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Published: June 23rd 2005
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Duomo, Milano
Nico, Anne, Eamonn and I on the roof of the Duomo (cathedral) in Milan. It was in the process of being cleaned up and was really starting to look beautiful again. Great views if you could see through fog... Hi Everyone,
Well I am finally going to finish the journal of my trip before it is so far away that I will forget everything. Of course the time I choose to do this I really should be studying, but I've had enough for the day. So I think I pretty much finished spain.....
We had an interesting time getting to the Barcelona airport. We left our lovely fancy (but cheap amazingly enough) hotel with great instructions from the receptionist to get a taxi (note to self....travel LIGHTLY next time :p) to the train station and get a bus (which supposedly left every 20mins) from there to the airport. Upon arrival at the train station we got lost, got sent from counter to counter only to be told when we were finally able to ask for the bus area that no buses ran from the station. So about 10 counters later we bought train tickets for the airport, discovered we'd missed the train and had to wait another hour for the next one. Sigh. We made it finally only to discover the flight was delayed.
So we arrived in Milan a couple of hours later to find a frantic
Canal In Venice
The Canals were just so cool. What a magical place :) Anne (Eamonn's cousin from Australia) and Nico (her Italian boyfriend since he was at her high school on an AFS exchange) sure we'd been robbed, or murdered or possibly both. But anyway we made it to nic's great little appartment and they cooked us a wonderful meal of risotto and other italian goodies like Nic's uncle's wine (red and fizzy....apparently an italian speciality...really interesting). It was great to catch up with them both again, after hanging out with them in Dunedin in the middle of last year on their NZ trip.
The next morning, Saturday, we went on a guided personalised tour of Milan with our very own italian spunk leading the way. Nic is super bright and really into architecture (he's studying biomedical engineering or something like that...joint and limb prostheses and heart valves etc) so he was a superb guide. He also has hilarious skinny little bowed legs to provide amusement for Eamonn, Anne and I. We visited the Victoria Emanuel plaza place which is incredibly huge, mosaiced all through the inside with an amazing roof, and this crazy spot ont he floor where people spin around on one heel for good luck. Lots of designer shops
Venice
Eamonn and I trying to take a photo perched on a bridge crossing a canal in Venice. are in there. We also climbed to the roof of Milan's cathedral, the Duomo, a stunning white church in the middle of town with many spires. You can walk around up there and get pretty good views of Milan.
In the afternoon we caught a train to Nic's parents place in Mantova (Mantua) for the night as nic takes scouts every sunday. We went out for pizza and to a vibrant irish pub. We slept late the next day before a huge lunch with Nic's family. Nic's english is practically perfect, his brother spoke about 2 words of english, his dad and I spoke french, and everyone translated for each other. It was lots of fun.
Later we went for a bike ride round the lake and the town; they have this amazing round church and totally cobbled streets. We went back to Milan that evening.
Nic had school on Monday, so the three of us went searching for activities. nothing was open, none of the movies were in english, it was bitterly cold so we consoled ourselves with horribly expensive, but supposedly the best, milanese hot chocolates. mmmmm.
On the tuesday we made a mad
Firenze
Looking out to the Ponte Vecchio from the Uffizi Gallery dash (again laughing at Nic's legs) to the train station, in itself pretty increible. It was built by Mussolini and is huge and totally ugly. Eamonn and I caught the train to Venice.
I totally fell in love with Venice. We got off just before Venice proper at Mestre, where accomodation was less than half venice prices, and dropped off our bags. We then ventured into the city of romance warmly wrapped (northern italy is freezing in january!) and wandered around the streets and over the canals as the snow began softly falling. It was completely magical, an unforgettable evening. We got nice and lost amongst the tiny streets, but once back on the main street ran into Stu, one of Eamonn's friends from school. So we arranged to meet up for a beer later, and wandered again, finding a place for dinner, having lemon tea in a tiny bar, then wine in another, and discovering a great little (warm!) art studio where the woman spoke french, from whom we bought little wood paintings. By the end of the evening our map was totally sodden from the snow, our feet soaking, but our faces would have been aglow.
Michelangelo's David
Ok so a slightly illegal photo we took inside when the guards weren't watching ;) Venice was just a good the next day. We caught a water bus that took us all along the grand canal, to the cathedral, covered in paintings and square. I swear I have never seen so many pigeons (even cumulatively) in my life and may now have a slight phobia of them. People would buy feed and then the pigeons would gravitate (very close and at tremedous speed) from wherever they had been sitting tot he feeder. People would have them all over their heads....no thankyou. Trying to locate another little church we unknowingly found the hospital (virually unmarked), and just wandered through it. It was an awesome building and noone seemed to care we were there! The bridges over the canals are really beautiful, and its pretty funky seeing people step out of their house onto their boat. Having no cars around was awesome.
That evening we caught another train to Florence and Eamonn hauled my suitcase up 3 very steep flights of stairs to our hostel which claimed to have a lift. haha.
The next day (thursday) we strolled round the markets for a couple of hours and visited the Uffizi gallery. Mostly it was a bit too religious for us, but seeing Boticelli's masterpieces was pretty cool. The audio guide was poor, and didn't tell us about the things we wanted to know. However, there was a great view over the river to the ponte vecchio bridge where all the goldsmiths shops reside.
On the Friday we went to the Galleria dell'Accademia. It is horrendously expensive (around 12 euros especially for really only one exhibit) but totally worth it. Michelangelo's David blew us away. I could see Eamonn out the corner of my eye; he turned a corner and literally stopped in his tracks. David is at the end of a very impressive long high ceilinged room under a dome from which streams bright yet soft ethereal dusky orangyish light onto this most perfect of scuptures. It really is beautiful. And even more amazing it is carved out of one single block of marble.
We also visited the Medici chapels in Florence which were fairly awe inspiring, especially considering they were built on the wealth of this single family, essentially the founders of Firenze.
That evening we trained to Napoli (Naples) hope of all gastronomic delights of and Italian nature. Keep your eyes out for the next exciting installment, beginning in the home of the original and still thriving Mafia....
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