just to be safe, I used double routing :)

After a pretty drive next to the lake, we got to the panoramic hotel I found. It wsa not walking distance from downtown (but ok since we had a car), and it had a fantastic view.

nice view from our hotel room :)

After checking in, we drove down to a parking lot (easier said than done) and walked to downtown, where we grabbed a boat to Varenna. We grabbed some lunch and hiked to the top castle.

it was more than time for lunch

We then went back to Bellagio for more touring, and had dinner by a nice vista point:

The next morning, we had a nice breakfast on the "porch" :) and we took a Ferry to go to Villa Balbianello:

After lunch, we headed back to Bellagio for some hiking around the top of the island (it unfortunately was not that great a trail with so-so views compared to the trail length and difficulty in places.

When we were done, we drove back to Milan where we spent the night.

the crypt

We then went around a bit, and saw the Teatro Alla Scala:

and since the weather turned to worse after that, we saw the Da Vinci Museum:

the last supper

and we finished the day to visit the main pedestrian shopping street and Castello Sforzesco:

and we grabbed a night picture of the Duomo:

So, after seeing Milan, we took a fast train to Bologna and I have a different page on the supercar factories and museums.

However, Maranello and Modena had plenty of other things to see. Thanks to the fantastic folks from Hotel Locanda del Mulino who set us up with a visit of Parmigino Parmesan Factory, Da Clara Balsamic Vinegar, and the Castle Rocca Di Vignola.

On the 2nd day, after seeing car factories all day, we started the with a thorough visit of the Parmigino Parmesan Factory, and learned everything about how they make Parmesan from milk:

impressive!

We then got a tour of the very small Da Clara Balsamic Vinegar producer. Vinegar is moved to every smaller containers when it becomes denser:

and since we still had some time left, we went to see Castle Rocca Di Vignola:

We had a few hours of daylight after arriving:

Getting to Venice was quick with 300kph trains like in France

Fresh off the train, to the Vaporetto to Piazza St Marco close to where our condo was

There we are

The next morning, we went out for sighseeing and started with Piazza San Marco and its beautiful Basillica:

one of many many churches

Venice has lots of small plazas

Piazza San Marco

Basillica Di San Marco

Across the Plazza, we started with the less busy Correr Museum before Doge's Palace which we did the next day

Then, we went up the Campanile (clock tower) for a nice panoramic view:

Doge's Palace

For the rest of the day, we went to see the Accademia Gallery:

from a random art museum

view from Accademia Bridge

The following morning, we went back to Piazza San Marco to see Doge's Palace with the Bridge of Sighs that yields to the underground prison across the canal:

crossing the bridge on the way to their cell, prisonners got a last view of venice, and Sighed

From there, we went towards the huge Frari Church past the Rialto bridge.

Frari Church

nice house :)

The next morning, we went to another random church and the market by Rialto Bridge, and headed towards the train station to take the full grand canal cruise with a front view:

DHL, delivering day and night :)

It was weird to see streets and cars at the limit of Venice

Once we were at the first Vaporetto station, we ran in to score a couple of front seats to do the grand canal cruise as per the Rick Steve book (and its audiobook we had on our phones):

Rialto Bridge

there are only a few seats in the front of a Vaporetto

Gondolla traffic jam

At the end, we hopped off at a random art museum and the nearby Church

Eisher would be proud :)

Nice view of Piazza San Marco

Once we were back, we took another Ferry to Murano (glass blowing) and Burano (nice colored houses and lace-making). We went to Murano first, and checked out some glass blowing places and a local museum on glass:

how the hell do you get a horse off a blog of glass?

Then, we went to Burano:

And it was time to head back for the main island and the church of San Giorgio Maggiore and the great view from its top:

cool 'boat' :)

Doge Palace again

After that, we were pretty much done with what we wanted to see, outside of a Gondola Ride on the todo list. The next and last morning, we went for that, and here are a few random picture:

moving equipment from boats looks interesting...

not so good for the first floor...

high waters that day

almost looks like rush hour :)

And just like this, it was time to move to our next city, Florence. We're lucky because 4 nights in Venice turned out being just right for seeing everything.

