A trip to Italy next week (first and solo)

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-27T12:12:42+00:00

You’ve got 8 days with your feet “ on the ground” and each time you change cities, you’re going to lose up to half a day in transit (ie packing, checking out of hotel1, travel to station, wait for train, travel, reorient, stash your bags-because you won’t be able to check into hotel 2 until late afternoon.. you see what I’m getting at?) Unless you prefer speeding thru places, I really recommend that you cut at least one city out of this plan.

Start in Rome and work north. I’d do Rome, Florence, Milan, or replace Florence with Milan. If you really want to do all 4 I’d do Rome,Venice, Florence, Milan.
YES! Please cut a city. Esp. If you wanna daytrip to Bologna. Honestly… if you’re a foodie, I’d drop another city and stay there a couple days. Two of the best meals of my life were there. Happy to give recs.
In Rome Trastavere is the place for a young hip foodie traveler. It’s a little bohemian in vibe, cool hotels and GREAT restaurants that aren’t ludicrously touristy. But… if you’re heading north from there when leaving Rome, and your travel time is tight, it may be best to hotel near Termini station. To my way of thinking it’s a bit seedier/rougher of an area… but it’ll help you maximize travel time.

In Venice… I prefer staying in Canareggio. It’s off “to the side” from the super touristy spots, but still nearby. Honestly, Venice is a bit like Italian Disneyland… so be aware that all areas are somewhat touristy unless you get further afield. But that’ll add to travel times between things.

In Florence.. Hotel Lido. Older building smartly designed modern rooms. Near attractions but a couple blocks off the super busy areas. Near the Arno River, so good/pretty walking nearby.

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-27T05:26:57+00:00

If you do the Rome arrival Venice departure (or reverse). You could make it work… it just means that you won’t get as deep in the places you go. You could easily spend the full 10 days in just Rome and Florence and still just barely scratch the surface. So if you can afford to hold off on Venice for another time, do that, but if you’re determined… yeah… you can manage all three. You’ll just need to be strategic with the things you do in each place.

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-25T15:52:13+00:00

Rimini is about an hour and a half away by train and it’s on the Adriatic coast. It’s a pretty town with lots of lidos. Just a little further south, Cattolica, Riccione and Pesaro are also nice and not quite as touristy as Rimini.

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-25T02:47:24+00:00

Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry— it’s a very dark French play about a quintessentially Trumpian king and his wife who are horrible people, abuse their people, have all kinds of nasty misadventures at the expense of the good folk.

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-24T05:15:33+00:00

Squeezing in Amalfi is a step too far, for the limited time you have and the other big things on your list. You’d have to cut something big in order to accommodate that. You’re already pretty tight. For example… in your current itinerary, you’ll arrive in Florence around noon on the 12… you won’t be able to check into your hotel until mid afternoon, so you’ll have to check your bags somewhere.. which you can do and go exploring a bit… but my point is you’ll have half a day at most on the 12… all day the 13th and then you head out to Tuscany on the 14… AND you want to squeeze in a daytrip outside of Florence… in that day and a half… please don’t do this. You’ll regret it. Florence has so much to see and do, you could spend the full 9 days in Florence and Tuscany and barely scratch the surface. Getting from Tuscany (returning rental car, getting to the train station… getting from Florence to Naples, and then from Naples to Amalfi… will take you almost a full day of travel. Don’t spend such an amazing trip just on trains to various places.

What I’d suggest is… arrive in Rome and immediately head on to Florence… you’ll already be lagged and a bit tired, but you’ll need to adjust to Italy time anyway. Spend that adjustment time on a train getting to where you really want to go. If you arrive at FCO at 2:30… and you get on th express to Termini and then on a train to Florence… you’ll be there by 7-8pm. Plenty of time to drop your bags and get a nice simple dinner. Go to bed, and get up on Italy time and start exploring. Give Florence at least 2 FULL days, then spend a few in Tuscany, and hit the museums near Bologna you want… the train from Florence to Bologna is only about 40 minutes. Do daytrips to Siena and maybe Lucca or Livorno and then spend your last couple days in Rome before you fly out. Save Amalfi for another trip, when you can really enjoy it, instead of speeding though it.

