We visited the lounge for about 30 minutes, then got a notification that our flight from RDU to Dulles (that was previously showing to be on time) was now delayed about 1:20 due to a delay with the incoming airplane. That would have gotten us to Dulles at the exact time that our flight to Rome was taking off. Oh no! There were no other flights to Dulles around the same time, and no other options for Raleigh to Rome in a similar time frame. The only other option would have left about 10pm and gotten to Rome at 1pm on Friday. The agent in the lounge was super helpful and got us seats on the new Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt, departing Raleigh at 3:40pm and arriving around 6am, with a connection to Rome at 8am. Lufthansa and United have an alliance, so they rebooked us without a charge.
We had to go back to the ticket counter to get our new boarding passes, but we had time for that and also another quick trip through security with still an hour to spare before boarding. Lufthansa has more strict weight requirements for carry-on bags (8kg), so we had to check 3 of our 4 suitcases, but we did not complain one bit. Erin’s bag was just over the limit, so they let her take hers on. Anna’s backpack was probably over the limit, but we didn’t bring that to their attention. Anyway, we were super thankful that this worked out! Whew!
July 5: Once we got on the Lufthansa flight, it was on time and all went well. We landed in Frankfurt around 6am their time, cleared customs, and then got on our flight to Rome, which was just over an hour long. From the Rome airport, we took a train to the Termini train station, then stopped at a Best Western hotel a block away to shower in a room that we had booked for “day use”. Then it was on to the W to drop off our bags, but we found that our rooms were ready early, so we took our stuff straight to them.
After that, we had lunch at a pizza place nearby that was popular with local business people. The pizza was sold by weight, and it was so good! Then we hopped on the metro and went to the Colosseum, where we entered with tickets that we had purchased that morning and walked around for a while. We didn’t get audio guides, so we just made a lap around the lower level and part of the upper level and admired the views. From there, we rode a bus to the Pantheon and got some gelato while we tried to figure out how to get tickets for the Pantheon. There was a ticket kiosk there, but the line was very long. They have a way to purchase tickets online, but we couldn’t get it to work despite many attempts. We saw online that this is a common issue.
So, after all of that, we decided to pass on seeing the inside of the Pantheon and continued on to the Trevi Fountain on foot. We all tossed a coin in (thanks, Anna, for having some in her bag!) so that we could return to Rome! Then it was back to the hotel for some time at the rooftop pool (which was small and shallow, but still very nice and refreshing and had great views of the city), and then to dinner near the hotel at Ristorante Clavdia.
We thought we were eating at a decent time (6:30pm), but the only other family in the restaurant was also American. Other restaurants were the same way. Bob had pasta and a prosciutto and cheese appetizer, Erin had pasta and salad, Anna had pizza, and Gina had pasta and a tomato and chicken dish. After dinner, we were all tired from the overnight flight, so we called it a day. We were proud of ourselves for making it through the day!
July 6: We had a leisurely morning, including breakfast at the hotel around 9:30am. The hotel restaurant is in a courtyard between the two buildings and was really pretty. We enjoyed seeing the birds flying in and out. There was a buffet with cold items, fruit, pastries, yogurt, etc. and we also each got a hot item from the menu included. Most notable was Bob’s eggs in tomato sauce that he read online was good at the hotel. The rest of us went with more typical American dishes (scrambled eggs and ham and cheese on toast). Three of us loved the cappuccino!
After breakfast, we hopped on the metro and met our Vatican Museum tour guide at some steps near the Vatican at 10:15am. We really enjoyed the tour with our guide, Adriano, who had lots of interesting information! We went through several galleries, including the Sistene Chapel, and then the official tour ended in St. Peter’s Square after about 2.5 hours. We were able to tour the basilica at our leisure and were also able to bypass the entrance line to the basilica because we were a part of the tour. We saw the lower area of the basilica with the tombs and chapel, and then the main upper area. It was breathtaking! After that, Anna got a postcard in the shop nearby, Bob got a stamp from the post office next door, and mailed it to her friend Lyla from the Vatican post office.
We then attempted to get lunch at our pre-picked location, but (which proved to be an issue several times over the trip) the line was very long and we were hungry by this time (2pm or so), so we tried a second sit-down option that also had a line, and finally got pizza at a takeaway place next door to the original place and sat on the curb in the crowded alley with a bunch of other people to eat.
