Trip to Italy June 20th -29th 2022

We waited for more than two years before we could embark on a trip that we had planned in 2020 to celebrate Marina's completion of secondary school plus catching up with relatives.  The pandemic Covid 19 had caused such an upheaval and disruption throughout the world, particularly in the tourism industry.

My cousin Nora who is living in Jesolo, Italy, had invited us (about an hour from Venice). The photos from the link below provides an overview of the first four happy and memorable days we spent with Nora.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqDA8J0NxSs

During our stay at her home, we took a day trip to Milan during our stay in Jesolo. We left early from Jesolo and took a bus to the Venice train station, our first train ride in Italy. It took 2 hours and 25 minutes to get there. We went straight to our booked Milan Cathedral (Duomo di Milano) tour, and we were both completely blown away by the Gothic architecture.

 Two Gothic architecture from the photos, this one is Vault which is a self-supporting arched form

This is Perpendicular- vertical lines in stone window tracery, enlargement of windows to great proportion

 

We then climbed to the roof top to get a panoramic view and were taken aback by the marble rooftop, pinnacles, and spires.

The weather was hot, after we took the above photo, we ended up having ice cream affogato and berry tart for lunch at an air conditioned cafe. Once we finished our ice cream, we rushed out of the cafe because we had another tour scheduled to see Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper. Marina didn't realise she'd left her phone behind, but thankfully, the staff noticed and chased us down to retrieve it; imagine the stress of the entire trip if it hadn't been found. 

The security to get to get into the venue to see the Last Supper was more or less liked the airport security. We were in only there for 15 minutes. 

The Crucifixion, painted by Giovanni Donato da Montorfano in the 1490s. 

It's believed that Leonardo painted the figures of the Duke of Milan and his consort. 

Putting the two photos together was to demonstrate how they could be different from two different cameras.

The paintings were kept in Santa Maria delle Grazie.

We then walked to the mediaeval Sforza Castle, which had resemblances to the castle we visited in Osaka, Japan.  

I didn't like walking in the heat, but I had no choice because the tour guide was so enthusiastic and you simply felt bad to leave the group.

But if not following him, we could have missed the Brera district, which is known for its high-quality leather shops.

Statues were everywhere but this was precious, especially we had just seen Di Vinci's  famous painting.

 

Finally, being taken by the guide to walk through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele was a real surprise to see so many luxury retailers and restaurants all in one place. In memory, a backdrop for many movies.

We took the subway to Metrale train station to return to Venice. We quickly bought some food (arancini, focaccia, and a doughnut) and drinks and had our dinner on the train, which was delicious. We got to Venice at around 9 and took two buses back to Jesolo. It was a long day but very enjoyable.

We said our goodbyes to Nora and set off for Florence on June 24th. 

Marina purchased a SIM card from the train station, however we could not get the phone number so we could only use whatsapp to dial out and to receive phone call. The only time we had Macdonald was at here because they had seats and tables.

The train ride took slightly more than two hours from Venice to Florence. When we got to Florence, we walked under the intense sun with 4 pieces of luggage. When we got close to the airbnb, we had difficulty locating the exact location until someone led us to an apartment, where we discovered that each floor operated as an individual airbnb. The caretaker was extremely nice, and the room was clean and all facilities (fridge, coffee machine, shower) worked properly, so we were happy to select this place. We were exhausted, after shower. we washed all of the clothes and found a hidden spot to dry them in the full sun, from this photo you should know which floor we stayed. 

A photo taken from the roof top of Alla Dimora Altea where we could see all the trains coming and going.

By six o'clock in the evening, we decided to take a stroll through the city to find the famous Florence Duomo, which was a symbol of Florence and inspired countless artists from the Renaissance Era to the present day. We spent at least an hour walking around the Duomo, and by the time we finished, it was nearly 9 p.m. Most places in Europe get dark at around at 10pm in summer.

The Italians were very proud of their own cuisine but I had a craving for chinese food so we walked around and finally found one. 

On June 25th, we joined a one-day Tuscany tour to explore all of the romantic scenes seen in movies.

First, the coach took us from Florence to Siena, where we walked through the well-preserved mediaeval city centre, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The streets were extremely narrow.

Next, we went to the Duomo di Siena (the Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary), where we were completely blown away by the inlaid floor made of coloured marble mosaics. 

Almost every square inch is adorned with marble, mosaics, sculptures, and frescos. We were extremely fortunate to witness these magnificent works of art.

Our next stop was at a winery where we had wine tasting and lunch. 

 Marina never missed an opportunity to make friends with horses. We stayed under the shade to wait for the coach to arrive.

After lunch, we went to San Gimignano, a hill town, where the scenery was visually striking.

San Gimignano is also famous for its tower houses. 

It was also a very touristy town with shops selling all kinds of Italian specialties.  

The country scenery was just so amazingly beautiful while driving along to the famous Pisa Tower.

 

I had Marina take a photo of me and posted it like most tourists did, whereas Marina preferred to post normally, which could provide a better view of the towner's slant position.

A fun fact about this trip was that the coach was a double decker with two guides, one of whom spoke Italian and the other English. Before we got off the coach for Pisa, the guides warned us about pick pockets  so I decided to leave everything in the coach.  The weather was so hot and we were so thirty and by then we said we should have taken the water. Finally I borrowed  some money from an American family from our tour group to get a cool drink. 

It took the coach close to two hours to send us back to where we started from in the morning. We dived back to the airbnb. I was so tired and could not be bothered to do anymore walking, luckily Marina was happy to go out and she found a market and bought some food back for dinner. She wanted to bring me back to the market the next day but we simply ran out of time.

That night. we went online to purchase the train ticket to Rome as by then we knew how much time to take us to get to the train station (Firenze Santa Maria Novella) from where we stayed.

We checked out the next morning, leaving our luggage at the airbnb, and went to the Uffizi Galleries, the only place in Italy that we did not pre-book. We didn't have to wait long to get tickets to see the outstanding collection of ancient sculptures and paintings displayed on two floors of a large building. We started out taking photos, but after a while realised there were far too many sculptures and paintings, we gave up. 

We stayed for about two hours before realising we needed to get to the next tour, which was to climb the Duomo that we was only able to see the outside the night before. 

When we got there we could not find the group we booked into.  Fortunately, the WhatsApp phone was answered, we felt like we were in the Amazing Race, Marina was holding the phone and talking to the office, and I simply ran behind her, puffing and huffing, worried that we would miss the tour, we finally found them and of course we were the last two. 

After climbing 463 flights of very narrow stairs in extreme heat, I was completely exhausted halfway through and on the verge of quitting, but I decided not to disappoint Marina and gathered my energy and struggled on. We eventually made it to the top of Brunelleschi's Dome of Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral, and once there, I understood what we meant by "breath-taking view."

Look at the half death Rosita 

When we returned to the ground, we sat at a cafe directly opposite the Duomo and ordered two juices for $7 euro each, which was much more expensive than most of the other drinks we had.

In Italy, no restaurant served water; instead, customers had to purchase either sparkling or non-sparkling water. Also, because we didn't see many public restrooms, most restaurants will let you use their restrooms as long as you buy something from them.

We returned to our airbnb to retrieve our luggage before taking the tram back to the Florence train station and boarding the train to Rome. The train ride was one and a half hours long, but because the train was so small, sitting was exhausting because you didn't know where to put your legs. Because we only booked the day before, our seats were diagonally opposite each other. We booked the ticket to get off at a station before Rome Termini, thinking it would be closer to the hotel Nora had reserved for us (Best Western Spring Hotel), but when I saw only a few people getting ready to get off at that train station we had booked, I panicked and asked the guy sitting next to me, and he was so nice and told us to get off at Termini instead; he also told us to take the subway to get to the hotel. It was close to 6:30 pm when we got out of the train station so I decided to take a taxi to the hotel. The hotel was modern and included full breakfast in the morning. We showered, then Marina used Google Maps to find a nearby restaurant where we had the best beef truffle tortellini and veggi pizza. The restaurant was run by a very nice old couple; it was ten o'clock and they were still serving customers tirelessly. The meal only costed us $23.5 Euro with also a bottle of coke zero.

In the morning, after a delicious breakfast, we walked to St Peter's Square, the public heart of Vatican City, which features the famous obelisk in the centre. The large open space was designed so that as many people as possible can see the Pope when he gives his blessing. We saw a long line forming to enter St. Peter's Basilica, so we gave up because we had booked a tour of the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. We took some photos and I sent a couple of postcards from the Vatican Post Office, which was operated from a mobile truck. Apparently this post office is famous for sending more letters per year per inhabitant (825 in 2019), of which 99.9 percent were sent by tourists like myself.

So far, the weather in Italy had been very hot and humid, but when I checked today's temperature at noon, it appeared that we had brought the heat from Perth with us. We returned to the hotel and spent some time cooling off in the air-conditioned lobby. 

We joined a tour to visit the Vatican museum as it has the most extensive collection of ancient Roman sculptures, many of which were allegedly stolen from other locations. We didn't take many photos because there were so many tourists around, and Marina and I decided we could walk back after the tour was over.

We were completely blown away by these magnificent paintings when we walked to The Gallery of Maps; the rooftop paintings were magnificent and the wall had a total of 40 frescoes of maps detailing the Italian regions.

Next we visited  the Raphael rooms and we were immersed by the beautifully colored frescos which depicted  a variety of religious and mythological stories. 

After viewing the Renaissance art with biblical scenes, the museum 

also included paintings by Franco Gentilini, where one could immediately realized the contrast in details and the messages behind the paintings.

Finally we visited the famous Sistine Chapel, as photography was not allowed, before entering the museum, we gathered outside to learn more about the history and background. 

After this,  we were so tired and we decided not going back to take photos. At this stage, all we wanted was to get ourselves some cool drinks. Marina got a watermelon slushy which according to her was the best and I had a Aperol spritz. We shared a plate of lasagne as afternoon tea. 

We were both impressed by the cafe's layout; each type of food was served in a separate section, and almost every item looked mouth watering. We really wanted to come back again.

We walked back to the hotel, took a shower, and then took the train to the meeting point for our next day's tour. Then we discovered another restaurant that had received favourable reviews from others but not from us. They both looked nice but the bacon tomato rigatoni did not have much flavour and the cod fish did not taste nice at all.

Our tour guide was an experienced middle-aged lady, but she was very long-winded, and to make matters worse, she had the most monotonous tone one could imagine, so no matter how she tried to catch our attention. We had to listen to her for over five hours because the distance between Rome and Pompeii (returned) is about 500 kilometres.

With the long journey, we stopped for drinks and souvenirs at Cassino for a break.

When we met the local guide at Pompeii, it was like a breath of fresh air; Jackie was so lively and enthusiastic that it was so much fun wandering the streets and listening to her description of all the marvellously preserved ancient villas, public baths, theatres, and brothels, transporting our imagination from the past to the present. I'm glad we got to see another World Heritage site on this trip. The weather was extremely hot, and we simply walked under the sun.

Marina couldn't wear her sunglasses because they interfered with focusing the camera, and she couldn't wear a hat because it was far too hot, which caused sweat to pour down onto her eyes, which again made it difficult for her to take photos. I tried to provide some shade for her with my umbrella at times. 

Almost everyone bought a freshly squeezed lemonade before we returned to the coach. Each cup costs 7 euros. Because this was only a take-away cup, the smoothie we had later in the afternoon was thought to be a better value.

