[Idyllchat] ? for tenured travelers

[Jay Cloidt]

Langenscheidt's is a great dictionary. I used it studying Italian and never
needed a bigger one until I tried to read literature. I got turned on to it
when I was studying Russian. Their Russian/English dictionary is excellent.

I'm experimenting with Rosetta Stone for studying German. We're going to
Switzerland, and I know from being there that most people speak English, but
I want to try to learn some German. We'll be in the Swiss Heartland which is
German speaking, then we're going to Ticino where I can use my Italian.

I've never had a problem in an Italian restaurant. We went to a little local
restaurant in Milan once where no one spoke English and I had started
studying it yet. It was a small neighborhood restaurant that catered to
locals. We still managed to get seated and order a 3 course meal with no
major problems using a limited number of Italian words.

  - Jay

On 3/18/07, haggart <haggart at moscow.com> wrote:
>
>    Marcia
>
> Welcome to UnTours. You will love the experience and you will love Italy.
> We were in Tuscany and Rome several years ago and plan a return trip to
> Tuscany and Venice this fall.
>
> Getting from place to place is, in fact, reasonably easy to do. Be sure at
> the orientation to ask if they have a local map. We did this a got a very
> good one that had a lot of secondary roads not on the other maps.
>
> Gas stations are easy to find and the ones that we used had an attendant
> who did the filling up and took the credit card. But that may have changed
> and you may run into self serve near the larger cities. Orientation folks
> can tell you what is available in your area and what their times of
> operation are.
>
> Never used a tour guide in Italy.
>
> Language is not a big barrier. We have never actually learned the language
> of the countries we have visited in Europe, but we do take the time to learn
> a few useful phrases and of most important to learn to ask in Italian if the
> person you are speaking to speaks English. People like to have you at
> least try to speak their language. We also take a phrase book wherever we go
> and in Italy found a little yellow book called "Langenscheidt's Universal
> Dictionary" in this case "English-Italian/Italian-English" - which we
> actually bought in a shop in Italy, but I am sure is available in the USA.
> It is small enough to fit in a pocket, but is packed with words. This is
> useful when driving and reading parking signs to make sure that you are
> parking legally and won't get towed off! Anyway, we found the dictionary to
> very helpful during our travels. I think this company publishes them in
> several languages. Check with your local book store.
>
> Lastly, look at the trip logs at the Idyll web site to get insights on
> what places people found interesting.......... but most of all take your
> time and have fun!
>
> Pete
>
>  *Peter and Margaret Haggart*
> *haggart at moscow.com*
> *-------Original Message-------*
>
>  *From:* Marcia Waffner <mwaffner at verizon.net>
> *Date:* 3/17/2007 3:42:54 AM
> *To:* idyllchat at lists.untours.com
> *Subject:* [Idyllchat] ? for tenured travelers
>
>  Hi
> We're planning our first trip to Italy in the fall. Untours sounds just
> 'up our alley' since we don't want to be with large groups and on tour
> buses, however we were wondering if we can hire guides or ask for
> recommendations from this group on the 'who, what, where and when' of
> getting around.  Some questions: 1.  is getting from place to place
> reasonably straightforward   2. are gas stations easy to find  3.  can we
> hire tour guides on our own and if so, how 4.  is language a huge barrier if
> our Italian is limited.
>
> Thanks for any help...
> Marcia
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> This message was sent by IdyllChat.
> To reply or send a new message, email to:
> IdyllChat at lists.untours.com
>
> Visit the IdyllChat archives:
> http://mailman.dca.net/pipermail/idyllchat/
>
> Search Idyllchat Archives for any subject at:
> http://search.dca.net/sites/untours/main.html
> >
> Read real Untourists' candid accounts of their Untours:
> > http://www.untours.com/triplogs.html To unsubscribe, change to digest
> delivery, or
> temporarily pause delivery, visit:
> http://mailman.dca.net/mailman/listinfo/idyllchat
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.dca.net/pipermail/idyllchat/attachments/20070319/809e836d/attachment.htm