OT: France or Italy

[Mokum]

Would like to retire in a year and want to plan a two week vacation in September 2020 and need to decide between Southern France- Provence, Vaucluse- or Italy in Tuscany or Umbria. Would like to stay in just one house and travel from there all around. Hope to get a big enough house for married brothers and sisters to join (4 couples).
Any opinions between these choices? Is it better to be close enough to a neat town/village, or is out in countryside better? Is air-conditioning needed? We’ll have cars to get around. Any tips? Should I forget the family joining and just have fun with spouse?

Tuscany is great. Monicatini is a beautiful small city. The food is awesome.

 

[storrsroars]

Both great. Been to both about 6 times each, but my overall fav is Italy. But unless your dining south of Rome, food in France wins hands down IMO.

Both countries take food far more seriously than in the US, but I'll simply add here that one of my top 5 meals ever was in Bologna. If I kept a list of top 100, I'd imagine Italy would have about 10 spots. France zero, but I got really sick in Paris for a few days, which limited my dining. However, the best meal I had in Paris was ruined by an extremely rude fellow diner.

 

[8893]

Spannocchia in Italy is exactly what you’re looking for.

Rentals - Tenuta di Spannocchia - Stay on a Tuscan Farm

We stayed in Casa Dami for eleven nights and did day trips all throughout Tuscany from there. It sounds like you and your wife could do the adjacent Fantino and your siblings and their families have a variety of options either at Casa Dami or the several other farm houses on the property.

Spannocchia is around 15 minutes from Siena and is great home base. You can eat dinner there (which I definitely recommend for at least a few nights of your stay--especially pizza night), eat out or make your own dinner in your farmhouse. There is a great local supermarket (Coop) with all the food and booze you need, and there is also produce available on the property.

Can't recommend it enough for your purposes.

 

[Paesano]

I vote for Italy. Just got back from a 2 week stay. It was the first time there for the wife and kids. Tuscany is great. Florence, Siena, wineries and so on. You can drive to Rome or take the high speed train. You can go north to Maranello and visit Ferrari. I also suggest a day trip through the mountains to Abruzzo. Every little town has a beautiful church, pastry shops, cafes and great restaurants. Fair warning on Rome. It is very crowded and pretty hot in the summer.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

I lived in the Alps for a bit and explored a lot of the area in France, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany. Been back to Europe for work over the years since, which means trips to the bisg business centers primaril, like London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and Stuttgart. I did recently get away for a 2 week vacation to Ireladn with the misses, which was great.

Overall in my opinion, while the food is better in Italy and the drivers are worse, I would take SW France and specifically stay in Aix-en-Provence. From Aix, its an easy drive to explore some great, and uniquely different places like Monaco, St. Tropez, Marseille, Avignon, Lyon, the Italian & French Riviera, the Alps, and some great national parks. Plus, the train network im France is better than in Italy, so quick (< 3 hours) trips to Barcelona, Milan, Geneva, Paris, etc. are feasible. While Florence (which is where I would stay if you pick Tuscany or Sienna if you want a smaller town) is really only central to Italy itself. As for the people, talk to most people in France and they will tell you the people of France are different, in a good way, than the people of Paris. I made my best effort when living in France to adapt, use French, respected the new culture around me (versus arrogantly insisting that as an American I was automatically better) and never had a problem.

Beyond the joy of a trip to Europe, if you do want to retiree there, be first to check into immigration laws, taxes, cost of living and health care before you make a decision.

 

[Conndog]

That's funny, my wife said Aix herself, she lived there 35 years ago during her Junior year abroad. She wants to be in a larger city and not a small visage or out in the country, and she doesn't want to be stuck in a small car with in-laws going all over the place. Maybe she has a point? We might try a practice trip renting a house in Maine and seeing how we get along together. Still, how can you not enjoy yourself if you are spending two weeks in a beautiful house in France or Italy?

 

[storrsroars]

Plus, the train network is France is better than Italy, so quick (< 3 hours) trips to Barcelona... are possible

I have a question on this as Barcelona is still on my bucket list. When I've looked at train skeds from Paris it appears they stop at the border and it's a good three hours+ from there to Barcelona, for 6.5 hour trip. Is there a better way?

 

[superjohn]

That's an amazing trip - I'd love to do that...

It's for stuff like that that I'm pushing for a posting in Florence or Rome after this one in Bangkok. Fingers crossed!

Wow, sounds like you've been to and lived everywhere. Any favorite all-time locations?

 

[DarthGrumpy]

I have a question on this as Barcelona is still on my bucket list. When I've looked at train skeds from Paris it appears they stop at the border and it's a good three hours+ from there to Barcelona, for 6.5 hour trip. Is there a better way?

Both France and Spain are in the EU, so there should be no border crossing, though you may need to transfer trains at some point in the south of France depending on what train you select. Based on what I saw on RailEurope, you can now take a direct high-speed train from Barcelona to Paris that takes about 6.5 hours (weekday schedule). Google says its a 10 hour drive to make the 1,000+ kilometer drive. Thus, the only faster way will be by plane, which is a 2 hours flight, though if one adds in time to get to/from each airport versus downtown train stations and then time dealing with the two airports (Barcelona and CDG or Orly [I hate dealing with the maze that CDG is; but, it takes at least 30 extra minutes to get from Paris to Orly]), its likely a wash.

