MJ’s Travel Favorites 6-6-10

It’s countdown to Italy time, something I promised myself that I wouldn’t do until after the first of June, and I am incredulous at how expensive flights to Rome are.  We booked several months ago, at a price of a little over $1200/person, round trip, which was the lowest fare we had seen for our itinerary.   It’s fair to note that while we had some date flexibility, we were pretty much locked into a general time frame.

Capri, Italy

Since then, and despite lots of “fare sales”  that claimed to have substantially lower prices, I’m feeling like we got a bargain.  I’ve been watching fares creep up and up, and every time I see some bargain offer I check it out — only to find that it’s not available.  I’ve become greatly disappointed in some of my go-to sites who are still listing fares that have been unavailable for months.  The cheapest fares that I have been able to find, comparable routing to our itinerary, is coming in today at a little over $1800.  Simply crazy!

Enough complaining, though!  I’ll be winging my way to Rome in under two weeks!

Here are a few of my favorite travel posts from this past week:

• Gourmantic has a nice roundup of Italian words and phrases that will serve a traveler well.  Although I recognized most of these, there were a few new ones that I hope to put to good use.
• PlanetEye Traveler – Niagara takes us on the Freedom Trail, the underground route that slaves took to escape to Canada.  What a great reminder that freedom lay not just to the northern US, but in Canada as well.
• Kaleidoscopic Wandering fuels my interest in train travel with some helpful tips.  This is a blog I’ve only recently discovered, although I’m familiar with JoAnna’s work, and I hope you find it as informative and entertaining as I did.
• Sharing Travel Experiences takes us along to Cardiff, Wales.  It sounds like there’s a great mix of history (architecture, castles) with the modern (shopping arcades).  It certainly piqued my interest for the capitol city.
• Europe Up Close has a profile of the village of Sant ‘Ambrogio on Sicily.  Since part of my time in Italy will be spent on the island of Sicily, this caught my eye as some place to put on my itinerary.  It sounds like a wonderfully charming place.
• Gadling has tips on how to protect your digital camera while you’re at the beach.  While sand and water are not so great for your camera, you still want to take it along.  These tips should help you do a better job at keeping it protected.
• PlanetEye Traveler – Disney takes a hot air balloon flight over the Kissimmee area. This is an experience that I’ve always wanted to try, and after reading about her trip, perhaps you will too.

That’s it for this week, short and sweet, but still some excellent travel reads.  Stop by and see what these travel bloggers have to say, and please, tell them that MJ sent you!

Photo credit:  personal collection

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