Then we went to Positano, which was about an hour away but the road was very winding and narrow, and before we got to Positano, we had to switch to a smaller vehicle to get down to this seaside village. When we arrived, we both decided to head towards the sea. It was a shame that we didn't bring our bathing suits; the humid weather made us sweat profusely, so we decided to take our shoes off at the very least and dip our feet into the Mediterranean Sea for the first time for both of us. We quickly ran back to the shore because the sand was very coarse and hot. The entire coastline was picture-perfect, with brightly coloured houses built on mountains that cascaded into the sea.

We went into the bathroom and washed our faces to get rid of the stickiness. Again, all we wanted was drinks, so we ordered two smoothies at the cost of 10 Euro each from a cafe overlooking the beautiful

 Mediterranean Sea. 

We spent about an hour in Positano before walking back to the designated spot for the coach to pick us up. We stopped for a couple of arancini on the way, but there were some ingredients in them that did not agree with Marina so she had itchy mouth and throat. We hopped back into the small van, then the big coach, and returned to Rome. We continued to enjoy the beautiful coastline.

We stopped at the same shop in Cassino, and Marina had gotten her finger caught between a seat beat, so we asked for some ice to help her relieve the pain. During the trip, it became clear that there are more fruity drinks in Italy than in Australia, so we sampled a variety of different flavoured drinks.

Our coach driver was extremely cautious with his speed because we kept seeing large trucks overtaking us, and as a result, we arrived in Rome one hour later than expected. We found a restaurant for dinner as soon as we returned to Rome; aside from breakfast, we had only drinks all day until now.

By the time we got back to the hotel, it was nearly 11 p.m. At the very least, our next day tour started at 10:30 p.m., allowing us to sleep in. In fact, I was coughing quite a bit when I left Florence, but Marina was well prepared with a pair of excellent earplugs that were supposed to help her not be disturbed by my snoring but now with coughing as well.

We left our luggage at the hotel after finishing our delicious breakfast and took the subway to the Colosseum station to join the tour. Our tour guide led us to the underground area, where a special tour guide went over all of the history with us.

 

We all enjoyed the cool temperature underground while learning about the history of the Colosseum, but when we returned to the ground level, it was extremely hot, and the reflection made it feel even hotter. It used to be a venue for public speeches, processions, and elections. 

The Colosseum has appeared in a number of films, and it appears to be any photographer's dream, including Marina.

We then walked to the Franese Gardens, which were located on the top of the Palatine Hill, 55 metres above sea level, and this explained why the Roman emperors chose this location for their imperial palace. We finally got some shade because there were still a lot of trees around.  The garden also gave us a panoramic view of the Forum. 

Once we left here, then we walked through to view the remains of the majestic homes built by emperors.  Exposed under the intense sun and heat again.

The Forum reminded us of Pompeii, with many ancient ruins, and we were back in the intense heat, sweat pouring from every inch of our bodies, and I wanted to give up walking, but when you got halfway, going forwards or back involved the same distance. This is also, at times, a true reflection of our everyday lives.

We seemed to rush all the times and this time we rushed back to the hotel, changed into dry clothes, and hopped onto the taxi that we had reserved in advance to take us to the airport. When we arrived, I took out my credit card to pay the driver, but she said she only accepted cash. I had spent my last Euro, so the only option was to go into the airport and exchange my pounds for Euro at a very poor exchange rate, and we later discovered that taxis in Italy in general only accept cash.

We decided to get dinner after checking in because we flew to England on a low-cost airline. As we walked around, I began to crave Asian food once more. When I got closer, I saw some signs indicating a ramen shop, but it had already closed. Marina and I decided to get our own food; when we sat down,  she said she wasn't feeling well; I suspected heat stroke and dehydration, so I advised her to drink more water and gave her some chocolate. She was able to sleep briefly before boarding because the plane was delayed for more than an hour, and she was fine during the flight.

Italy the first European city we visited, it is a country with lots of history and full of beautiful architecture esp. all the Duomo. Italian are very nice so as their food. We left our heart there and would love to return. Also sincere thanks to Nora's hospitability to invite us to such a beautiful country.