We then crossed the bridge south to Palazzo Pitti and its beautiful galleries and Boboli Gardens:

After dinner, we went back across to Palazzo Vecchio, which was open during night hours. It wasn't first on the list of museums to see, but we had the Firenze card that gave us access to all museums, and we figured, why not? It was good for a quick tour before going back to the hotel to get some sleep:

and we swung by the cathedral for a few night pictures:

That was a very full half day, but it made sense because we arrived on a saturday afternoon, and most museums were going to close on monday, so we only had a day and a half to see most of the museums (and there were plenty).

The next morning we went to the famous Accademia that hosts a lot of sculptures, including Michelangelo's David.

We then went toward the Galileo Museum on the way to Uffizi:

And finally made it to Uffizi to see their famous paintings:

And after a dinner we went up the last floor of Palazzo Vecchio for night pictures:

The following morning, Monday, our last day in Florence, we went to see more churches that were not available for visiting on sunday, but were good on monday when most museums were closed.
We started with the Medici Chapel Museum:

Next, we got a guided tour of beautiful Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, which allowed us to bypass the horrendous line to get to the top.

narrow stairs to the top

Once at the top, we had some great 360 degree views:

After that, we went to the nearby museum of the church:

The nearby baptisery:

The Brandici Chappel:

And we finished the day by walking up to Piazzale Michelangelo for a nice view of the city:

Florence was a beautiful city. Seeing it in 2.4 days was a bit compressed (a lot of things in not a lot of time), but it worked out quite well.

And we got there:

this is the most leaning angle, not bad :)

the marble stairs actually caved under the weight of all the tourists

nice church and baptistery

the field of dreams is enclaved inside a wall

The baptistery is gorgeous and had the great property of echoing sound for up to 10 seconds, allowing for multi harmonies from a single voice, very cool.

We also went to see the cemetary, with very old ruins and wall painting left from roman times:

The church itself is also extremely nice:

And before leaving, a few obligatory pictures:

Pisa isn't worth a lot more than half a day, but I'm happy we didn't skip it.

Maps:

The first day, we had enough time for a quick look and getting dinner to eat by our patio:

taking the luggage up was fun :)

The next morning, we went for the hike going to Manarola (town #2)

In Manarola, because the hiking trail connecting to the next town was damaged, we took a bus up the hill to a local winery, which of course made Jennifer happy :)

And from there, we hiked to Corniglia (town #3) through some nice trails and across wineries. Due to the lower route being damaged by a slide, we got to take the scenic high route:

View of Corniglia from the top

Eventually, we arrived to town #3: Corniglia and we finished the hike by taking the trail to Vernazza:

We didn't finish the ride to Monterosso because the last bit of trail was said to be very rugged towards Monterosso and Jennifer had already done a great job hiking all the way there with a bad ankle (which we foudn out later will need surgery). That said, it was more than enough hiking and scenery for the first day.

back for a sunset

The next morning, we took the Ferry to Monterosso, town #5, and visitted it as well as enjoyed the beach. We then worked our way back up from there by train.

Departing Riomaggiore

Down to the boat dock

Via dell' Amore

Arriving in Monterosso

Second half of Monterosso, with the beaches, we took the scenic/high route there

After we were done with Monterosso, we took the train back to Vernazza (town #4) which we went through a bit too quickly the first day.

Vernazza seen from the tower

After some nice views around Vernazza, we took the train back to Manarola (town #2) which we also went through too quickly the first day. We hiked around for some nice views (we weren't able to hike the bottom part of it since the trail was damaged in that direction, so we had taken a bus back to the winery higher up and hiked from there).

nice view of Manarola

And from there, we took a nice sunset walk back down Via dell' Amore to Riomaggiore:

After a dinner, we had some adventure where we took a train North in the wrong direction so that we could catch the train going South to Naples before 01:00 so that we'd be allowed to enter the sleeping car and sleep while being taken down to Napples for a visit of Pompei and Herculeum.

