Italian holidays.

Shall I make an attempt to squeeze 8 days of an italian holiday into a single entry?

Yes, I shall.

So us Lugano folk met up with Eldon and Janie (studying in Hatfield, UK) and Walter (Sweden) and did a crazy whirlwind tour of Milan, Venice, Verona, Florence & Pisa in eight days.

The holiday cost me about 450 euros. I budgeted 400 euros, which I wouldn’t have exceeded but I spent about 70 euros shopping. More than 200 euros went to transport and accommodation. The rest was food and entrance tickets and such. Italy is an amazingly tourist-ed place. You have to pay to get into anywhere. And I was faced with so many tourists over the past one week that I’m not even sure how many people I saw were actually Italian.

Cities
Each Italian city had it’s own unique flavour and architecture. Every where we went it felt a little different. (Prices and quality of food too.) These are my general impressions of each city.

Milan: Wet and cold when we got there. Couldn’t walk around without getting harassed by street hustlers. Four girls who looked about 12 tried to pickpocket me on the train. Generally couldn’t move without feeling on my guard all the time and not the most pleasant first impression or experience of Italy. Furthermore we were there on Easter Sunday and all the shops were closed. Will have chances to head back again so I’m sure I’ll find something better to say the next time I’m back.

Not many pictures from Milan because it was cold and wet and the pictures all turned out shitty.

Venice: Walking around the entire island was like being in Chinatown on Chinese New Year’s eve. We even joked that the island was probably sinking because there were simply too many tourists. A pretty place that everyone has to visit at least once in their lives even if you have to fight for elbow space with about a hundred thousand other people. Whoever built Venice never heard of urban planning. Navigating the streets was like moving through a labyrinth. You almost never go down the same street twice, unless by accident. Fun place to get lost in. Obviously a lot more pictures from Venice because it deserves it.

(Captured at a different time on our second day there. The previous ones were mostly around sunset on our first evening there.)

Verona: Amazed that there is actually tourism here because of 1) a rather unimpressive roman amphitheater, 2) Juliet’s house, Romeo’s house, and Juliet’s grave. Tourism at work I tell you. These characters don’t even exist. But yes we did go up Juliet’s underwhelming balcony and marveled at why Verona has tourists.

Roman amphitheater. Heavily under repair/construction/whatever. But they were still charging people 6.5 euros to enter, unbelievable. We bought the Verona Day pass for 10 euro so we could go to all the touristy places at a cheaper price and take the city buses for free.

Juliet’s balcony. Like wao. I’m still amazed at how they have all things dedicated to fictional (and dead) characters. Even if they’re Shakespeare characters.

Spiral staircase leading up to the top of the city tower. We saved 1 euro by not taking the elevator and climbed over 360 steps!

Castle in Verona.

Castle bridge where we were sitting on and nua-ing and zipai-ing for a bit.

Florence: Lovely, lovely city rich and abundant in culture. Food was more expensive here. But I managed a spot of shopping. Visited the 3 David statues and appreciated some lovely early European art. I like Florence more than Milan because at least I don’t feel like I have to guard my bag with my life all the time and that someone was going to try and aggressively con me of my money in a heartbeat.

Duomo.

One of the many many many street artists.

Tourist traps everywhere.

Pisa: First impression was ‘cui’. And that it was dead boring. There’s the leaning tower. Small, unimpressive and underwhelming. But we still did the tourist thing and took lots of pictures. There’s an old town with a bazaar and lots of shops, but we didn’t spend much time there before taking our 8 hour trip back to Lugano. (More on the experience of traveling in Italy below.)

Tadaa, tower! Now what?

*scratch scratch*

Food
Food in Europe is generally expensive but we’re getting used to it. After all we pay out of our noses for everything in Switzerland. Every day was gelato day. Almost, at least. Italian gelato is heavenly. If you don’t go for the rip off ones (some of ours were). The best were the ones on Venice and the last gelato we had in Pisa. 2 to 3 scoops of amazing Italian ice-cream every day makes the world a better place.

