8 Months to Go, a Sudden Change of Plans, and How Well Do I Know My Brother?

After painstakingly working out an itinerary to try to make the most out of our trip to Italy, leave it to my brother Gary to suddenly declare: "I don't want to go to Venice!" I reminded him that he was the one that originally insisted that we HAD to include Venice in our itinerary, but he has suddenly decided he wants everything changed. I was instantly reminded of our last trip to Italy when he told me not to include him in our plans – he would make his own flight plans and all his own hotel reservations and he'd meet us in Rome. "Don't worry about me", he said. Well, I should have seen it coming when about two weeks before we were ready to leave he asked me "Where are we staying in Rome?"

I, of course, already had the rest of the group's hotel reservations, train tickets and tours booked in Rome, Teramo, Orvieto, Florence, Cinque Terre and Velletri – NONE of which included Gary. This was all done months in advance, so now I and my cousin Joyce had to scramble to try to find him hotels in each of these places, and change all our reservations, tours and train tickets to include an extra person. The only thing he had done on his own was reserve his airplane ticket – and most of you know what a disaster that turned out to be! Good thing he sent me his plane itinerary in time for me to catch that he wouldn't be returning to the states until another whole month after the rest of us got back! Ask him how much that little mistake cost!!!

So, getting back to the change in plans for Venice… in the original itinerary I had Venice as a side trip from Rome for a few reasons. First and foremost, Venice is far from anywhere else where we will be and is not easy to get to – and I wanted to minimize any travel with luggage and long train rides. Venice is on a direct line from Rome, but even the express train would take approximatley 12 hours roundtrip. Also, there may be some people in our group that aren't interested in going to Venice or have already been there, so I set it up as an optional tour. Now Gary has decided he doesn't like this idea. But… how well do I know my brother? Enough to know that if I cancel the Venice part of our trip, I will probably get an email from Gary a week before we leave saying – "What time do we get to Venice?"

But seriously, for those of you who may never again get to Italy, how can you not visit Venice? Some experts say that Venice is slowly sinking, so even if you do get back who knows what to expect for the future? New Orleans is a perfect example. The plan I am now working on is to fly into Rome as originally planned, but end the trip in Venice and return to the US from there. That way, it would still be optional for everyone and would minimize the travel time to and from Venice as it would only be one way. Gary's main reason for not wanting to go to Venice was because he didn't like the idea of leaving Rome for a day, so hopefully this plan will make him happy (and save a lot of last minute rearranging and headaches for me!). At least he gave me eight months notice this time instead of two weeks.

Now the only question is – does anybody want to buy a brother? Will trade 1 brother for 2 pizzas and a cannoli!

Bacioni a tutti!

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