Memories from trip to Italy

Life has been a bit crazy since I got back from Easter break and I now realised I didn't even post my adventures from Italy on here! :)

Maite and I had a wonderful time all across Italy and I am really glad I went, as I have been quite skeptical about going there for very personal reasons. Anyway, my friend who lives in Alessandria, not far from Milan was excited to finally have me at her place. She has been asking me to come for more than 4 years!

I left Cairo on a Friday afternoon; we made it to the airport right on time and we were probably the last ones to board after running through the airport trying to find our gate.

The ride was quite interesting... We flew Alitalia, now under the name of AirOne - I did not enjoy the food and I witnessed a bad incident between a flight attendant and a passenger who did not want to put his suitcase in the overhead compartment. They ended up exchanging some very bad words and I was shocked with the flight attendant's attitude; he would've lost his job straight away if I was involved!

Maite had a guide to Italy which contained some very "useful phrases" under a section called "Amore"; some phrases included: "Solo un bacio" (just a kiss), I have a room, She is a bad dancer, why don't you dance with me? Of course people were staring at us while we were trying to read them!!!

Alessandria and Milan

We spent 3 days at Oana's place in Alessandria; thank God for that because the first night there I got so sick! I stayed in bed most of the second day and our third day, we went to Milan. It was so nice to spend time with Oana, see Samy who has grown so much!!! Oana had cooked Romanian food and I was so excited as it's been a while. She had "ciorba de perisoare" though it was not authentic, as it did not have "bors", but I still enjoyed it. Funny enough, I was talking to Maite about "ciorba" on the plane! :)

I will leave the architectural comments to people more skilled than me ... I will detail just facts of memories of MY trip!

I have richly enjoyed Milan - we took the train in the morning and then we took the metro straight to the Dome. The inside of the Dome was impressive .... right when we were there they were having a service. We managed to get all the way to the top; Maite took the stairs, I was lazy and took the lift! We got to appreciate the greenery coming from Egypt!! We loved this one park we saw, behind Castelo d'Angelo. the trees were so green and I remember the magnolia trees ... what a smell!!!

One thing I enjoyed most in Milan was the shopping; on our way to the Dome, we walked first on Via Buenos Aires and we entered all the shops .... heaven!!! After too much shopping we decided to take the metro as time was running out and we needed to see the Dome.

Getting back to Alessandria was quite a challenge; we got off the metro at the wrong station, had to go back, made it to the train station to find out we missed our train! No problem, there was another one, but from Milano Genoa, so here we go again on the metro which was very confusing to me!!! Well, missing the train gave us the opportunity to stop at this nice pub, have a good dinner and enjoy an Italian dinner after the hectic day!

Venice

We took the train early in the morning from Alessandria to Venice; one thing I loved in Italy was to see how all the Mc'Donalds had a "healthy" section with yummy sandwiches and pastries. We went in that morning to get coffee. The ride to Venice was not long ... We got there around 11 o'clock, we left our stuff at the train station and started walking on the narrow streets. i loved the coloured shops, the masks, the HUGE chocolate chip cookies. We stopped at one place for lunch and a bird came to join us; it was not scared to try Maite's sandwich...

After wondering about we decided to take a boat "bus" on the Grand Canale ... so we got to see a lot of the city, I think. We stopped at Piazza San Marco and went to see St Peter's church which was impressive. They were doing a lot of restauration to the buildings in the Piazza, but we still enjoyed it.

The streets were so narrow and we kept getting lost, but most of them lead to the water, so there was no way we couldn't have found our way back! We saw all the fancy shops like Gucci, Roberto Cavalli, Prada etc.

For dinner we stopped at this nice restaurant that seemed very popular - we had a 3 course meal for 15 euros + a glass of wine!

