The places we stayed..

Our place in Desenzano. Beautiful gardens, a whirlpool bath, wonderful breakfasts served on this balcony. At night we'd sit here and bats would come swooping in. Very nice owner who didn't speak a word of English

Our room

Breakfast

second place we stayed for 2 nights in Castelrotto. Only German spoken

huge comfy room with the Germanic weird way of making beds

we had our own balcony but preferred the rooftop terrace where we could see mountains all around

me chilaxin'

hot tub but I forgot my bathing suit. Beautiful views

cute gardens around our hotel and pretty public spaces

 Bologna. The worst place by far we stayed. We slept in the hotel on the far left and ate in the hotel on the rght. Plusses: good location and great breakfast. Minuses: ugly tiny room that was very hot and noisy. Shower so small I had to stick my butt out the stall to pick up my shampoo as there was no shelf

All the rooms in our Florence place emptied into a giant terrace  where Leopoldo the parrot spent his days

Our room. The husband Pino is a painter so his art work was all over the place. No breakfast at this place though there was coffee that I would drink on the terrace.

The terrace with drying racks for laundry (which I am using here)



Marble staircase leading up to our room



Our favorite place by far was in Ravenna (and the least expensive). Beautiful everything and all the beverages we could possibly drink were always available (wine, apertivi, cappuccino, fruit juices)

Bathroom had a rainhead shower. Great toiletries too. Fig shampoo.

Communal terrace with orange trees. I am drinking apricot juice

And there was a courtyard at ground level

Outside of the place did not look promising. We were instructed to call a number to be let in. To dial an Italian number from an American phone, one must dial '+' first. Is there a plus sign on our keypad? Nooooooo. We went to the tourist info place to maybe use their phone. Helpful lady said just dial 00 instead and that worked.

Our room in Venice, by far the most expensive. Friday night cost twice as much as Thursday. Should have planned better in advance. Also vaporetti strikes, common, only happen on Friday. Lesson learned..don't go to Venice on a Friday. Room was very nice though hidden in a tiny alley. We ate breakfast a block away in their sister hotel. Good fresh food.

end of the alley our hotel was hidden on

extremely small sign in tiny alley for our Venice hotel. Would not have found it without the bellman's help

dining room where we ate our breakfasts about a block away where we slept

view from the window I am looking through in the above photo

Breakfast in our Verona place. Hotel was in a great location. Room was sort of dated but public areas great. Had our own balcony.

Our balcony with me pretending to be Juliet. Nice view below

Our last night at a place near the airport in what was called, in English, the First hotel. Very modern

Breakfast room

cool lights

lobby and bar area. Cute sitting area outside too with nice gardens. We got there late at night and left fairly early to deal with the airlines as I wasn't sure I even had a flight home. Bad internet at this place but fortunately Malpensa had excellent internet.

 Some of the places we stayed (Castelrotto, Florence and Ravenna) were Rick Steves' recommendations and I dealt directly with the B&Bs for arrangements writing in German for one, Italian for the other and I knew the Florence place was run by an American expat. Venice recommendations were all booked so I used a booking site (booking.com which says it doesn't charge a fee but I noticed prices are cheaper if you don't use them). I used them for Desenzano, Bologna and Venice. (the first two are places Rick Steves does not cover). I used a different site for the airport hotel, which seemed to have a better price than the hotel itself.. We were fairly satisfied with all the places except Bologna which was just awful. Presumably the country has rules against using air conditioning past September 30. Well it was in the 80s that day. And if we opened the window, it was extremely noisy outside. Even later, we heard what appeared to be nonstop furniture moving above us. Still can't figure out what that was.

I did write the Castelrotto lady to ask  (in German)what was the name of the wonderful perfume she was wearing. Answer: Hilfiger. Well there are lots of those but at least I know what aisle to sample.

Cold with snowy rain outside. November is my least favorite month.