MILAN, ITALY
18th May 2002 to 20th June 2002
Pizza, pasta and wine...and the ghost of Caesar..
Bon Giorno from Italia or if it's night time... Bona serra:)
well we've been in Italy now for about 6 days and let me tell you...its belissimmo!!! (wonderful)..
It wasn't all peachy getting here however, we almost didn't make it.... aha! I have your attention now don't I?.. well.... it goes something like this:
We left Zurich early morning on Saturday 18 May to catch the train to Milan. Being seasoned travelers we arrived nice and early, sat around like morons for 45 minutes to confirm that the platforms were not changed on us once again, and finally got onto the train. We tied our luggage to the luggage racks and sat down at our great window seats to enjoy the ride.
We soon started talking to a young fellow next to us, who just happened to be
an Ozzie from Sydney. His name was Richard, and it turns out that he had been
living in Switzerland now for a few years, was working there and had a Swiss
Girlfriend, actually the girlfriend was from Lichtenstein...now if you are
that uneducated NOT to know where Lichtenstein is... SIS ON YOU!!!!.....:)
Lichtenstein is this tiny country between Switzerland and Austria and has a population of 31 000 people. Lichtenstein has the world's lowest tax rate and is a haven for tax evasion..:) Other than that great fact, it's other main claim to fame is the tourists going to the post office and paying 2 Euro so that they can get a stamp in their passports.. hehehe
aahhh... but I digress.... Richard had jumped on the train that morning and
was going to a tiny village of Santa Rossa to walk and try out his new
walking shoes (about a 7 hr train ride)... yeaaaaaaaaa just a bit weird.. I
thought so too. A little delving into his life led to the fact that he
actually needed his weekends to get away from his girlfriend... turns out
she's a bit neurotic and demanding:) as he seemed to do this walking thing
often, he kinda reminded us of Forest Gump.. "Go Forest!"...:)hehehehe
Anyway, he was rather entertaining to talk to as he has done a lot of traveling himself; working in places like Russia, Croatia, London, the States etc etc...well as we were sitting there comfortably chatting the minutes away.. (Richard had taken off his shoes) he asked us if this carriage was going to Milan or just stopping at Ciasso (Swiss / Italy border). Rob and I looked a bit puzzled at him and told him that we were under the impression that this train was going to Milan. Heaven forbid that it should be so easy...!
The conductor came by and confirmed that we had to move further up the train as this carriage was not going all the way....well.. wooooo hoooooo.. go figure.. just because a train is going somewhere doesn't mean that your particular carriage is going to the same place! duh...
So up we got( Richard put on his shoes) and we started making our way through 10 carriages towards the top. Now if you have never navigated a full train with luggage before, let me tell you.. it is not easy nor is it any fun. Not only are people really rude and hardly move out your way, in fact, I often think they stick their feet out on purpose and stand in the passage way just to make things difficult.
Finally made it to the right carriage and found three seats that were not occupied and sat down for part two of our journey. Time flew and before we knew it we arrived in Milan. Richard produced his business card (it turns out that he was the Assistant Director to IT and Finance of CSFB Credit Suisse Bank)...Well... you never know who you'll meet on the train now do you? Which shows that you should never judge a book by it's cover... but he was still a bit straaaaaaange:) He then zoomed off to catch his connecting train to his destination and we made our way to the station.
We hadn't pre-booked a hotel and were accosted at the train station by a few touts. One got a hold of Rob and told him about this great place he had close to the station.... a 3 star hotel for the price of a 2 star etc etc etc. Well Rob told him that he had to consult his wife first (of course). I didn't want to stay that far away from the main square and told Rob that I'd rather catch the tram to the city centre. We skulked around the tout ('cause Rob was too scared to face him,,:) and made our way to the underground. Our destination was the Piazza del Duomo where we were to find a tourist office and hopefully some accommodation.