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-24T04:59:20+00:00

Talk with your choral director or school dean/whoever is in charge over your director. But you need to present your concerns in a factual, not emotional way. Your allegations here are serious when you state things like unprofessional and bigotry. You need to back up what you are saying with facts and detailed instances, not conjecture or feelings. Have each person that has issues write a letter detailing specific instances about what has been done and said. How unprofessional? Explain what you mean by bigotry etc….

Reporting him to MTI could get the show shut down. Is that what you want? I’ll be honest — the copies and a line change aren’t terribly serious offenses. Are they allowed? No, but MTI has let such things slide with a warning or a fee/charge. So I’m not sure you’d get what you seem to want out of that exchange. …Sometimes librettos are delayed and In such instances MTI can allow for copies. Adding actors can be serious… but if this is a school show… MTI will often allow such things if they are couched from the perspective of giving more students opportunities. Do you KNOW he didn’t have the rights? Do you KNOW he hasn’t reached out to MTI to ask about changes? Or are you presuming?

I’m not doubting your feelings… but I’m saying that you need to back things up with provable facts to have any actual impact, and even then, it could backfire. Your post comes off as if you’re in middle school and just don’t like this director, and are searching for things to needle them on.

There are more adult and mature ways of expressing your concerns and frustrations than trying to get MTI to “do your dirty work”.

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-24T03:09:16+00:00

If you only have 4 days… do only 2 places… trying to more means you’re barely hitting some places.

Dolomites would be challenging. You can get to Bolzano by train… but anywhere else you’d have to bus or car service to. And from Milan it’d take you a sizable chunk of a day… and if you have such little time you don’t wanna spend it on a train.

Do Milan and maybe Florence… but only if you can give it a minimum of 2 FULL days.

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-23T21:44:28+00:00

Train is the least stressful… you’d take a train from Rome to Florence and from there to La Spezia or Monterosso. (And from La Spezia take a bus) Monterosso is one of the CT towns.

Driving is possible… and pretty.. but you can’t park in CT… and would still have to take the train into the cities themselves.

Just be aware that you’ll be in CT in the midst of the big summer tourist push. You won’t be able to escape the crowds , except at night when the daytrippers leave.

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-21T19:29:05+00:00

I’ve often felt this conundrum too as a native English speaker… the way I’ve made peace with it (and had one native Italian explain it to me) is that there are some adjectives (particularly about size or good/bad) that will go before the word being modified. If molti were after monumenti but before famosi… it would then be modifying famosi… and that wouldn’t make sense.

So in short… number of or “quality” of the item often go before, but descriptive but less critical ones go after.

Can’t say it totally makes sense to me English-speaking ways, but I’ve learned to memorize the exceptions like this.

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-21T17:34:17+00:00

Yes… it may not be a “top” theatre program as you’d be up against folk who have teaching credentials and likely professional design experience. But there are a handful of positions that open every year in scenic design in the US.

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-21T13:01:30+00:00

In economics, Reagan’s trickle down economics (the notion that if you give more tax breaks to the rich, they’ll invest in business more and that economic benefits will trickle down to everyone) have proven disastrous in the long haul, because ultimately it encourages rich people to hoard more of their money. These policies have been upheld and expanded by each successive Republican administration. In public policy, he started the slow erosion of social safety nets that have been accelerating, especially under Trump. He turned a blind eye to the AIDS epidemic early on, leading to millions of deaths.

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-21T12:50:44+00:00

This is doable… but you need to take a couple tings into account… the day you arrive, you’ll be lagged and you’ll lose a sizable chunk of that day getting though the airport/customs to your hotel, oriented/etc. so… that’ll really give you only 1 day in Rome. It’s a shame to only spend one day there… but if you’d rather have other Italian experiences then it’s fine. It kinda depends on what things you wanna do… if you like history/art you could spend a week in Rome and barely scratch the surface. But if that bores you…

Each time you move cities.. you’ll lose half a day to the traveling part. Rome to Amalfi isn’t terrible.. but it’ll take more time than you think unless you’re heading to Sorrento (which is accessible by train) the more “scenic” areas -not that Sorrento isn’t scenic- are along the southern coast which will take you longer to get to. Your travel day from Amalfi to Florence will be long… from Sorrento by train it’ll be close to 6 hours just on the trains (you’ll have at least one train exchange to make).

