Tale of Pick Pockets in Milano

My best friend had her wallet stolen in Milan. She called it the city of gangsters. This had come after her cousin had her bag stolen in Rome. After that she went back to Copenhagen instead of moving on to Spain, for a break from all the southern European heat. After her experience, I was so paranoid about travelling in Italy and I took her advice about wearing a "Chinese underwear of death". Basically it's a pair of undies worn over your normal ones which has a pouch at the front to store your most sacred documents. I also found a new use for those pouches in bras used for stuffing padding - great place to store extra cash.

I came to Italy prepared. But Heeyul did not, he already had his credit card "stolen", which should be a lesson to everyone to never leave your wallet unattended! By the time we arrived in Florence, his financial lifeline finally arrived so that he was no longer dependent on me. He was revelling in his financial freedom the last few days, but all that was about to become undone.

We had only just arrived in Milan and decided to take the metro to our hostel instead of walking the 2-3km because my ankle was about to give out. At the station I was struck by how fashionable people were, tall and slim, they looked like they were from the fashion industry. We got on the crowded metro, the last in and hence standing by the door. Before the doors closed, the woman who had gotten on after us jumped off and beckoned frustratingly to someone down the platform. It seemed she did not attract her target's attention before the doors closed. I thought it was pretty strange what she was doing, it didn't seem to make sense that she would get on the metro and tell her friend to also get on the metro - shouldn't they have both been on the metro? While I was still trying to figure out what had just transpired before my eyes, Heeyul next to me started madly patting his jacket and pants at places where there were pockets. He had been rather forgetful lately, misplacing things constantly, so it was with an unkind tone when I asked, "What did you lose this time." With equal nochalance, he retorted, "My wallet", as if taking his anger out at me. Hence, not only had he lost his credit card, he now also had his debit card officially stolen.

When we arrived in Barcelona, our tour guide told us pick pockets usually troll the ends of metros, near stairs because when people rush onto trains, they will crowd onto the train there. They pick your pocket and will be off the train as you speed away to your destination, blissfully unaware you've just been robbed. This was lesson learnt too late, but it was something we could personally relate to. Another interesting thing to note was the pick-pocket was not the gypsie looking character who had featured in every horror pick-pocket tale I had heard. She was very normally dressed, not straight off the runway, but not so tackily it would act as an instant reminder to mind your personal belongings.

Not much else to report in Milano. There is an elegant gothic Duomo and some pretty good shopping.

Venezia

Venice came with a lot of foreboding. I've been told so many times that it's a touristy place that doesn't live up to the hype: in summer it smells and in winter it floods. None of that was true for me: it was winter so naturally it didn't smell and lucky for us it didn't flood. I was really struck by the haunting beauty of the Grand Canal and the back alley canals. Getting lost in the labrinth of the Venetian streets wasstressful when we were looking for our hostel at 10:30pm (the locals are quite nice though), but during the daylight it can be pretty fun.

It was freezing with all that water

I like this dilapidated, ghostly town

One bad thing about Venice was the food. If there was a black hole of Italian food, it would be in Venice. Restaurants here are clearly targeted at tourists, serves bad tasting food which is overpriced. I also had this interesting conversation with a waiter:

Me: Do you have any fresh pastas?

Waiter: They are all fresh. They make it fresh at the factory, put it in a packet and I put it into the water.

Me: 囧

情深深雨蒙蒙 ~ Firenze

Well it was not 情深深 but twas definitely 雨蒙蒙 in Florence.

In Naples, Heeyul had me watch this Japanese movie called Between Calm and Passion. The plot: Boy meets Girl, and they fall in love *ahh* the bliss of first love. One night after some passionate love making, which may or may not have involved Boy drawing a portrait of Girl or Girl drawing a childish picture of a pot plant, they promise to meet again on her 30th birthday atop the Duomo in Florence, because according to Girl it is a sacred site for lovers. After an unfortunate incident, they break up. Years later, Boy works in Florence as an art restorer and Girl works in a jewelry store in Milan. Both are in new relationships but do not emotionally commit to their new partners because they cannot forget each other. Obviously, they also do not forget about that promise. So on her 30th birthday, Boy (now Man) waits all day for Girl (now Woman) at the top of the Duomo. Finally, she appears and they reconcile.

I'm not saying it was a terrific film. But for me, because of this film, Florence had a very romantic foundation built for it waay before it had begun.

We dropped by the small town of Pisa before going to Florence

This is a river in Pisa en route from the train station to the Tower, isn't it ROMANTIC?

My romantic expectations of Florence were fulfilled: it was the perfect little Renaissance town, aesthetically beautiful from the Duomo and its adjoining Bell tower and neighbouring Bapistry, to Ponte Vecchio which sells dazzling jewelry, Piazzale Michelangelo for its bronze replica of David and also for the perfect place to view the city against the golden setting sun, and the world renowned artworks housed inside the Uffizi and Acadamia Galleries... Against this background of elegant beauty, one can comprehend why the authors of Between Calm and Passion chose this city as the epicentre of their tale, and understand the cult created by this film with the hoards of Japanese and Korean lovers who converge on the Duomo everyday (the graffitied walls at the top of the Duomo can attest to this).