Pompei was a great visit, it is pretty cool to see it in person. Thinking that you're walking on roman land from 2000+ years ago.

whorehouse :)

After Pompei, we took a train back to Herculaneum, which is quite different since it's in the middle of a neighborhood:

This was a really interesting day. It felt quite humbling to be in the middle civilization from two millenia ago. We then had just enough time to catch an early train to Rome, for our last stop in Italy (and despite having virtually no Italian, managed to talk ourselves onto an earlier and faster train to Rome. It's just like France, everything is negotiable after talking to the right person and saying the right things :)

We started with the Colliseum, Palatine Hill, and the Forum, which took a good part of the first day. I booked the fancy tour of Cooliseum, including underground and the 3rd floor others can't get to. Thanks to the Roma Pass we bought at the train station the previous evening, we didn't have to stand in the super long line to get to Colliseum. Yeah!

the underground was used for staging performers or slaves, and they had platforms that could be elevated to the stage level

From the end of that tour, we got some great views from the 3rd floor, including Palatine Hill, which we went to visit next:

bottom of the arch was quite fancier than the Paris Arc du Triomphe

Next, we went took the Victor Emmanuel II sky elevator for some more great pictures:

And I finished at Capitoline Museum while Jennifer rest and enjoyed the concert that was happening there:

This was a pretty packed day. The next morning we started with the Borghese Gallery where I had morning reservations. Unfortunately it was a no pictures zone and it looked like they were actually serious about it, so I played along and just once didn't take any pictures. Pitty though because it was very pretty. We also visited the park it was in.

Next, we went to the Spanish steps, and a nearby church:

Next, was Castel Sant' Angelo, from which we got great surrounding views, including the nearby Vatican, as well as the passeto/corridor from the Vatican 's St Peter's to Castel Sant' Angelo:

this is the passeto/corridor from the Vatican's St Peter's to Castel Sant' Angelo

St Peter's Cathedral

After that we went to the Priscilla catacombs, which likely was my only bad call. We had to wait almost an hour for our tour, no pictures were allowed, and all we got to see where a few tunnels with no bones or skulls, because that would be disrespectful. Go see the catacombs in Paris, those are much more interesting.
This left us with just enough time to go to the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi by Bernini and the plaza it's in, and we finished by the nearby Pantheon which we only got to go inside the next day:

The 3rd and last day was a monday, which meant no museums for the most part, but a good time to go see the Vatican. I had reservations for that too, but I upgraded that for a guided tour when we got there.

The special Vatican Guards

The tour guide showed us a better picture of what we would see in the Sistine Chapel on pictures easier to see than the actual dome:

And we then went for the tour. The art collection and wall/ceiling paintings is just amazing:

nice floor :)

fantastic ceilings

it does beat versailles

old maps

more nice ceilings

and then more random art:

Who knew James Hodges was displayed in the Vatican? :)

After that, we finally got to the Sistine Chapel, another 'no pictures' zone (well no one seemed to care)

and we went for another loop around to see the rest of the art:

And the 2nd time around we took the 'secret' exit bypass to St Peter's Cathedral:

Unfortunately, part of St Peter's closed earlier than they were supposed to, so we didn't get to see all of it, but oh well. We finished the tour by going through St Peter's Square and then we walked all the way to the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi plaza, and then to the Pantheon before it closed this time:

And that was it, this time for real, our time in Rome, and in turn Italy, was over. Even if we had 18 days on the ground, we sure saw a lot for that amount of time.

I hadn't done a lot of research on Italy before preparing for the trip, and I have to say that I was very positively impressed by Italy. We really saw a lot of cool stuff, the best cathedrals in the world, and fantastic combined history that I'm not sure other European countries still have.