The Piazza was stunning. It consisted of this huge gothic marble church (Duomo) with a huge plaza surrounding it. The piazza was filled with thousands of people milling around, artists showing off their paintings, buskers doing their thing and around the edge of the piazza were lots of cafes and restaurants that were filled with people watching people (of course). More Piazza del Duomo More Duomo church
Feeling a bit daunted and tired, we made our way to the tourist office and
started inquiring about hotel prices. They couldn't offer us anything under
120 Euro per night. As I went back to tell Rob the news, (I am the official
room inquirer as nobody can understand Rob's Ozzie accent), he told me that
he had been eves dropping at this pretty young thing's telephone
conversation and that she had found a room for 65 Euro per night. We made a
call, grabbed a room and started making our way towards our hotel... which
turned out to be close to the train station. Exactly where we didn't want to
be.
Oh well....beggars can't be choosers...at least we wouldn't have far to walk to when we left for Venice:)
Having had nothing to eat all day, and being in the land of pasta, we made our way back to the Piazza to find Rob some carbonara. We walked up and down trying to see prices and getting more grumpy with each step. We finally sat down at this outdoor restaurant and waited for a menu. Much to our chagrin, all it had was panini, tramezini and gelati (sandwiches and ice-cream). I got up to leave and Rob got accosted (once again) by a smooth talking Italian, who told him that they most definitely had carbonara....so we sat back down again.
He came back and waffled off the various pastas he had, (I was feeling
agitated as I wanted to see a menu again) but we ordered a carbonara and a
quatro fromage (4 cheese) pasta. Personally I just wanted to leave, but he
smooth talked Rob by telling him that I was beautiful, that Rob was a lucky
man and that he would like to be introduced to my younger sister if I had
one...(Now which man wouldn't fall for that hey?) yea right!! looking for a
tip he was:)
Anyway, the food was crap and the price even crappier!! (€40 Euro or A$68 for tasteless spaghetti), so we made our way back to our hotel and watched MTV in Italian until we fell asleep.
We got up the next day, and after consulting our trusty Lonely Planet guide, came to the conclusion that Milan really had nothing special to see and one should only visit it on shopping trips. (Milan is really just an industrial city).
We got ready, I wore a boob tube hoping to get some sun, and made our way through a very uninteresting city, to the Castello Sforzesco. Rob could have sworn that the Italian men were looking at my chest, but I told him that it was his imagination as I was a lot more covered up than usual, I wasn't showing any cleavage.. promise:)
We walked around the castle fortress for a while, bought a bum bag, and then made our way to the train station to book tickets to Venice - we had decided to cut our Milan trip short by 2 days and rather spend them in Venice or keep them up our sleeve for somewhere else.
Getting to the train station proved to be a little bit harder than we anticipated. Rob, the navigator, got us lost..:) and this kind Japanese lady helped us find our way again. She took us down these quaint little side streets, which happened to be the student and artists corner, It was filled with quirky cafes and various stalls selling antiquey things and artists selling off their wares.
She went on her way ( after having restored our faith in mankind by not asking us for money like everybody else who does you a favour here) and we ambled around for an hour or so and then made our way to the train station. Upon arriving, we found out that the trains were on strike that day in Italy (of course they were). Also being a Sunday did not make things easier, there was one ticket window open and trying to find out information was proving to be tedious and tiresome as the queues were going round corners. Perchance we saw an automatic ticket machine, and whilst Rob waited in line I went to investigate. It turned out that not only could we book our tickets, but we could also choose the seats we wanted. Soooo instead of waiting for hours like all those losers, we were up and away in 5 minutes..huh!
Seriously though, Italy has great ticket machines for trains and they are sooo much better than talking to a person. You can choose your seat, the time that suits you, destinations etc etc, You can even check to see if there is a seat available next to a person who has already booked a ticket. Try do this at the counter... yea right.
We timed our way back to our hotel (to see how long we needed to walk the next day) and decided to head back to the piazza for something to eat. We found a fast food place called Ciao that does excellent pizza by the slice. In fact, for sliced pizza it was very tasty indeed and offered great value for money. Rob scoffed down 2 HUGE pieces and then made our way down the piazza to people watch.