The most exciting part of Venice was getting back to the train station around 11:30, sleeping there or trying to with all the homeless people, getting kicked out of the train station because they were closing it ... to my stupefaction; I said to the guys we have a train to catch at 3 am! They asked for the ticket and told us our train leaves from a different train station! Thank God!!! They gave us directions to the bus station; I asked if we could walk there and the guy, answered me quite shocked: "well, there IS a bus... You can take the bus!" I thought, since we have quite a while to wait, we could walk! Well, we did take the bus ... and it was a loooooooooong drive so I am happy we didn't decide to walk. We had another hour to wait ... the train station was ugly and cold ... it was us and homeless people... But the train came and we made our way to Florence.

Florence

I have enjoyed my stay in Florence; I loved the youth hostel called Plus Florence. The staff was very kind, helpful and full of fun + cute! We got there early in the morning and our plan was to sleep for a couple of hours and then hit the city, but we couldn't check in until 3 pm, so we showered at the pool showers, stored our stuff and went to see Florence . We rented bikes that day and cycled through Florence. Florence seemed like a cozy city ... We wanted to see Michelangelo's David and cycled past it 3 times but every time the line was just too long! The 4th time we decided to just wait; we waited for an hour, which was not too bad considering how long the line was and we saw David! Quite impressive!

It rained that day and it felt like a breath of fresh air to my spirit!

We had such a lovely time in Florence that we decided to stay an extra day; we went to see the Tower of Pisa the 2nd day. We took the train for about 2 and a half hrs and then walked to find the tower. I am a map addict so I had to stop every 5 minutes to check the map to Maite's desperation! We kind of stumbled upon the tower at one point... we did not know which way to go and then we look to the left to realise the tower was just there!

We did not have time to take the train to Siena, so we got back to Florence, we had a lovely dinner and I went to bed early. Maite went out that night ...

Our train left Florence early next morning to Rome...

Rome

It took us a while to find the B&B ... we followed the directions from the owner and once we got off the metro people were telling us this is not it...and that we need to take a bus back. Turns out we WERE in the right place! This old man guided us towards our street - Lorenze il Magnifico.

We found a message at the gate saying the key is at the ice-cream shop next door, which was closed, but I knelt down and looked under the shutters ; this good looking guy looked at me, probably thinking "what is she doing?" I said I am looking for the key to the B&B... No problem!

We showered, got ready and left to see the beauty of Rome. On the way to the Metro station I discovered a Romanian shop with Romanian products!!!!! Wow!!! I talked to the lady there and she was telling there are so many Romanians in Rome!!! She said there's even a huge Romanian supermarket! I was delighted to see Romanian things and I bought Viva, pufarine, bors...

We went straight to the Collosseum; I loved it!! There were plenty of guides there offering to take us so we payed 10 euros for a guide. It was interesting to find out some of the history... We also went to the Roman Forum to admire the ruins of what once was the center of the world... Leaving the Forum, we stopped at a nice restaurant for dinner; by the time we left the restaurant, it was dark and it was nice to see the city by night.... Of course we got lost, trying to find our way back to the Collosseum where the metro station was - my fault, as I was convinced I knew exactly where I was going. I discovered I am not too good at orientation ..... :(

we had big plans for next day ... to make it early to Vatican, to avoid the crowd and the long lines. Turns out the lines are crazy, but it order to skip the line you can get a tour and they take you straight to the entrance of the church or the museum of Vatican. Well, we found out the tour was 40 euros, something we were not willing to pay! So, we got there around 8:30 am... the line was VERY long but it did not take us more than 30 minutes to get to the entrance of the Cathedral.

After that I had ice cream and we made our way to the Museum of Vatican; we discovered the Egyptian embassy to Vatican which was quite unusual we thought....

The line for the museum was not as long as the one to the church,but still long. We did not wait too long. My stomach was funny again that morning.... I am not a museum person, but I loved that one!!! It was impressive!!!!!!!! When we got to the Sistine Chapel, everyone was taking pictures, videos etc... and we have been told we are not allowed, so I asked one of the security guards if we are allowed to take pics; he said no.... and I said: "well, how come everybody is taking pictures??" So, completely exhausted he said nobody listens! Sad...

That is in a nutshell what we did in Italy.. among other things...

We flew to Milan from Rome, spent the night in the airport and flew to Cairo next morning...