Italy

   Well Italy….what can i say?With France,it shares the honour of being one of the most romantic places in the world.Its one of those places where you should be with your girlfriend or your spouse to really enjoy the place,similar to France.That’s where i’m headed with my friends.”What…friends?I thought he said its a place to be enjoyed with your loved ones?” You may ask..well,Paris is also a similar place that we(Amod,Chippa & Me)had quite a lot of fun there,but this time,due to personal reasons Amod had to travel back to India so Ranga & Anil joined us.The start to the trip itself was quite amazing..We got a brand new Merc S Class as a taxi.This is has been one unfulfilled dream of mine,although i’ve travelled in quite a few mercs the S Class is quite special.Back in India,its only used by the truly elite,and i’m in one…erm i don’t have pics to prove it but chippa,anil and ranga can vouch for it.It was a truly amazing ride to the airport. Right… back to Italy,the initial draft of the plan was something like this,Fly to Venice,overnight stay there.Saturday,we take the first ferry across to Venizia(The water-laden island)spend the entire day there,Sunday we take the train to Modena(You know where i’m getting to..yeah to see the tifosi)onto Pisa then to Rome by Sunday night.We spend the entire day in Rome until we catch our flight back home. I always had a slight doubt as to whether we are gonna stick to the plan as it is or end up doing things haphazardly and you know what the plan worked though not entirely.
We reached Venice at around 10 in the night,we had to catch a taxi to our stay,Camping Fusina.Chippa had already vaguely let us know that this is a camping place but i didn’t know it literally meant it.The place was filled with campers with tents,caravans and others who didn’t have one(like us)were allowed to stay in a place similar to this.Once we entered we heard a party going on,hey what’s a party without us..we joined in and thus started our booze night.The beer served out was Nastro Azzuro and boy was it good,it went to our heads in the first pint itself.The only setback to us that night was dinner was not available,we were sooo looking forward to italian pizzas mayb the next day.We had to whet our appetite with doughnuts.That night we had an awesom’o party with ranga and anil completely out.
The next day,we woke up pretty early(8 is way early by our standards)had a great breakfast and headed off to Venizia.The boat journey was pretty boring as there was nothing enjoyable. We reached Venizia in 20 mins time and the first thing we observed was the city like India has not been looked after.After France we were not expecting Italy to be any different as our friends had given up a heads’ up.But as we had heard the city was interwined with a series of tunnels and there was no way a car could travel.There are water taxis,water buses available to travel around the city though i’d suggest walking.We covered most of the city by walk and at some point we wind up in the same place more than once.The main attractions or rather attraction in Venice is the piazza(Italian for square)at the city centre,Piazza San Marco.Its a beautiful place with a basilica(Church)at one end and a tall structure beside it.The basilica was itself a work of art and there were quite a few paintings adorning it on the outside.The square was filled with people and pigeons for which chippa had come up with a couple of million theories as to why they are there and how it helps the vendors there earn money(I’m not gonna in detail into this as this would require a day atleast,in short he was on booze,we had plenty of time to kill)
We roamed around the city for a while,took a gondola ride through the city which i have to say was pretty good.Right now,the most important part of the journey..the food.Did you know(I’m sure most of you do)the pizza was born in Italy and its very different from what pizza hut and dominoes’ serves..though i must warn you,not all pizzas are authentic italian,like for example the one we ate in the afternoon,it was like the first horrible experiences abroad(there are many but travelling to a country and tasting the crap food which they had invented was the first time).After having an ice-cream which melted in like 5 mins due to the soaring heat we went for a walk through the city streets.The city was quite breathtaking and filthily maintained.We spent the rest of the day walking around and headed for the piazza san marco for the evening lights.The whole piazza was transformed into a big coffee shop with lots of chairs & tables with people serving coffee and snacks.We rested our legs with a couple of beers and a few snacks and waiting for the square to light up.You know how bad things happen to good people,it happened to me or us rather,the heavens opened up and we had to vacate our places.This also put a serious doubt on our travel back to Fusina. We had our fun in the rain and started towards the dock as soon as the rain slowed down.We reached a couple of mins early so we took a walk along the sea before we caught the boat.We were back at Fusina,freshen’d up and hit the pizzeria.We had some of the most awesome pizzas in Italy,vegetarian and non-vegetarian.The party that night was not as happening as the night we reached but still it was a cool place.Had a couple of beers and crashed that night.