The other cheap food option were the kebabs for around 3.5 to 4 euros. These were always hearty and satisfying (and most importantly had CHILI). Can’t say much for Italian pasta because I’m sick of pasta (I eat that stuff every day in Switzerland) and never really liked pasta anyway. The only pasta I had was squid ink pasta in Venice and it just tasted like the one from Waraku.

The pizzas I had were just ‘okay’. Nothing that screamed wow. Need to find out where the places are. We’re always in the touristy areas and no matter what I buy (food, icecream, clothes, etc) I feel like I’m being ripped off at least a little (it’s just the degree of rip-off-ness).

Sandwiches were nice, if not a little pricey too. 2.5 to 4.5 euros. Yes budget traveler I am. The rest of the money goes into shopping. I shall gush about how much I love European fashion later on.

Below: Other more expensive yummies in Venice we didn’t buy.

Transportation
Okay. It’s rather bad to put it this way, but crossing the border from Switzerland to Italy really feels like I’m taking a train from Singapore to Malaysia. Being in Switzerland has spoilt us rotten. The comfort of Swiss trains are indubitable. We rode on a variety of Italian trains. Some were alright. But our final one back to Milan was a bit of an experience. It was a six seater carriage but we were sharing it with 2 huge Italians and their dogs and another guy. And also a father and son who were occupying our seats before we arrived and tried to claim that the seats were his. Had to spent the latter part of the journey having the kid glaring eyeballs at me for having ‘chased’ him and his dad out of the carriage. And oh, smelling like dog and having fur all over my clothes of course.

Fortunately the couple didn’t ride all the way to Milan and got off at Bologna. If not I’ll probably never get the smell of wet dog out of my belongings.

Generally the Italian transport system isn’t very much different from what we’re used to in Switzerland, it’s pretty easy to understand and find your train. It’s just the trains themselves and the people whom you would potentially meet on board that are a little… different.

What is pictured here betrays what was actually going on when we were there. It just so happened everyone was out for a smoke break when the train stopped at one of the stations.

Shopping/Fashion
I congratulate myself after 21 years of existence as a Singaporean for finally understand how IMPORTANT it is to dress according to the season’s fashion after going to Italy. Italy right now has become far warmer, it was about 20 to 21 degrees in all the cities we visited, warm enough to wander around in shorts and tank tops if you so chose. And all the winter clothes have been shed and everyone’s decked out for Spring. Not dressing accordingly in Italy really makes you stick out like a sore thumb!

I wonder how it’ll be in Spain. Spanish people take great pride in their fashion too. (We’ll be heading there this Sunday for 5 days of culture and shopping!) But I really, really, really love European fashion. Gosh the clothes and styles and colors are just absolutely LOVELY. Hence yes, 70 euros spent in Italy on clothes. Just a bit of H&M, Zara and Tezenis. I’m not a big fashion spender or a brand whore. But I do love a good bargain and unique designs.

Can’t wait to shop in Spain. Hope I can find a cheap new pair of Camper (which are, I must say, my favourite snugly comfortable brand of walking shoes). And a new bag.

No pictures of the new clothes.

Okay but here’s one of my new scarf which I got from one of the many street vendors in Florence. Everyone there was wearing such pretty scarves and I couldn’t resist it any longer. 9 euros! A little on the pricey side but I really liked the design.

(And the grey tshirt is a new Zara basic.) Strangely I’ve been buying a lot of GREY since I came to Europe. Which is funny because in Singapore I never buy anything grey and think I look absolutely horrid in grey. (I still look bad in blue and orange though, that hasn’t changed.)

But I’m so happy shopping here because they have ALL the types and shades of colors in the earth range and the bright range that I like and look good in.

Okay I’ll stop gushing. Will probably have more to gush about after shopping in Spain. But in the meantime I’ll just leave you with pictures of us enjoying ourselves.

Venice.

Getting lost in Venice.

Venice.

On a bus-boat in Venice.

Murano, Venice.

Walter doing what I call the ‘Shannon-act-cute’ expression.

Verona.

Top of the tower, Verona.

Castle bridge, Verona.

And I leave you with Eldon attempting to do a jump shot in front of my camera and ending up looking like he was about to trip over his own feet and fall flat on his face.

Till Spain! Or when something more interesting comes up.