The exterior of the Duomo is lavishly decorated with statues and follows cream, green and pink colour scheme.

The bare interior of the Duomo contrasts starkly with the decadence of its exteror walls...until you walk to the end and gaze up at this magnificent dome.

*Dancing in the rain next to the Bell Tower*

Admiring an amazing door

The Baptistry refuses to be outshone by its neighbour (yes that is ITS dome, and yes that is gold)

Head up to Piazzale Michelangelo for a glorious sunset

If you have cash to burn, you can splurge here at Ponte Vecchio

But even more than pleasing my eyes, I like to please my taste buds. Tuscan cuisine, famed for its rustic but tasty dishes, certainly did not disappoint. It was in Florence at a small family-run ristorante where I had the most succulent steak in my life (now coming from Australia, that's a big award). I also had some a delicious rice tart thingy here~~~

Traditionally Florentine steak is very thick and very rare inside. It's coated with some herbs

Don't even consider having a Florentine steak in any way other than rare. Those scared of blood need not apply

Chianti wine is another speciality of the region. Heeyul said it was a well balanced wine. I'm not a big fan of wine, so I make do with with playing around with it (^o^)v

Palermo

Another long while has passed since this post and the last one. Truthfully, I realised I don't have any photos from Palermo (must have forgotten to take them from the Photographer (aka Heeyul/Oppa) before leaving), and I also do not have much memories or stories from Palermo. It was a relatively boring place, we did not research or plan very well. Hence I have procrastinated once again, as I do...

The day we left Palermo was the worst day for our travel troupe, perhaps this is another reason why I have such horrid memories of Naples. To start off we were caught on the bus without a bus ticket. Karma is such a bum, why is it the only time we try to ninga a bus ride there is a policeman checking tickets?? We had an interesting communication dynamic going with Gabby speaking Spanish and the policeman speaking Italian (One sentence I did understand was him saying, "You must speak Italian in Italy!"). In between the discord of speaking in two distinct language (although I hear they are somewhat similar, and as our experience attests, some minimal understanding can be reached), the three of us were fined for the price of one. In that regard, I suppose we were relatively lucky.

However, Heeyul spent the last of his cash on the fine. At the train station I asked him what he was going to do, reaching into his pocket to retrieve his wallet, he said, "I just go withdlaw prom my cledit card... Where's my cledit card?" Me: "*loud and exaggerated gasp* Oh my god! Gabby has it!!" And where was Gabby? On the train speeding towards Rome. 

Things also did not go well for Gabby. Her flight from Rome to Copenhagen was delayed, causing her to miss her flight to Aarhus. She had to shell out ~1000dkk for another ticket. That's more than the cost of a train ticket!

Palermo was off with a bad start.

I had heard many times Italians don't speak English. That doesn't really apply in most of the major cities tourists are likely to frequent, but Sicily was not a tourist hotspot with the human resources required to cater for us non-Italian speaking visitors. My little Italian pocket book was put to great use in Sicily, for even the little things like deciphering menus when the waiter's second language is Deutsch.

Other than that, not much to say about Palermo, it's a quaint little town. We could have taken a day trip but our trip was severely research-lacking. I wanted to go to Mt Etna, but ended up settling for the nearby town of Monreale which is situated on a hill overlooking Palermo. It also has a 'famous' and quite pretty church/cathedral. I don't understand why these insignificant towns have the most amazing churches!

Naples

Naples was a crazy, crazy, hectic, chaotic place, so different from the rest Italy. From the moment we stepped off the train, it was like this was a different country all together! It was dirty, stinky and loud. It seemed the cars drove louder and ejected stronger fumes. China Town [I was surprised there's a China Town (or more specifically 温州城) in little Naples] was perfumed by the paralysing stench of urine, and the ground was like an abandoned battlefield littered with discarded rubbish from businesses. And I know this comment will be controversial, but you could really tell the difference between the Napolese and Romans (and indeed any other Italian cities, particularly Milan) by their clothing: the former was clad in clothing of cheap and of questionable quality, and well...their fashion wasn't classy.

Besides being an afront to all of my senses, there also wasn't anything to interest me in Naples. There are quite a few ruin-sites nearby, but I had seen enough ruins in Athens and Rome to last me a lifetime (do I sound like an uncultured bimbo here?). The ruins of Pompei is literally the ruins of that whole city, covering a very large area and takes a few hours to see just the main sights. So really, unless you're an ancient history student, can you really handle 3+hrs of seeing parts of houses without being bored out of your mind?

Entertaining myself at Pompeii

OK so with all that is bad about Naples out of the way, we can talk about the good things. Just because what is good about Naples is so good that you might get too excited and overlook the bad. Admist the chaos and boredom, was pizza paradise. In Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert's Napolese friend told her to go eat the "best pizza in Naples" at Pizzeria da Michele. I had been reliving Gilbert's Italian experience (I also went to the gelato place she raved about in Rome) so we had our first lunch there. We were starving after our train ride but still had to wait 1hr to be seated. The queue system operates in the same way as yumcha restaurants, only in Italian. We had to ask a fellow queueing customer what ten was in Italian, and even then I would have missed out on lunch had Gaby not had a more keen ear. There is nothing to rave about the decor of the place, just that it was very unpretentious. There are only two options for toppings: with cheese and without cheese. I went for the one with double mozzarella (OK technically there are three topping options) because that's the one that Gilbert's friend told her to order. I liked it, but I have to say, the normal magheritta tasted the best as the cheese taste strikes a better balance with the tomato sauce: Oppa said (of mine) "All I can taste is cheese".

The couple and I waiting in line for THE BEST PIZZA IN THE WORLD

Juxtaposition of Julia wolfing down her pizza and the moody head waiter who never smiles

Starving...getting ready to tuck into THE BEST PIZZA IN THE WORLD

So what makes Napolise pizza the best in the world? I would say the base, which was chewy and fragrant. Taste-wise it was nothing spectacular, but it was simple. However strangely, the centre of the pizza was always soggy and the bottom of the base was a little bitter from bits of incinerated bread (this was the case no matter where we had it).

I nearly also forgot! We went for a drive along the Amalfi Coast whilst in Naples. It was my Uncle's recommendation. He particularly mentioned to make sure to sit on the right hand side of the bus (it's also better to sit in the front roll, if possible) to better appreciate "the infamous bus driver on the famous Amalfi Highway" and the impressive ocean scene. What is the infamous bus driver? From memory, my aunty described it as them driving recklessly fast on a windy road where right next to you is the steep cliff face with the ocean below and most-certain death. Half of it is true: yes at parts of the drive you just have to look to your right and you will see death staring right back at you, but no the drive isn't life-threatening, afterall the driver wants to live also. However it is loud, as the driver beeps his horn to signal drivers in the opposite direction whenever we reach a blind spot. There were many towns during the drive and some reminded me of Santorini, only more real and rustic. My advice for Amalfi happiness? Go on a sunny day, the view will be prettier, and do buy a day pass for the bus as those individual tickets really add up.

Vacanze Romane - reflections of the holiday

UGH >.< I'm actually back in Australia already. During the trip I was always too busy or not bothered to record my travellings, and to a large extent, I was just not inspired to write anything. Even now it's taking a lot of internal strength to think of something to write. But I like finality, and I want finish writing about my travellings, even if it won't be a rivetting read, I suppose it's mostly for me anyway, to read and relive my adventures.

So to pick up where I left off, I finish telling my story in Rome. 

My two favourite places were the Basilica of Our Lady in Trastevere and the Villa Borghese Gardens, both places I had never heard of prior to arriving in Rome. The church was just a really unassuming place in terms of exterior and neighbourhood, but inside was a really beautiful surprise. Maybe it was the unexpected factor that elevated the Basicilica. The heart shaped garden offered a beautiful panorama of the Eternal City, it's also good to just change environment for an afternoon, take a break from all the cultural site-seeing that is the rest of Rome.

The ceiling of the Basilica

Group photo at the Basilica (check out the wall in the background!!)

The view from Villa Borghese, very good place to go for a panorama of Rome. This was also the site of one of the scenes from the Eat Pray Love trailer.

A disappointment was gelatos. I don't understand what the big deal about them is. They're just like ice cream I get in a tub at the supermarket in semi-melted form. Yet Rome, being the crass touristy place that all popular tourist destinations are, there are at least two gelato stores on every road (that same obsession with gelato was not shared in any other Italian city), which makes Rome appear like the home of gelato. Another gay point was how most stores just carry uninspiring, typical flavours like chocolate and vanilla... So...why spend more money on something you can get at a fraction of the price in a supermarket? Having said all that, I ate way more than my fair share of gelatos in Rome, and can recommend two places: Giolitti and Gelateria del Teatro (the latter has some really funky flavours). I also went to the place Elizabeth Gilbert raves about in Eat Pray Love but was greatly disappointed by the ice cream and the available flavours.

Having a gelato by The Trevi Fountain (I hear this is what reliving the Roman Holiday experience)

Ohh~ one of the best moments of my ENTIRE journey occurred in Rome. It was actually after we left and came back from Sicily to stayed in Rome for one night. At the time Hyeri (a girl I had met on exchange) was also in Rome, and she came to visit us. Even though our plane arrived at 11:30pm and we got to the hostel way past midnight, she still came. I was euphoric when the clerk at the desk said one of our friends had enquired about us just half an hour before we arrived, then deeply touched when she came another half an hour later to check again (and simultaneously excited, I screamed when the clerk came knocking at our door). She told us she had been wandering around Termini Station waiting for us* until a drunken man started following her and asking her to come on an 'adventure' with him.

*The magnitude of her actions should be considered in the context that it was cold and once again this was past midnight in an area I would not consider safe for a young girl to be hanging out alone.

Hyeri baby!!