When I lived in France in the late '90's, it was over an 8 hour overnight train ride to Barcelona from Lyon. There was one train transfer in Montpelier, France, as that is where the high-speed TGV line ended at the time. That was followed by a lenghtly border-check and subsequent transfer to a slow mountain train up and over the Pyrenees down to Barcelona. Looks like the high-speed, direct link between Spain and France was only completed in 2013 after a couple of big tunnels were built and some serious line upgrades on both sides.

 

[uconndoit]

Wow, sounds like you've been to and lived everywhere. Any favorite all-time locations?

I'm up to 78 countries now! ...and my wife is at 113 . I haven't seen much of the Caribbean, Central or South America, Africa, or Central Asia.

Favorite places is always a tough question because it's so wrapped up in my personal experience so it's hard to be objective. I had a fantastic time as a teenager living in Rome, an 18-21 year old living in Tokyo, a 27 year old living in Paris, a 29-34 year old living in Lisbon, and I've been having a great time spending my 40s living in Southeast Asia (Bali, Ho Chi Minh, and now Bangkok).

That said, I really loved Prague in 1993. It was just a beautiful place and raw, with a dark, sooty, somber, old eastern Europe feel. They've since cleaned it up and made it more tourism friendly - they "Disney-fied" it a bit - but it's still a gorgeous, walkable city with architecture on par with Rome and Paris. (plus they have very good, very cheap beer)

I was surprised that I didn't take to London, Madrid or Barcelona - all fine cities that people tend to fawn over but they didn't really do anything for me for some reason.

Other favorites are: Hanoi, Istanbul, Marrakesh, Odessa, Porto, Amsterdam, Varanasi, and Sighisoara.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

That's funny, my wife said Aix herself, she lived there 35 years ago during her Junior year abroad. She wants to be in a larger city and not a small visage or out in the country, and she doesn't want to be stuck in a small car with in-laws going all over the place. Maybe she has a point? We might try a practice trip renting a house in Maine and seeing how we get along together. Still, how can you not enjoy yourself if you are spending two weeks in a beautiful house in France or Italy?

On the bigger side, I like Lyon. Its a big city, 3rd largest in France, very good food scene, and central to just about everything with a good airport plus TGV and highway connections to just about everywhere. Marseille, France's 2nd largest city, is a bit grittier; but, is also on the water and has a good food scene, also, and more culture (its been around since before 0 AD). If you are looking for a town in between the Aix and Lyon/Marseille in terms of size, I like Montpiellier. It's in between the less touristy (and more sandy versus stone) beaches of SW France to the imemdiate south and national parks to the north with good transportation and a 'young' scene due to the universities in the city. If you want to be closer to Italy, go for Nice. Its a beach city; but, is skipped by many of the tourists going to Monaco, St. Tropez, Antibes, etc. Both Montpielier and Nice are large enough to warant stops by the 'main' trains, including the TGV, versus the smaller towns where you may need to take a regional train to one of the bigger cities.

 

[uconndoit]

Here is my 2011 trip itinerary:

 

[uconndoit]

and here's my 2018-2019 itinerary

Resemblance to Trump's dinky is coincidental.

 

[storrsroars]

and here's my 2018-2019 itinerary

View attachment 39344

Resemblance to Trump's dinky is coincidental.

Envious. Wife is Serbo/Croat, I'm a Litt, neither of us has been to our homelands.

Only tip I can provide: When in Sofia, JJ Murphy's, 6 Karnigradska. Great English breakfast. Lots of CIA/MI6 types drinking.

What the hell do you do again?

 

[uconndoit]

Envious. Wife is Serbo/Croat, I'm a Litt, neither of us has been to our homelands.

Only tip I can provide: When in Sofia, JJ Murphy's, 6 Karnigradska. Great English breakfast. Lots of CIA/MI6 types drinking.

What the hell do you do again?

I have been in software development in various roles ever since I graduated from UConn - almost 25 years. First as a programmer (my first project was the huge software system for DCF in Connecticut) - then management roles and most recently as director of a small software company here in Bangkok. I left that grind a couple of years ago and made a transition to independent consulting for UNICEF - so I make my own hours. (but now my old CEO is trying to tempt me back with the GM role - I have lunch with him next week...ugh...I hope he doesn't convince me to return)

I'll check out JJ Murphy's next time I'm in Sofia - not a huge fan of Sofia though so it may not ever happen. We went this time mostly because my wife's parents' flight went out of there so we had to drop them off before continuing on (they met up with us in Vienna).

That region is very beautiful and interesting - I recommend it. It's one of those places where, once you get there, most things are inexpensive so for me it feels almost like an all-inclusive - you hardly think about how much things cost (as long as you're going to "normal" places). I've only been back for a month but I started to miss it when I looked at the maps I posted above.

(and kudos on your spousal fortunes - women in that region have a gorgeous look)

What's a "Litt"? Lithuanian?