After lunch, we took the metro over to St. John Lateran, which is in a very pretty, quieter neighborhood. The church is the cathedral of the diocese of Rome, and it now has its own feast day in the church (the only feast day that is not for a person). The church was beautiful with statues of apostles both inside and on top of the building outside. We also went to the Cappella Papale Sancta Sanctorum across the street, a smaller church where pilgrims ascend a set of stairs on their knees. We took the other steps designated for walking, partly because the “knee steps” were packed and nobody was moving.
Then it was back to the hotel via metro for another quick visit to the pool, then 6pm mass at St. Patrick’s near the hotel. This is an American parish, was not crowded, and the mass was 41 minutes long! The priest said that they are not supported by the diocese. We then walked to il Goliardi for dinner where Anna had her favorite meal of the trip - ribs! We had a cheese and tomato appetizer, Erin and Gina got pasta, and Bob got a meat dish. We also got tiramisu and a layered rose-shaped chocolate mousse for dessert there. We walked Anna back to the hotel to shower, and the other 3 walked over to the Spanish Steps at sunset and enjoyed the beautiful views there, then walked back. This day had the most walking of the trip - about 19,000 steps!
July 7: We had an early breakfast, and then it was time to depart Rome :(. We had gotten wind of a 24-hour train workers’ strike and the possibility of our trains to Assisi and Florence being canceled. Nobody could verify this over the phone or online (we tried looking online, calling the train hotline, and also got our hotel concierge to look into it), so we ended up still going to the train station with luggage in tow, only to see that our regional train out of Rome around 8:00am was canceled.
So, it was on to plan B, which was taking the metro back near our hotel to rent a car from the Hertz office there and securing refunds for our train tickets. After a moderate wait, our small Maserati suv was ready and we hit the road to Assisi! It was about a 2 hour drive and went smoothly other than a stressful parking deck situation once we got there. We walked across the street from the parking deck to the basilica and had a very memorable walk through the Lower Basilica, where there are tombs and gorgeous frescoes detailing the life of St. Francis, as well as other ones depicting stories from the Bible. We were not allowed to take photos there, nor in the upper basilica. There was a mass happening in the newer Upper Basilica, but we and others (minus Anna, who got kicked out for inappropriate attire) peeked in the back for a few minutes. It was also beautiful!
We walked a short way to a tiny cafe, Mangia.Bevi.Ama, for a very yummy lunch of pasta and panini sandwiches with some locals, then walked further up a hill (Assisi is very hilly) to the St. Clare Basilica. That one was not open, but Erin and Anna enjoyed a ride on a carousel in the square there. We then visited St. Rufino Cathedral in a different part of town, which now houses the heart of Blessed Carlos Acutis (which we saw).
After popping into a couple of shops, we decided to head on to Florence, which was another 2-2.5 hours. Bob dropped us off at the hotel to check in while he returned the car to the airport. Once he got back to the hotel via tram, we went to dinner at La Bussola, where we tried the infamous Florentine steak. It was delicious! After dinner, we walked to the river and got some gelato. Florence was very busy with tourists, and there was lots of music and activity in the streets.
July 8: We had a nice hotel breakfast which was similar to the hotel in Rome’s breakfast, except the buffet was not included, so only Erin got that. The rest of us ordered omelets. We sat at an outdoor table along the street. We then hit the streets for our only day to sightsee in Florence.
First up was the Santa Maria Novella church with its beautiful, vivid frescoes and the fun perfumery nearby that was originally started in 1221 by Dominican friars at the church. They grew the herbs on the church property to dry to make the perfumes. The perfumery was beautiful, and we enjoyed smelling lots of the scents under little porcelain funnels. The actual perfumes are a bit out of our budget, though! After that, we got coffees at the very popular Starbucks in town and walked to the Duomo, only to find that the line was very long (no advance tickets are sold).
Since we had other things on our list, we passed on waiting for the inside of the Duomo and continued on to the full-scale David statue replica near here, with a stop in a large Sephora on the way. Then, it was on to Santa Croce on foot. Many famous peoples’ tombs are here, including Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, and Fermi.
After that, it was on to lunch where, alas, our choice was again a very popular place with the locals and we didn’t want to wait, so we got pizza nearby at a very small place, which ended up being one of our favorite meals/pizzas! After lunch, we dropped Erin off at the hotel and the rest of us got granitas and cannoli, then we all went back to the hotel for a short rest/planning period and took a bus over to the Piazzale Michelangelo across the river to see views of the city. That was great! We bussed back from there to our cooking class, which started at 5:30pm. After some ticket-related confusion on that bus involving us getting a small fine (we had to tap 4 different methods of payment for the 4 of us, and one of them didn’t go through), we arrived a little early and walked around a couple of blocks near the cooking school, where we saw a basset hound in a park!
