Advertisement
Published: October 31st 2007
Edit Blog Post
Ciao Bella, Buon Giorno Italia. Being European explorers, Stuart, my wee sis Laura and I took off to Italy for a 10 day adventure. It was great to turtle up and I soon got into the swing of travelling again, armed with our Italian phrasebook and an appetite for the best pizzas in the world.
Reunion with FiFi The main reason for our trip to Italy was to catch up with my good friend Fiona and the lovely Vito. I hadn’t seen Fiona in over 4 years so was well excited. Fiona and I used to work together in Peterborough at the very start of our careers then both moved in Edinburgh. She and Vito now live in their newly renovated, gorgeous 18th century apartment in Piazza Napoli in Milano.
We stayed in Milano the first night and Fiona and I successfully bored everyone else to tears with our tales of the old days. Fiona cooked the best Italian food and we celebrated in style with some fine bubbly.
Firenze After a magical visit to Rome (see separate blog), we arrived in Florence on a speedy train - now why couldn’t it have been this easy in
Africa??? The countryside is exactly how I imagined Tuscany to look. Green rolling hills, Mediterranean houses, vineyards, space and sunshine!
Florence is a pretty, relaxed city with a mild climate and several cute wee bridges. There are heaps of galleries and museos but after a few hectic days in Roma we decided to soak up the Tuscan vibe and simply wander around.
Stuart and I went for an early morning run crossing the only bridge in the city to have survived WWII.
The next day we hopped back on the speedy train en route to Venice.
Venezia One of the most unique and characteristic places in the world. A sweet city atop thousands of islands in the ocean, creating canals in between tiny narrow cobbled streets and lanes, and below cute, colourful bridges. This was the first time Laura and Stuart had been to Venice so I enjoyed watching their amazement!
Venice is one of the top 5 most expensive cities in the world to put your head down for the night so as budget travellers we searched for a bargain. From the outside, our hostel looked like a derelict, manky, rotten house with a
Gondola
Venice transport staircase that would fall beneath you at the slightest touch. Thankfully, the room was OK - basic, clean and spacious with gorgeous old wooden beams on the ceiling. And its not as if we wanted to spend much time there anyway, we had exploring to do.
We had so much fun twisting our way through the narrow streets and over the tiny bridges, getting lost then finding our way again. Venice is extremely touristy but we were amazed at how anti-tourist the restaurant staff and so called artists were. Rude and obnoxious, expecting a tip even before they would consider giving you a table by the canal edge. Generally the food in Venice is crap and extremely overpriced once they slap on a cover charge and a service charge. But you’re not really there for the food anyway!
That night we had fun joining in the festivities. We enjoyed 2 bands that evening. The first was a band of 4 Venetians singing traditional Italian songs. They looked so Italian with their big round bellies and their chubby rosy cheeks. The second was a percussion band from Senegal (we think) and were really kool. We danced the night away
before going back to our dodgy derelict house.
The next day we met Fiona and Vito in San Marco Piazza then wandered through the cathedral. San Marco Cathedral is, from ceiling to floor, covered in colourful mosaic that sparkles in the sun. Beautiful!
Finally, we managed to be in the right place at the right time ... that particular weekend was the annual regatta competition where gondola’s race up and down the main canal. We bought seats right by the canal edge to cheer on the gondoliers. The regatta itself was great to watch, with 2, 4 and 6 oar races and heaps of fancy dress and decorative floats. Courtesy of the Communist Party, there was a BBQ and a 70s disco after the races so we hung out drinking cheapo wine and soaking up the party atmosphere. At around midnight, Laura’s night came to an ‘explosive’ end as she was violently sick with food poisoning. She believes it was from a spare rib she ate at the BBQ - frigging communists!
Milano We spent the last 2 nights back in Milano with Fiona. Despite Laura feeling a little vulnerable after being poisoned by the communists in
The Pale Pigeon
Laura being the palest pigeon of them all with her beautiful blue scottish complexion Venice, we had a great time soaking up the sights of this gorgeous city.
The Duomo is very impressive with its white washed exterior and stained glass interior. It has hundreds of spires stabbing the blue sky, each one topped with a statue of religious significance. Although construction started in the late 14th Century, they are still working on it.
We took a slow walk through the city, past the grounds of the old castle where we played Frisbee. Shortly afterwards we witnessed a running scramble as a group of plain clothed police raided illegal street stalls. It didn’t look like they caught anyone but they looked happy enough with their haul of fake handbags...
Living like the locals, we stopped off at Luini’s, a type of Italian bakery, for a Panzerotti, which is a naughty but very tasty fried dough thing full of cheese and tomato. And of course, a trip to Milano is simply not complete without the obligatory heel spin on the bull’s balls to wish for a return trip to this beautiful city and country!
That night we all ended up in an Irish bar (fitting since Fiona is Irish-Italian) making good
use of the all you can eat buffet and downing some lovely Guinness.
Turtles on Tour Do you speak Italian? It was great to be back on the road travelling, and challenging ourselves with yet another language. Italian is very similar to Spanish so Stuart and I were pleased at the level of grammar we already had! But let’s not get too carried away. On our 4 hour journey from Milan to Rome, we were blessed with the company of a local Italian Granny who also thought we knew a little more Italian than we did as she proceeded to talk faster than the Eurostar in Italian, oblivious to our blank glaekit looks. We just hoped she wasn’t asking us any questions and expecting us to respond. We got real good at smiling and laughing in all the right places!!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.069s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 14; qc: 20; dbt: 0.0267s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb