Italy Trip

Everything is so familiar. The air is still dirty, polluted, but I don't mind, cuz this is MALAYSIA!!!

You'll know what I mean when u visit Italy yourself.

I know this post is really late but who cares. Have to write it down somewhere in case I forget. p/s just by looking at the draft for this post has already reminded me of some nostalgic moment in Italy..

Visited Italy from 29/5/2010 to 16/6/2010.. Colorful fortnight.

As I mentioned earlier, Italian are heavy smokers, and their streets are narrow and dark and littered with cigarette butt. And the weather is kinda predictable, quite warm by day and very cold at night. The night we spent at Roma Termini was so cold I fell sick the next day.

Their water is very dirty, dirtier than our KL water, and their food is very predictable too - Pizza and Pasta... They seldom take pork, fish or other meat, and if they do, they wouldn't adorn their food like we Chinese do, we have onion beef, mushroom with bamboo, bla bla bla, bla bla bla.. and thus their food sucks, and expensive too. There is rice, guess what.. it's just rice with some sauce.. and you eat like tat. WTF!


Rice with corn sauce

So I went to Rome first, the capital of Italy. When I first set my sight upon the airport my excitement came crumbling down, cuz it was so old and dark and very 1940s'. Perhaps the government wants to preserve the artifacts~ Then we took the expensive train to their Roma Termini, and walked the very user-unfriendly walkway to Linea A. But their train is really fast, 3 minutes for every successive train. But once in the train, you'll see that the locals have no ethic at all, they are not like us, offering seats to elders..they are just so mean.



So cut long story short, visited the Collosseum, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, The Vatican, etc in Rome.




Trevi Fountain


Breakfast: Capuccino and bread


There is no place to sit in breakfast bar, so we had to stand

Then went to Milan, we spent the night at the train station, which was a fantastic experience, sleeping like a beggar. But it got so cold that night I fell sick the next morning. The journey from Rome to Milan took 8 hours, and 43 Euros...and I went to SAN SIRO STADIO WUAHAHAHA!


San Siro Stadio


The Duomo in Milan

Then proceed to Venice where I went watching the Gondolas without got onto it, it cost 80 Euros per person. o.O



Apart from the watery places Venice is so lame. By the way it would be the first victim of global warming should the sea level continue to rise.


The Ghetto in Venice

After Venice, went to Florence. Florence is really pretty and awesome. Lived in a hostel and it was really good; walking distance to all the major tourist spots; Palazzo Vecchio, Uffizi Gallery, etc..


La Pietà by Michelangelo

Uffizi Gallery is especially impressive because it is the largest of its kind in Italy, there are so many drawings I lost count of them. Leonardo Da Vinci spent some time residing in Florence in case you don't know, so I was walking on the same path he took few hundred years back =P



Next stop was Pisa, and you know what, apart from the leaning tower, Pisa has nothing to offer(even the hotel girl told me that).



So sad the entrance fee for the tower cost me 15 Euros, and I overheard one of the tour guide said to his followers: This is the single most expensive monument to visit in the world~~ so be it, I just wanna get in and see why Galileo Galilei once did his gravitational experiment here. =P


Emulating Galileo


Came across the University of Pisa. It's so small!~! Like an office building with different faculties scattered all across Pisa...

Finally went back to Rome, and visited the Vatican Museum. It is an incredible place to visit really, and the number of artifacts stored in the museum is mind-boggling. Went into Sistine Chapel and saw one of the most famous drawing in the world; The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo... and also the statue of David and his tiny d**k, also by Michelangelo.


During the final few days I couldn't take their food anymore. I sought out local Chinese restaurants and was surprised to find their price kinda cheap~ so ended up dining in Chinese restaurants... googling for chinese restaurants before heading to next destination.

Overall it was a good experience. Not many people went to Italy really.. and am proud that I spent some nights on the train and at the train station, and experienced first hand the cruelty of reality. The reality is, if you have no money then you're worthless.


Heading back to Malaysia. At Fiumicino Airport


Malcolm