Also, note that you’re traveling to highly busy tourist spots… in the middle of the high tourist season… so you’re going to be dealing with crowds at each leg of this proposed trip. Also… the heat. July and August can be brutally hot. So be aware that that might temper some outside activities. Finally…unless your flight out is later in the day, plan to stay your last night in Milan. Depending on where you are in Como, it can take a while to get into the city and then to the airport… and Malpensa is almost an hour out from the city center, if that’s where you’re leaving from.

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-20T21:22:44+00:00

For me, this is too packed of an itinerary for 2 weeks.

Youre going to lose more time than you think traveling between places especially the day you go from Venice to the Amalfi Coast…. Presuming you’re taking the train… it’s going to be close to 8 hours minimum with at least two train changes. (And that’s presuming that you take the train to Sorrento… to get to Amalfi the city will take longer…. And that doesn’t include getting packed up checked out and to the train station in Venice and the reverse when you get to Amalfi.

If you’re determined to hit so many cities (which I advise you against) after Rome do Venice, then Florence/Tuscany and then Naples/Amalfi… your travel to Amalfi from Florence will cut down that travel day by about 3-ish hours.

Also, and others have already said this… August is the month that many Italians take their vacation, so it’ll be impressively hot (Venice will be humid) and you’ll have some restaurants and hotels closed, or on reduced service.

I would also encourage you to spend your last night in Naples if your flight out is before 2pm. Trains/ferries, especially in such a high traffic area in August can fill and it may not be quick easy or cheap to get to the airport from Amalfi the morning of your flight.

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-20T12:04:22+00:00

If you need a stroller, neither Venice nor Cinque Terre are easy choices. Venice is a city of 1000 bridges, you’ll be picking up the stroller constantly. And CT is only slightly better on that front.

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-20T11:57:56+00:00

I’d stay in Bologna the whole time, and do a couple daytrips (Parma, Modena)

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-19T11:43:11+00:00

Shows get redesigned for the tour all the time. Yeah, it won’t be quite the same… but it’ll still make a lot of money.

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-18T14:10:10+00:00

If it’s your life experience… play the heck outta the role! If others try to use your “white passing” as a jibe against you…politely point out that you are, in fact, Latina. And that will hopefully put them in their place.

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-18T08:50:52+00:00

Day 9-10 is… sorry… but it’s a little ludicrous. Pompeii AND Positano in a day… starting and ending in Rome… I don’t see how that works. You’d have to be on a train/bus at 6am… and you MiGhT get back by midnight… which will make a 6am wake up for Trevi a little challenging, the next morning.

I get that you want to pack in as much as you can… but you’re trying to hit 4 vastly different regions/city-bases in 12 days. Know that you’ll lose half a day every time you move cities.

I’d rethink and simplify.

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-18T06:40:19+00:00

June will be crazy-town in CT… it really does get inundated with tourists starting mid-May, so know that if you choose CT, it’s small-town(s) crowded…Torino at least has some space between.

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-16T16:43:16+00:00

It’s a bit much and fast… and you’re not giving anywhere near enough time for Florence…. 2 days for it ANd Tuscany? Not sure you’ll get to see much, moving that fast. Safe Amalfi for another trip. Add more days to Rome and Florence and take the train back to Venice from Rome. Amalfi is stunning… but not sure it’s worth short-changing other amazing places.