We had a wonderful time at Mama Florence, and Erin got to be a special helper in making the panna cotta dessert at the beginning of class! We learned how to make homemade pasta (and then made some pasta stuffed with a potato filling) and meatballs, then had a delicious dinner with our class eating what we made (plus salad) and sampling 3 different wines. It was a fabulous experience! After class, we enjoyed a nice evening walk back to the hotel.
July 9: We were up early and grabbed a quick coffee and pastry breakfast at a place near the hotel and then got on the tram to the airport for our 10am flight to Zurich! The Florence airport is not big, but was very busy. We had to gate check our bags due to size and ride a bus to our plane, and then do the reverse in Zurich, but the baggage claim in Zurich was a lot faster than in Rome. We got on a train into town, had lunch at a fancy and very efficient 3-level McDonalds, hopped on a tram, and dropped our bags at the Park Hyatt hotel, where again our rooms were ready early! This is a modern hotel in the middle of a business area downtown.
Some of us were saving our energy for the big night ahead, so we had a bit of a rest time before beginning preparations for the concert. Bob and I went to the Coop grocery store across the street to get ham and cheese croissants and drinks for Anna and me to eat in line at the concert. We were all ready to go around 3:30pm, so we hit the tram and found a huge line of people at the Letzigrund stadium. We got in line and had to wait in the sun for about an hour, but it went by quickly with admiring outfits and eating our “dinner”.
While we were there, Bob and Erin went to the Google office near the hotel to do laundry, and also took a couple of walks around the area to see the river and lake, and also got takeout food delivered to the office. Back at the stadium, the doors opened at 5pm and we had no issues getting in or finding our seats (had some slight confusion about the entrance section, but we figured it out pretty fast). Our seats were really good, in the lower part of the section and maybe halfway or so back from the stage. We were so happy to be on the shaded side of the stadium, and also to have actual seats instead of “standing seats” on the field!
The opening act, Paramore, played from 5:45-6:45pm, and they were good, but of course the real show was Taylor Swift, who played from 7-10pm! We had flashing bracelets which were really awesome once the sun went down. It was an amazing experience that we both enjoyed so much! It was a little crazy leaving the stadium, but we skipped the first tram stop and walked to a second one, where we were able to get on and make our way to the hotel. What a night!
July 10: We let the kids sleep and Bob and I ventured out to see Zurich. We got yummy breakfast bagel sandwiches at Babu’s and walked around for awhile. Zurich doesn’t seem to have a lot of “attractions” per se, but it’s a beautiful, clean city. The river and lake are beautiful, as is the Aldstat (Old Town). There are many green squares and statues, as well.
We ended up back at the hotel to get the kids, and we all headed by tram to the Taylor Swift merch stand which was at a different location northeast of the stadium, in a quieter part of town. Erin and I got some takeaway lunch from a Mediterranean place (Doner) and brought it back to the square where the merch stand was just as Anna and Bob finished up in line. It was a bit drizzly/wet, but we sat in the square and enjoyed our lunch. Anna got pizza, Erin and I got chicken wraps with some kind of curry sauce, and Bob got a lamb gyro that was more traditional.
Then we tried to go to a chocolate factory/museum, but what we thought was the museum was actually not, and the real one was 40 minutes out of town. Instead, we went back to the hotel, put on our swimsuits, and found a spot to swim in the river (actually, the spot near our hotel was a smaller tributary, not the larger Limmat River). This is a common summer activity in Zurich; kids will jump off of bridges into the rivers. This would have been a great thing to do on Tuesday, but Wednesday was markedly cooler and cloudy, and the river was cold! We tried it, but we mostly sat on the steps and put our feet in. We enjoyed watching the swans, ducks, and fish in the river.
After that, we changed clothes at the hotel and went to do a boat ride on Lake Zurich, which was part of the public transit system. The “mini cruise” made 3 stops at various points around the lake and brought us back to where we started after just under an hour. We very much enjoyed doing this, and liked seeing the beautiful summer homes and several recreational areas along the lake with super fun slides, diving boards, and swimming areas!
