Bologna, Venice and Milan

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Just arrived at La Spezia, as a base for Cinque Terra.. some 5 small villages with coastline supposedly rivalling the Amalfi Coast. We'll see...

Nothing much to say about Bologna.. everything was shut on our 1st day because it was Sunday. Anyway, two nights was rest day in comfy hotel Giardenetto. Internet was cheap though, at 1€ per hour!

Venice... terribly touristy, and milking tourists for all its worth. Everything is way more expensive here.. internet at 8€ per hour compared to 1€ in Bologna! Anyway, the main attraction would be St Mark's Square with the basilica and also the Doges Palace around the corner. We also had a trip out to the island Murano, famed for its Murano glass.. watched some glass blowing finally after looking all over the island. Products were very expensive with some going into the thousands... how would you like to have a glass horse for 900€ each.. usually has 3 separate horses in different poses
Left Venice one day earlier than planned.. nothing much I really wanted to do there, and headed for Milan.

Milan... it is a pretty large city, but it was raining the 1st day, so ended up resting in our 'hotel' for most of the afternoon.. later that night, we went to a symphony orchestra performing Beethoven 4th and 5th symphony. For some reason, they had heaps of speeches at the beginning in Italian of course, and almost bored me to death!

Main attraction would be the Duomo, with its largely French-Gothic design. The interior was not very impressive except for the plentiful stained-glass windows. Explored the huge Piazza Duomo and Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele with its branded labels everywhere, and also the Castello Sforzesco which incidentally had a photoshoot going on... must be a lesser known model 'cos it wasnt a closed set.

That's about sums it up so far... only thing is our accommodation nowadays seems to differ from what we expected from the online pictures. Sigh.. draw of the luck I guess.

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