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Surprised no-one has said Venice yet. Sure it's overpriced, overcrowded and somewhat out of the way compared to the other places you want to go, but I feel like it's one of those places people consider that you need to see once, if only because of how totally different an experience it is from virtually anywhere else you'll have ever been.

Beautiful, yes. But the food sucks. Worst in Italy. Hit on the next go along with Como and a few other northern areas.
 
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If you're going to hit the north I will put in a plug for Verona. It has a working Colosseum dating from the 1st Century. They perform opera and have other concerts there. I saw Aida there. Awesome freaking experience to sit in a 2000 year old building and see something like that.
 
If you're going to hit the north I will put in a plug for Verona. It has a working Colosseum dating from the 1st Century. They perform opera and have other concerts there. I saw Aida there. Awesome freaking experience to sit in a 2000 year old building and see something like that.

Very very jealous. That’s one experience I haven’t had there. I’ll be back in septmeber but nowhere near Verona. :(
 
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If you're going to hit the north I will put in a plug for Verona. It has a working Colosseum dating from the 1st Century. They perform opera and have other concerts there. I saw Aida there. Awesome freaking experience to sit in a 2000 year old building and see something like that.

I can endorse this. I saw Don Geovanni there. It's also quite interesting since, not being a theatre, there's no hiding of the set changes, but it's all very smoothly done. That said, I will also say that if you go there in the height of summer it's thunderstorm central, and it can go from bright sun to tropical rainstorm in literally seconds.

Also, don't go to Juliet's balcony. There's essentially nothing at all to see and it's just absolutely choc-a-bloc with tourists, making it somewhat unpleasant to fight your way through.
 
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Also, don't go to Juliet's balcony. There's essentially nothing at all to see and it's just absolutely choc-a-bloc with tourists, making it somewhat unpleasant to fight your way through.

Wasn't that crowded when I went 31 years ago, probably because Shakespeare hadn't really made it big yet. But I agree, there isn't much to see there. I did find it charming, though, how the city played up its connections to Shakespeare, in the names of shops and other things.
 
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Wasn't that crowded when I went 31 years ago, probably because Shakespeare hadn't really made it big yet. But I agree, there isn't much to see there. I did find it charming, though, how the city played up its connections to Shakespeare, in the names of shops and other things.

When did big Willy have his first hit play? Was it 1995? I forget.
 
Big fan the Liguria region especially Cinque Terre. Other than that though I think it is a waste to go anywhere north of Florence if you are only there for 10 days.

Don't waste time in Naples. It's honestly crap thanks to the mafia and Piedmont invasion in the 1800s absolutely gutting all their (and much of southern Italy's) resources. It is worth going to Pompeii though IMO.

I love Calabria. Family is from there (Reggio Calabria specifically). Might be the most beautiful region in Italy. I think it was Mario Mario that said go to Sicily. If you do that, you can take a quick ferry from Reggio Calabria to Messina.
 
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Italy's Adriatic coast is extremely underrated. I studied in Urbino in Marche for a couple of summers and it was incredible. Its a smallish walled city with a University set in the rolling hills. Stunning place to explore.

Pesaro and Fano are nice little beach towns and you can head north to Rimini for the high end club scene. If you have been to the major Italian cities already, I highly recommend getting off the path between Florence and Rome and seeing the east side.
 
Also worth pointing out that, depending on what you want to see, you could go to Herculaneum instead of Pompeii. It's very close by, but the difference is that Pompeii was virtually entirely destroyed so has for the most part only waist-height walls at best and is half-way to being an archeological ruin, whereas Herculaneum for the most part stood standing and therefore you have a much better impression of what the city actually looked like - in some places the walls are still standing to two floors high.
 
When did big Willy have his first hit play? Was it 1995? I forget.
1997
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