the Appian Way. Chrissy packed a picnic lunch for the group, and they took off from an e-bike rental store near Circus Maximus. Beware – there are no bike lanes, so navigating the traffic can be a little treacherous. Over the course of the ride, they stopped at:

Catacombe Di San Callisto – the catacombs here were built in the 2^nd century around 150AD! The tour is about 10 Euros per person and lasts about 45 minutes
Appia Antica Caffe for spritzes and beer
Borghese Park
Church of Domine Quo Vadis – where Saint Peter was said to encounter Jesus when he initially fled Rome – you can see Jesus’ footprints here

The girls agree this was a great way to experience the Roman countryside and some history too! Having a picnic lunch alongside one of the oldest roads in the world was surreal! After biking the group enjoyed aperitivo at Da Etta and Freni e Frizioni (details in Episode 088), then had an amazing meal at Divin Ostilia Wine Bar.

Other must-sees in Rome are the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. You can listen to our Angels and Demons Pub Crawl episode (Episode 085) to get more details about those stops.

A few more tips as you plan your trip:

Stop in random churches! They are full of history, art and faith, and breathtaking!
Stop for aperitivo! It’s an Italian lifestyle – enjoy drinks and small snacks before dinner. Molly’s favorite was at the rooftop bar of FortySevenHotel.
Beware of bathrooms – or lack of seats on toilets. BYOS! (Bring your own seat!)
Make reservations in advance but leave some room for flexibility! Sometimes getting lost leads to the best adventures!
If you can, add an extra day or two to your original plan – vacation goes by so fast. If you’re planning for 7 days, see if you can swing 10! Having downtime days is a blessing!

Is there a place in Rome you love that we didn’t mention? Share it with us in the comments below!

Listen here!

Settle in, lushes! We are crossing the pond and drinking abroad today! We highly recommend this episode if you’re planning a trip to Greece or Italy, or if you’d like to live vicariously through one of the Boozy Blondes and her fabulous trip overseas!

The DOE is aperol spritz (3 parts Champagne, 2 parts aperol, 1 part sparkling water over ice). In Italy spritz is big, made with any aperitif + Champagne + fizzy water. All the locals drink spritzes (especially as a day drink) and most often they are served with crisps (chips) or snack towers. This is your pro tip – order a spritz, it’s the best value – for about 5€ you get a drink and snacks!

Chrissy’s trip spanned over 19 days – and it was full of planes, trains and automobiles. And boats. Her trip was in late March/early April which is typically the off-season in Italy and Greece. During the off-season you can expect a low amount of tourists, it’s easy to get into restaurants, hotel rates are discounted, but the weather is hit or miss and not everything is open. Locals recommend traveling In September.

In this episode Chrissy shares travel tips, favorite bars and differences in the drinking culture as she takes listeners through her adventures in Italy and and cruising through Greece. She visits:

Milan, Italy
Venice, Italy
Padua/Padova, Italy
Verona, Italy
Madonna della Corona, Italy
Bolzano, Italy
Kotor, Montenegro
Mykonos, Greece
Santorini, Greece
Bari, Italy

One drinking culture difference in Italy – the coffee game is strong. Coffee bars are actual bars, and there are different trends for different times of day. In the morning grab coffee and snacks, breakfast pastries or meatballs. Meatballs for breakfast?! This may be the one exception to Molly’s “no morning meat” rule. They sound delish. Don’t get comfy though; locals enjoy their coffee and snacks while standing at the bar and move on. Starting around 11am the coffee bars start serving spritz and chips (crisps) – unlike breakfast, you can sit down for this one. Later in day, around 7 pm-ish is cicchetti (happy hour), then after 8pm, it’s time for wine with dinner.

Chrissy’s favorite bars in Italy:

– Vino Vero (Venice) – Chrissy enjoyed a cooking class in Venice with Lorenzo. (Lorenzo’s house made the favorite bar list too). He recommended his favorite at Vino Vero, Amarone wine.

– Sophias cafe (best craft beer)

– Santa Maria (brewery in Verona – taproom)

– Retro Wine & Cocktail Bar (Venice)

– Cafe Rialto (Venice)

– Caffe Vergnano (comparable to Starbucks)

– Marie B istrot (Verona)

– Bottega Vini (Verona with 198 pages of wine)

– Antica gelateria del corso (base of the Madonna della Corona church – Spiazzi, Italy)

– Hopfen & Co (Bolzano, Italy)

Chrissy boarded her cruise ship from Venice and immediately noticed a big difference from the cruises the Boozy Blondes frequent in the Caribbean (listen to Episode 013 Booze Cruise for tips to making the most out of your weekend cruise). This particular European cruise was filled with young families, the drink package was not a priority (she was willing to bet she and Phil were the only ones with a drink package – they were ship favorites with the bartenders!), the activities were not in English, and it was a “commuter cruise” – people were boarding and debarking in all the ports. But similar to the Caribbean cruises, the ship docked in beautiful places!

The first stop was Kotor, Montenegro which was so picturesque or rather, Game of Thrones-esque, as Chrissy describes it. There were cats everywhere (they are protected), and Christmas is very big there. Chrissy recommends Caesar’s Wine Bar for the best charcuterie board and inexpensive wine.

The next port was Mykonos – a party place in season, but it was pretty much shut down when Chrissy was there. It reminded her of a little Venice and she visited Mykonos Brewing Company with Yoshi! (This is the only brewery on the island). She recommends Katerina’s Bar on water with great views and Captain’s.

There was one place Chrissy wanted to visit more than anywhere else – Santorini! “I had happy tears the whole time!” she says. While more places were open here than in Mykonos there still weren’t many tourists. If you visit, go to the Meteor Cafe in Oia and the Venetsanos Winery. Guests can take a tour here, and they offer a tasting flight with a meat and cheese board.

The last port was Bari, but Chrissy didn’t get off the boat this day. Perhaps an excuse to go back?

Chrissy’s parting tips in this episode:

You know it’s a long day of travel to get overseas – it helps to have airline club level (check out airline credit card deals if you aren’t currently a member) – long layovers = expensive bar trips otherwise
book First class on trains – she experienced both First and General fares and the ease of logistics and lack of stress in First Class is well worth the price
Pay for the international data plan for phones – download google maps and gps routes to avoid getting lost when there is no service or Internet
When in Venice, splurge for a private water taxi, not a vaparetto (Chrissy describes a vaparetto as a bus on water – it’s only 7 to 15 euro OW or you can buy daily, weekly or monthly passes, whereas a private taxi is about 90 euro but it takes your door to door rather than a random vaparetto stop. When you arrive in Venice, depending where the stop is in relation to your lodging, you may have to drag your luggage through streets quite a ways

Have you traveled to any of these locations? What are some of your must-sees?

Tag: travel abroad

Episode 089 | Italy – Rome, What to Drink, Eat and Do in the Eternal City

Episode 024 | Drinking Abroad – Italy & Greece