Summer Holiday in Italy #1

LONG LONG OVERDUE POST from over one year ago (September 2011). So I'm posting this by memory... some maybe inaccurate!

As promised, I'll write about my Italy trip. Before I elaborate on the entire 2 weeks, I'd like to sum the whole trip in 3 words.

HOT, TIRING, FUN

Being in Italy was like returning to Malaysia, the weather was above 30°C but instead of the usual humid air, it was really dry there. One thing I found out there was that food and drinks are really expensive, much more than Glasgow. Simple food like pizzas and pastas costs up to 15 euros per person. Mom and dad, please forgive me for spending too much, I've tried my best by eating plain buns for at least 4 lunches.

Ryanair was quite good actually!

Okay! We started our journey in the morning as we took a train to Glasgow Prestwick Airport from Glasgow Central Station. Our flight didn't take us straight to Milan but instead we had a transit at London for several hours. We reached Milan at night and we spent our first night in Milano Centrale Train Station a.k.a the worst place to sleep ever, so that we could catch our train to Venice at 6.35am.

Many of us played Monopoly Deal and Cho Dai Di without sleeping the whole night although we were all exhausted.

In a blink of an eye, we were at Venice. Venice is no doubt a beautiful city with rich history but it has way too many tourist making it really congested with its little walk ways and everything is more expensive. Hoorah TOURIST TRAP! Besides, the streets are very very narrow with uncoordinated direction signage (reminds me of where I'm from) and we actually got lost several times looking for those famous landmarks like Rialto Bridge and Piazza San Marco.

Rialto Bridge

Piazza San Marco

You may already know that Italy is home too lots of our staple delicacies such as pizza, pasta and tiramisu. In recent years, there have been numerous shops starting up in KL selling Italian ice-cream aka Gelato. Since we were already in the home of Gelato... you get the idea.

First of many many Gelatos throughout the trip

We were there for 2 days and we stayed at a Chinese hostel at Mestre who cooks lovely Chinese food for breakfast and dinner. We also had the luxury to visit other Venetian islands like Murano, Burano and Lido.

Murano 玻璃岛 famous for glass making

Burano famous for all the bright coloured residential buildings

Lido famous for hosting the annual Venice Film Festival

 After spending 2 full days in Venice, we returned to Milan for a day. Of all the Italian cities, this was one of the bigger and higher profile ones because of their abundance of designer shops. Besides visiting Piazza del Duomo, where all 3 prominent landmarks of the city are situated, we also visited the Quadrilatero della moda (Quadrilateral of Fashion), the high class shopping area housing most of the world's largest fashion houses.

Duomo Milano

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in the evening

Parco Sempione overlooking Pota Sempione (the arch of peace)

One of the many high end boutiques along Via Montenapoleone

Then we travelled to La Spezia via Italian Eurostar. To be continued...

lalanandaFRY
6/10/2012