From there, it was on to Zeughauskeller for dinner, where we enjoyed an authentic German/Swiss meal with sausage adn potato salad for Gina, veal in gravy and fried potatoes for Bob, chicken and fries for Anna, and a burger and fries for Erin, plus beer/apple juice. It was wonderful! We then walked back to our hotel and called it a night to repack and watch the second concert on livesteam.
July 11: We were up and packed early and got takeaway muffins and smoothies/coffee from the place next door to the hotel on our way to the train station for our 9am train to Grindelwald. Both the trams in Zurich and the trains in Switzerland have a payment option on an app where each rider swipes “on” when they get on the transportation and “off” when they get off. The app then calculates the fare and charges the credit card entered on the app. Pretty impressive! For this particular day, we bought a day pass since that was more cost-effective than paying per ride, but we used the app in Zurich.
It was a very enjoyable train ride consisting of about an hour from Zurich to Bern, then a change in Bern to another train for about an hour to Interlaken (with beautiful views along the west side of Lake Thun), where we changed again for a 30 minute ride to Grindelwald. The first two trains were large high-speed Swiss trains, and the last one was a smaller, more local train.
We arrived in Grindelwald around noon, dropped our bags off in the one room that was ready early at the Sunstar Hotel, then got (shocker) more pizza at a takeaway place across the street. After lunch, we went to the Grindelwald-First gondola, also very close to the hotel, got our tickets, and hopped into a gondola for a 25-minute ride up the First Mountain! The views of the Alps are indescribable. I cannot describe how beautiful this place is.
At the top, we got out and walked around for a while, and Bob and Erin did a short cliff walk loop while Anna and I hit the souvenir shop. We then took the gondola back down for 1 stop (there were 2 stops on the way up before First) where the girls checked out the cute playground and we rented Trottibikes to descend the rest of the way. The bikes were like scooters with large wheels, and (thankfully) excellent brakes! We had a super fun ride down the mountain on our bikes, enjoying the views from our paved path on the way. This took about 1.5-2 hours.
After that, it was time for an ice cream snack and hitting the indoor pool in the hotel, which has incredible views of the north face of the Eiger (another mountain in the area). The pool water was a bit cool, but we swam for a while, popped into the extremely hot sauna, and enjoyed the swing and lounge chairs on the patio outside.
We then went to dinner at Barry’s, a Swiss place in town and enjoyed cheese fondue and more meats along with yummy fruits, salads, and sides. We popped into a couple of shops that were still open after dinner, deliberated on our plan for the following day while sitting on the hotel patio, and then went to bed after a very busy day!
July 12: Our original plan was to do another attraction in the area, Jungfraujoch, which involves riding a gondola to a glacier and then a train up to a higher point than First to see an ice cave and views; however, the weather was stormy that day and we had gotten advice from the hotel to not bother going in those conditions because we wouldn’t be able to see anything and sometimes the gondolas have to be stopped when rain and wind are heavy.
So, instead, we had a nice hotel buffet breakfast and got an earlier train(s) to Frankfurt. We repeated the 30 minute train to Interlaken, then changed to a larger train for about 2 hours to Basel, where we had a 20-minute wait and grabbed very yummy empanadas at the station for lunch, then a 1-stop city train to the next station because our planned train may or may not have had the stop at the Basel main terminal canceled (confusion abounded, and there was also a short delay, which the Swiss passengers did not appreciate), but we were able to catch it at the next station.
We then had a 3-hour ride on a high speed train (reaching 200km/hr, or 124 mph) with just a few stops on the way to Frankfurt. We arrived at the Frankfurt main station, then transferred to the S-bahn city train to our hotel, the JW Marriott, where, again, one of our rooms was ready early! This time, we had adjoining rooms, which was very nice. We unloaded and hit the streets to see what we could of the city, and we also went into a fun mall in the area.
Frankfurt was very busy; I’m not sure if that’s normal, or maybe it was because of it being a warm Friday evening, but it was crowded compared to Zurich! Frankfurt had hosted some of the Euro 2024 soccer games, which are now over, but they still have a large outdoor viewing party area set up along the river.
After a nice walk around, we took the U-bahn to dinner at Zum Gemalten Haus in a residential area where we had very yummy schnitzel (pork and veal), then took a long walk back to the hotel, crossing the River Main, to re-pack our bags and prepare to depart!
July 13: We were up early, and Erin and I got hotel breakfast and swiped 2 muffins for Bob and Anna, since only 2 breakfasts were included in the stay. We hopped on the conveniently-located S-bahn for a short ride to the airport. It was crowded at customs, but we got through with about an hour to spare and had an uneventful 9-hour flight back to Raleigh!