The next morning we headed to the train station to catch the train to Modena(Tifosi,here i come…)Remember how i told you in the beginning that things never work out as planned,well this was where our plan went awry.From the information desk we found out that there was no direct train to Modena and the factory was not in Modena,it was in a small village in Maranello,25 mins from the odena Train Station.We had to catch a train to Bologna,from there on to Modena and then a taxi to Maranello.I knew what was gonna come up from the guys..”This could be too tiring,so we’ll chuck Modena and head on straight to Pisa”;and those were the exact same words..sadly,we had a small stint in Venice,headed onto firenze and then to Pisa.The Leaning Tower was half hour away from the station and it was a straight road from the station.We decided to walk and quite a long walk it was.We were all very exited to see one of the wonders of the world.Our excitements were dampned when we saw the tower.It was sooooo small. The Public Utility Building on MG Road,Bengalooru is twice as tall as this tower.We roamed around a bit and headed back to Firenze (Florence).Our train to Rome was hours away,so we decided to explore Florence until then.If you ask me Florence is a better attraction than Pisa.The church there was simply amazing even better than the Pisa Tower.The artwork,the scale were astounding.After a few pictures and an Ice cream we headed back to the Railway station for our train to Rome.
There’s nothing to write about the journey,it was in the night,nothing visible outside…all we were left to do was sleep and sleep we did.We reached Rome at about 2200-2230hrs that night.None of us had cash with us and all ATMs were down in the station.We didn’t have a map with us to find our way around.We just walked around and came across an ATM.The taxi guy who we hired took us miles outside the city for our accomodations.We reached the hotel/hostel at around 0030 hrs,it was a college hostel which was sublet for tourists i guess.We had just one day ahead of us in which we had to see all the attractions including the Vatican City.A fresh morning,we vacated our rooms and headed out to the tube station.Now,i knew nothing about Rome,all i could remember were the places from Angesl and Demons.The guys were all too tired to discuss the the day ahead.So i too kthe initiative to visit the places as we had to catch our flights back to Bristol the same day.Our first stop,The Colloseum.The tubes in Rome were not as complicated as London or Paris,there were just two lines North-South & East-West.We had to get down at the right station for the right attractions.After about 30 mins at the tube station to figure out the ticketing system,we headed for the Colloseum.I had asked a couple of friends of mine about reaching the colloseum,they said that as long as we reach early we shouldn’t have a problem.That’s what we did,we reached there quite early and were in-line for the tickets for only about 30-45 mins.I’m not gonna go in-detail about the Colloseum,here’s the Wikipedia entry.The pictures do no justice,as a matter of fact which ones do.The structure is really,really big.There were 3 levels to it.The sturucture is pretty much intact,the floor though..not so much.You can see the underside of it.But if you imagined it to be like the one in the movie Gladiator well,don’t.From the outside,it does look huge though but on the inside…erm,not so much.After we explored all three levels,we headed for the next attraction,the Pantheon.We expected it to be in a place like the Colloseum but it was right smack middle of the city and surprisingly small!The architecture was quite interesting,the roofs were slopes but inside it was a huge dome.The Pantheon is special for the reason that the artist Raphael Santi’s body was buried here(atleast that’s what Angels and Demons taught us).There was nothing interesting here so we were on back on our way to the next,Piazza Navona.Too our dismay,they had covered the fountain from the top.It was afternoon and we were hungry and we settled in a nearby pizzeria.I sooo wanted to see the fountain.If my memory doesn’t fail me,in the book this is where the hashashin drops one of the dead preferiti.
At this exact moment,the skies opened up and we were stuck up in the pizzeria.The rains disappered,a couple of beers and we were on our way to the Vatican City.It was just that we were lost!We did have the map but nothing was legible as it was wet from the rain.I suddenly remembered my N95 GPS,it does work albeit slowly.Opened it up and after 30 mins(Yes,its that slow)we knew exactly where we were.We were walking distance from the Vatican City our last stop.God didn’t like us visiting i think,the skies opened up again and we were at the same situation that we were about an hour ago…..running for cover.When the rain started,we were on the bridge leading upto Castel St’Angelo.We took refuge at the castle gates when one of the most interesting things happened.A cop car came up and called us forward.Not everyone in there but just us,Me,Ranga,Anil and Chippa.He asked us to open our bags and i swear to god i was inches away from laughing.As i opened my bag he closed his window as if i was gonna shove a bomb into his car.As i said before we had packed our bags and checked out of room,so we had to carry our stuff whereever we went.It wasn’t much but enough to raise concerns!!!The rains subsided a bit,we made our way in to the Vatican and bought ourselves some some plastic rain covers.The rain caught up with us again and we stopped in St.Peter’s Square.This was the last stop and we didn’t want to waste time.Me,Ranga and Anil decided to go in while chippa said he’s gonna wait outside for us.We made our way to the St.Peter’s Basilica after seeing all the popes at the burial chamber.The Basilica was spectacular,the paintings,the artwork,design everything about it was grand and awe-inspiring.The Basilica was built on tp of St.Peter’s burial site.In fact,you can see St.Peter’s Tomb when you tour the burial site.Rumour is that the real cask containing the remains are actually thousands of feet beneath the Basilica.After an exhasutive tour of the church,we met up with chippa…did some last minute shopping and were back on our way to the airport. On the way back,i thought to myself “Was this the best trip?”I looked to the other side and saw these guys drinking to their heart’s content.I knew the that this was one of the best.

Italy