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Published: June 23rd 2017
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Italy needs no introduction and obviously figures in the top bracket of Countries to visit. We had been long wanting to visit this country. This was one of our better planned trips. We made flight and hotel reservations well in advance and needless to say we got good deals despite long weekend in the US.
We flew into Rome. Landed early morning, a rather long drive (about an hour) to our hotel since we stayed right in the city.
Rome We started with the
Colosseum. Since we had only a day and we are not the kind of people who would leave any spot worth visiting, we were on a race against time. Make sure you buy and print tickets before you travel. This helps you avoid super long lines during summers. Since they regulate the number of people entering the Colosseum, wait in the line outside could be a while. Also, make sure you buy tickets on their official website. While the website isn’t crystal clear about “Skip the Line” tickets. If you print them and have a paper copy, that is considered as “Skip the line”.
Before going in, we took a guided
tour for €15 in addition to our entry ticket. I strongly recommend a guided tour as it makes lot more sense rather than seeing it without knowing the history. It literally brings the ruins to life. We got done in about couple hours.
Then we walked through the
Roman Forum, we didn’t go in but you can see everything through the street itself. It was the seat of Ancient Rome and from where Rome administered its empire. Hiked all the way to
Capitoline Hill.
Visit the Pantheon: This is where you will truly appreciate history and art of preservation. The Pantheon looks today much like it did nearly 2,000 years ago, making it a marvel in itself. Large columns and the dome are fabulous. There is no admission ticket to enter the Pantheon.
Trevi Fountain: Arguably the most famous fountain in the world. Level set the expectation, it is always crowded and you will have to navigate through waves of people. Though cheesy, don’t forget to throw two coins using right hand over your left shoulder in the pond. The backdrop of the fountain is a palace and makes it photo worthy. Though we didn’t get to
see it, I have heard from locals that the fountain really comes to life at night with all the lights. If you can do see it.
Short taxi ride to
Vatican City. We took guided tour that included St. Peters Basilica, Sistine Chapel and the Vatican Museum. Lines can be painstakingly long and guided tours can help skip those lines. The guided tour costed us €40 per person. Take a moment to realize that when you enter Vatican, you have officially left Italy. How awesome is it to see the entire country in a few hours!
The Vatican museum is incredibly big and next to impossible to see-it-all when you are under time crunch and this is where having a guide can help as they can walk you through the most important and relevant parts of the museum. If you want to see the Pope, be there on Wednesday at 10:00AM. Also, don’t forget to take the picture of Swiss Guard. Don’t let their calm demeanor fool you, every Swiss Guardsman has been in the Swiss army, which means they are well trained in firearms and martial arts.
PIsa Next day morning we took
a train (Trenitalia) to Pisa Central Station from Roma Termini. It was a nice relaxing ride and we reached Pisa at 8:30. Since we carried our luggage with us, we had to keep our bags in the station. Look for “
deposito bagagli". When you get off the train, the deposito bagagli is to the right at the far end of Platform #1, close to the police station. It costs about €6 for 24 hours. Have your passport ready for identification. There’s a bus stop in front of the station (across the road) and it drops you in front of the Tower.
Leaning Tower of Pisa: This is one of the most famous structures in Europe and possibly world over since it is considered as one of the wonders. You will find almost everyone trying to get their picture-perfect stereotypical photos of pushing the tower over. Don’t shy from taking one yourself. You can either buy tickets online (~€18 per person, also recommend since they control the number of visitors entering the tower) or at the office there to walk to the top of the tower. It’s about a 10-minute climb, 300 stairs to be precise. Spend some time at
the top with the bells to get good views of the city.
There’s also a
Cathedral and Baptistery, the Roman architecture is worthy of a photo and it’s easy to spend a long time admiring all of the artistic details built into the design.
There’s also a market at the entrance of the tower in case you want to buy a souvenir.
Venice: The quintessential city of Romance. Not to bust your travel bubble but the City is always filled with tourists, about 60,000 people visit Venice each day.
No trip to Venice is complete without a
Gondola ride and that was the first thing we did that evening. Gondola ride is romantic and suggest taking it at Dusk. While some say it is a rip-off (costs €90), much like any touristy thing is. After the Gondola ride, we went to St. Mark’s Square. Don’t forget to take the day pass (€20) since one-way ride on the boat costs around €7.5. There are plenty of restaurants over there for a nice dinner. Spend time strolling through the city seeing the buildings, churches, artists. This is when you will truly appreciate the beauty of
Venice.
Next day morning, we went to
Doge’s Palace. It is one of the major landmarks of Venice and is located on St. Mark’s Square. It was the Palace of the military ruler of the time. The inside of the palace is remarkable and filled with artwork. You can walk across the Doge’s apartments, where they lived, Bridge of Sighs where they housed new prisoners and to the nearby prison cells.
Short walk from Doge’s palace is
St. Mark’s Clock Tower. We went to the top. Again, print tickets at home and skip the line, there’s an entrance at the back for “Skip the Line” tickets. It is hidden away but it is there. From the top, you will get some nice views of the city.
In front of the Clock tower is
St. Mark’s Basilica. The line was incredibly long despite skip the line tickets, it took us over an hour to get into the basilica. Photography is strictly forbidden and please don’t be the person who flouts this rule. It looks pretty disrespectful. You can take photos to your hearts content once you go to the balcony where they have the structures of the horses
of Saint Mark. The real structures are inside the basilica and the ones on the balcony are the bronze replicas.
There’s always music playing by the artists at
Piazza San Marco and you can enjoy a cup of coffee or ice cream while taking a stroll. You can also visualize umpteen number of movies shot there.
Milan We took the train again from Venice to Milan. After all the walking in Venice, it was time to relax in the train. Milan feels like the more contemporary city, tall glass buildings, wide roads. After all, it is the fashion capital of the world.
Duomo di Milano: One of the largest cathedrals in the World and the masterpiece architecture is iconic. Words fall short of the magnificent structure. Definitely go to the roof and you can see the pillars up close.
Walk to Milan’s "Rodeo Drive" from the Duomo to see some of the biggest fashion brands and their stores.
We were in Milan on a Monday and the Church that has the last Supper Painting was closed so that was a bummer.
We walked over 30,000 steps each day so
you can imagine, we covered a LOT in short period of time. I don’t recommend this. Is it even possible to cover over 2000 years of history in a day or two? Each city needs or rather deserves a few days since there is so much to cover and each city has so much to offer. We are definitely going back to Italy to spend more time in Rome and Venice.
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