Milano & Verona in detail....

Thought I'd go into a little more detail of the trip so far...

Milan: So flights etc getting to Milan were all pretty good. Everything went smoothly and all in all, can't complain. We even arrived into Milan a whole hour earlier than scheduled. Once we got through customs and picked up our baggage, we got tickets for the shuttle to get us into town. Til then, everything was going rather smoothly....and then it kinda went to custard just a tad. There were a few options to get to the hotel; either get the local underground or taxi or walk. I didn't know how expensive the taxi would cost so thought it best to catch the 'train'. What I didn't realise was that there was a difference between the underground system and the main railway system. So I paid E219 for what was suppose to be 2 stops down the round in the underground. Just my luck that there was a city called Loreto as well as a Loreto square (which is where we were headed!!!!!). So after actually finding out what was going on and waiting in a huge line for a refund, we caught a taxi (which ended up being only E8) and got to the hotel. After the day's events, we fell asleep only the get up for dinner. Original plan was to go to a family restaurant owned by Gaetano's parents. Gaetano owns O'Sarracino back in Akl. Unfortunately, there were closed til the next day. So we ended up having dinner by the hotel, our worse meal to date....off seafood and soggy pizza.

The next day we were off to Verona. Everything seemed to be gooing to plan until we were about to baord the train and I reliased that I had lost 1 of the 4 tickets!!!! So it was a mad dash to get one more ticket and onto the train we got. 2 hours later and we arrived in Verona. I was still very jet lagged and ended up sleeping for the next 15hrs!

Verona: We were here for 2 nites. Once we sorted ourselves out and had breakky, we hit the streets to visit the sites in Verona. We caught the bus into town with the 'Verona card' (gives you complimentary access to most of the main sites and use of busses). First site we visited was the Arena. That was a pretty spectacular site!!!! One way to feel ridiculously small...Me explaining it just won't do it justice so you'll have to wait for photos. Following the Arena we headed to the Castelvecchio. Along the way we walked through some amazing side streets and passed some pasticcerias (pastry shops). I was totally loving the quaint European atmosphere. So this castle we next visited featured a lot of art work and sculptures based on Christianity history of a certain era (I'm useless at that sorta stuff so you won't get details from me). We even got to head up to the towers of the castle and walk along the perimeter giving you a great view of the city. The rest of the morning we navigated the various sites along the way, a market square, through some more side streets....next main attraction was Juliet's house. Here we took the mandatory tourist photo with the statue of Juliet....Within the house was various artists' interpretation of the different scenes. For lunch we were determined not to have lunch at the main square where prices were very obviously tourist prices. We wondered off the beaten track and stumbled across this family owned restaurant and had a rather good lunch. Favourites were dad's order of Bacala(salted cod) with polenta and my polenta with gorgonzola and sopressa (local cured meat, similar to salami). After lunch we headed to the Roman Theatre. Another amazing site....venturing through the ruins and the rooms with rows and rows of artifacts displayed. It was getting pretty late in the evening so we decided to head back to the hotel. We were all pretty knackered that we fell asleep and didn't even get up for dinner that nite!!!

Next stop: Venezia....