Piazza Del Doumo, Milan
We watched this Black dude doing a fantastic magic show, he must have had hundreds of people around him and when it came time for them to give him money, he went around and stood next to them until they reached into their pockets and gave him something:) In the end, he counted it all, counted the number of people around... and shook his head forlornly... too little he was saying... if you want more you have to pay....nobody took him seriously, thinking that he was going to do some more tricks, well no... he shook his head, packed his bags, and went to get a drink.... The crowd just stood there flabbergasted..:) they couldn't believe that he had just done that.
Busker in Piazza Del Doumo
Rob and I then walked to the Duomo steps and joined the throngs of people who were sitting there. We must have watched people for a few hours and then got up and started making our way home. We passed through the Vittorio Emanuele II de Milanes Arch which led to the arcades' entrance. This arcade was beautiful. It had marble floors and frescoes around the domed ceiling.
As we were walking around looking at the gorgeous clothes in the shops we noticed a crowd of people doing something. Being the curious souls that we are, we went to investigate. There was this beautiful mosaic of a bull on the floor and right were his testicles were supposed to be was this hole. People were going up to it, putting their right heel into the hole and spinning around one or two times. We sat and watched for a while and came to the conclusion that it must be a good luck thing. There were several little old ladies next to us who were giggling and pointing and I asked them what it was all about. They told me in Italian that this was for good fortune and that we should do it too....(I don't speak Italian, but understood) they pushed Rob and myself to the bull and we took our turn in crushing his testicles:)
Stepping on Bull testicles at Vittorio Emanuele
You feel like a dork doing it, but hey.. who are we to tempt fate... thinking about it, it's probably just a joke that somebody thought up to trick their friends with and over the years it's become a bit of an urban legend:)
After spinning on our heels for luck (a bit like Dorothy in the wizard of Oz), we made our way to a gelateria, got some yummy gelati and stuffed our faces all the way home:)
Being early still, Rob decided to teach me a game called Yatzi. For those of you who don't know the game, it consists of throwing 5 dice and allocating the result to various patterns. Please let me enforce the fact that...IT IS NOT A GAME OF SKILL, it is purely a game of chance. Guess what? Rob proceeded to beat me game after game... I mean really now! What does a girl have to do to win with this guy???!!!
With his lucky rolling streak we should have been playing craps at the casino!
Next morning came, and we started getting ready to catch our train to Venice. Before I tell you about our journey I have to tell you about my toe. ..A few days earlier, whilst playing chess with Rob, I banged my toe against the wall. My nail proceeded to break and it was very sore.. (this is where you guys must give me sympathy)
On the morning that we were going to leave Milan, I was having a shower and a really cool song was playing on MTV. I decided that the smart thing to do was jump up and down to the music. Guess what?...I slipped in the shower...which goes to prove that jumping in the shower is really a bad bad idea. After getting out of the shower, I slipped yet again on a wet patch on the tiled floor, fell on my bottom and broke my toe nail even further as well as jarring my brain into the most painstakingly sore headache. Rob sat on the bed and put on his shoes....whilst casually asking if I was ok....yip.. I was fine.
We finally managed to get out of our room and started heading towards the railway station. On the way we came across the building that had a plane crash into it a few weeks ago. (don't know if you guys got the news in Oz? Some guy committed suicide and decided that this would be the best way to do it...golly... everyone thought that it was a terrorist attack in the beginning)
Our train arrived, we found the right carriage, but there were people sitting in our seats. After a lot of waving of tickets in faces, they got up and went on their merry way and Rob and I sat at our cosy window seats (thanks to the tickets machine). Soon our carriage filled up and to our pleasant surprise.. everyone spoke English. wwwwwoooooo hooooooooo, some conversation...finally!!!
Our traveling companions consisted of a lovely lady in her 50s, who was meeting up with a group of lecturers who were doing a study on Italian economics, and a newly married American couple in their early 20's, who were just taking some time out from studying. The lady got off half way to Venice and we were joined by more American youngsters who were on a holiday for 10 days. It turns out, that it is cheaper to fly to Europe from the west side of the US (US$400) rather than fly to New York (US$800)...mmmmmm
We exchanged travel stories and the 4 hours train journey whittled away into nothing. Before we knew it we where crossing the Mestre/Venice Bridge and would soon be arriving in Venice.