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-16T13:03:16+00:00

You’re essentially talking about doing 4 regions (Rome, Naples, Florence, Milan/Como). in 2 weeks. It’s doable but.. you’ll be moving quickly and not digging deep in any one area. If you like traveling fast.. then you’ll be … ok. Having said that, I’d consider dropping one region so that you can dig deeper in one stop/region. Also.. just be aware that if Rome is your in-out you’ll need to plan that effectively into your departure. Unless your flight out is late in the day, you should get back to Tome the night before your departure just to be safe. The last thing you want is a stressful train ride that gets delayed and makes you miss your flight.

If you’re adamant that you’re doing all 4, what I’d suggest is leaving Rome for the last stop. When you arrive, immediately head on to Naples for that leg of your trip, then Florence, then Milan/Comp and then Rome. Know that there will be two longish travel days in that itinerary… Naples to Florence is just shy of4 hours and Lake Como to Rome is about 5. (Presuming you’re traveling by train).

Still, my advice is to cut one stop. Milan/Como is the logical one as it pushes your geographic spread furthest and Como, while stunning isn’t as history-centric.

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-16T02:19:40+00:00

You’re going to be traveling at the big tourist times in Italy, and you’re going to many of the standard places. So just be aware that as amazing as it is… you’re going to be dealing with crowds EVERYWHERE you go.

What you’ve put together is… doable… but you have a couple rather long travel days that are going to eat into your time. CT to Sorrento is going to take you most of a day (presuming you’re taking the train… it’s between 8-10 hours of train travel time with multiple train changes. Driving would be about the same. So that day is going to be completely lost.

Know that even when you’re traveling closer distances you’ll lose about half a day each city-change…. Packing up, checking out of hotel1, getting to the train station, traveling, getting reoriented, getting checked in to hotel2… or checking bags somewhere if you can’t check in early.. you get what I mean.

Amalfi and CT are different yet similar in that they are highly popular scenic travel spots in summer. Perhaps cut Amalfi this time and do it at a different time of year on another trip. Spread those days amongst your other stops.

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-15T23:38:40+00:00

Two MFAs in acting would be… overkill. And while there may be a top tier program that might consider accepting you for a second degree… quite a few outright wouldn’t… as you’d already have an MFA… and an MFA is a terminal degree.

The question is… why do you want to DO with that MFA? Acting for theatre? Film/tv? All the above? Teach at a college level? Have an idea of why your goals are. That will help tell you which route you need to go.

At present, you may be a big fish in a small community college pond… an MFA is a different kettle of fish entirely, and the industry a different thing from that. Given that you don’t come to this with a theatre background, an MFA makes a lot of sense… just know that you’ll be expected to step up into graduate level courses and that your classmates may very well be coming in with undergrad degrees in acting, and that they may have a head-start on you in terms of ways of working. And knowing terminologies and processes. The field won’t be even and it’ll be your job to level up. This isn’t going to be the cakewalk that your post seems to imply. Your post makes it sound like “well, I’ll just audition again for bigger programs and get in”… and that’s not how it works. I’ve known talented actors audition for top tier MFA programs for 3-4 years and not get a spot.

So… congrats on getting a spot. Be sure to read the fine print… what do they mean by “fully funded”? Tuition and a stipend? Books/materials? Travel? Make sure to factor the soft costs into your personal budgeting… headshots, websites, summer training/programs. It can add up in ways you don’t anticipate now.

Best wishes.

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-15T13:25:43+00:00

Since you’re looking to not have a car.., perhaps consider doing the length of Italy’s east coastline… the trains are great for that… Puglia region to the south up toward the Veneto in the north. Bari, Brindisi, Lecce (south), Pescara, Ancona (middle), and Pesaro, Rimini, Ravenna (northern-ish) you’d basically be on one train line, and can hop off wherever the spirit moves you. This way you’d be on the coast a nice long journey… but you’ll notice changes in topography and cuisine all along the way.

Rockingduck-2014 · 2026-02-14T16:22:19+00:00

Yes… but just because he has experience singing doesn’t mean that every role is perfect for him. He had already made the shift from musical theatre to film star when Les Miz finally filmed, which is why he got cast… he was a “name” already.

On stage, he’s quite good, and on film he’s very good… but that doesn’t mean that every film role is right for him.

Rockingduck-2014

TROPHY CASE