All in all, it was a really great trip. We had a few hiccups regarding the first flight out and then the train strike in Italy, but we were able to correct them without any major changes to our plan. We were thankful that we had a basic plan of activities and meals set up ahead of time, yet were also willing to adjust as needed.
We would go back to any of the places again, especially Rome, the Jungfrau region, and Frankfurt. Florence was great, but was filled with tourists, so maybe we could go in the off-season and be able to get inside the Duomo and see some more of the art. We felt like we saw most of Zurich, though we did very much enjoy the efficient and easy-to-use tram system there. It was so nice to be able to hop on a tram at street level as opposed to navigating stairs/escalators to underground metros or U-bahn.
Observations: Rome was hot and busy, but also seemed to have a lot more locals than Florence. Sights are spread out, but there is so much history and things to see and do. I would go back anytime and would feel like there would always be much more to do. We moved quickly through each sight; next time, we could try to allow more time for some sights, venture out of town, and/or have some more “local” experiences.
Assisi was beautiful; though we saw most of the town, we would happily go back and do a guided tour or audioguide of the St. Francis basilica and spend more time there and in the surrounding countryside.
Florence was smaller and was very easy to navigate on foot or with tram/bus for more outlying areas. We enjoyed it very much, but it felt much more touristy than Rome. We heard more English and less Italian compared to Rome. The people were all very nice, and I especially loved seeing them interacting so much with each other and being animated, as opposed to here, where people tend to mind their own business.
Zurich was very clean and surprisingly quiet for such a large city. There, especially, we found the people to be quiet and “proper” (don’t touch each other, no yelling or car horns honking, etc.). It was nice, but we also got corrected by a couple of people at the concert for doing the same thing that the correctors were doing themselves…hmmm! People seem to not mind telling other people what to do in a matter-of-fact way.
In Switzerland, there was a lot of English along with German (compared to Germany, where there was less English on signs, menus, etc. and only German). Grindelwald was beautiful. The area is breathtaking, and while summer was a great time and very easy/comfortable, it would be amazing to see in the winter as well. We would love to go back for a longer period of time to experience more of the area’s attractions and see other towns in the area.
We had beautiful weather on the first day, but rainy weather the second day, which is common in the Alps. We’ve heard that Interlaken is extremely touristy, and we even felt that Grindelwald was, as well. In the town, there were endless groups of tourists, but we felt less crowded when we did the gondola up First and rode the bikes down. Perhaps it is less crowded outside of the summer peak season. The food in Switzerland was better than we expected it to be, but we didn’t venture far from schnitzel/other pork/fried potatoes.
We ended up spending more time than planned in Frankfurt due to the weather in Grindelwald. It was surprisingly great! The weather was beautiful, it had a lively atmosphere, and we enjoyed seeing the mix of old and new architecture. While Frankfurt doesn’t seem to be much of a tourist destination, we thoroughly enjoyed checking out the city. I’d love to go back to see the Heidelberg Castle, among other castles, and check out other parts of Germany.
Hotels were all very nice and convenient. It was great to have 2 rooms for the 4 of us. It turned out to be good that we planned on that, as some hotels were very specific about the number of people allowed per room (2). Renting an Airbnb like we did in Paris in 2018 would have given us more space, but could have been more complicated (and more expensive, since we utilized Bob’s Marriott points and other award points to secure nearly all of the hotel rooms free of charge).
I was concerned about attire in churches and trying not to stick out as tourists, but many people in all areas were wearing denim and tennis shoes ;) Most churches posted signs suggesting shoulders and knees to be covered, but they would not say anything to men with shorts that stopped above the knee. Anna did get kicked out of the St. Francis basilica for having short-shorts on, and was given a paper robe in Santa Croce. She got into a couple of churches without anyone saying anything.
We were surprised by how many people smoke, especially in Italy, but also in Switzerland and Germany. Transportation was easy to navigate, and we had no issues paying for everything with credit cards except in Germany, where they seemed to prefer cash. The train ticket kiosks in Frankfurt were low-tech, and our only option to ride the S-bahn or U-bahn was to buy a paper ticket, where in Italy we could tap our phones to pay per ride and in Switzerland we had the app option. We enjoyed the freedom of planning our own itinerary, but the thought of booking a tour is definitely tempting at times! Maybe one day we will try that kind of trip.
To keep this “short”, I did not add pictures. Our photo album of the trip can be accessed HERE.
