Back from the honeymoon, first comments on organized tours

Hey there, it is already one week we've come back, but I'm still dreaming of coconuts, blue seas, warm weather and kangaroos. What to say? The best tour I've ever had, organized by myself for myself and the most expecting and (shh....) difficult customer ever, that is my wife :-)!

It has been a dream, totally a dream, and... you know what? the only things we absolutely did not enjoyed (and that created a lot of problems to us) were the only things that we did not organized by ourselves. Namely, the four days in Kakadu National Park with the Connection Safaris: we got a weird man, with a disgusting sense of humour (John) who was supposed to be the "guide".

I am a guide myself, and I've never ever seen such an ignorant, unprepared, vulgar and unsensitive person, who didn't have any idea of the places we were visiting, didn't give any relevant information on anything, no sense of time-managing and - most important - no respect nor knowledge of my wife's alergy (she's coeliac, and the tour operator guaranteed they could cater for her food: no way!).

The tour itself costed lots of money (much, much less of what I asked to make dreams coming true, not just simple tours) and was the typical "hard life with electricity" (Safari! ah! ah! ah!). No idea on where our money went, since we stayed in a room which was covered by dust, dirty as a pig-house and with frogs in the toilet (frogs in the toilet!!! it was a lodge, not a camping!!!!)

What else to say? Absolutely not recommend Safari Connection (puah!) tours, the easiest way to waste your money.

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On the contrary, my best experience (with organized tour) was with Kangaroo Island Wilderness Tours, a local company in Kangaroo Island: our guide, Greg, was brilliant (I took a lot of notes on his way of working) and the tour was simply excellent, nothing went wrong, everything cared in detail. We stayed at the KI lodge, great hotel with ocean view.

We had just these 2 different tours, and as you can see the results have been completely different. Is it a relevant point that the best tour we had was with a local and small tour operator, for which you are not a simple number, but an important person, since they get their earnings from you? Is it relevant to notice that the big tour operator simply did not say at least "sorry" when we asked our money back (and of course, we did not get them back)?

The rest of our honeymoon will be described in details later.

But this just to say that when you come and tour with me, you tour first of all with somebody like you, that knows your needs, your feelings and understands the pleasure to have a perfect tour since you have paid for that. And, secondly, with somebody for whom you are an important customer, not just a number.

Preparing a wedding in Italy: instructions

Hey there, I'm so sorry to leave you with no news for so many days, but still, I'm really so busy in working on my wedding organization...

Therefore, I take the chance to tell you how a wedding is organized in Italy; of course, lots of things may vary from region to region, here is what we do in Le Marche and in Emilia-Romagna (not Bologna, but the mountain, the Appennino Reggiano, where they make the Parmigiano Reggiano!).

First of all, in Italy, the majority of weddings take place in a church: whether a matter of faith or tradition, the wedding in the city hall are not so common, but still they exist. The "typical" Italian wedding, without leaving importance to the others, takes place in a church.

The first things to check are the priest and the restaurant: where we will get married there are a lot of beautiful tiny churches, but few preachers. Anyway, the 6th October the priest is available. Likewise the restaurant: not a normal Osteria, but a good restaurant, with a lot of space, since an Italian wedding has something like 150-200 guests. Our wedding will be more than 200, which is the average for our tradition. In Southern Italy, 3-400 is usual. In Northern Italy, if you go over 150 is a sort of super-party.

Then, the photographer and the wedding-dress are the second most important things. Usually, one starts more than 6 months before to look for the right thing, and usually is not easy, especially for the dress (don't forget we are Italian!)

The honeymoon and the flower shop is another important matter: in our case, we preferred to organize our tour by ourselves (well, I'm a tour organizer, don't you remember?). We will go to Australia and Cook Islands, not exactly round the corner... :-)

Then comes the rest: the hotel and the bus (for my guests arriving from Le Marche, it's more than 3 hours driving, so I reserved a bus or some rooms in a hotel), the party before the celebration, the comfits, the bonbonnière, the music, the car, the decorations, the tables, the cake... really, so many details, which make your brain and your time very very busy.

So, please... say "Best wishes", thanks!

Wedding and honeymoon: we will go to the land down under

Two news:

1) I and Francesca are going to get married next October 6th!

2) We will go to Australia on our honeymoon.

The latter point requires some help: if anybody of you knows about Australia, tips, where to stay etc., please let me know, here or via email.

The first point requires just one thing: best wishes! Come on, mail me and congratulate!