Bologna and Milano

26th April

Train from Venice to Milan - 2.5hrs Checked into fantastic hotel called Hotel Berna - really recommend it. Lots of complimentary things and friendly staff, lovely rooms and an unbelievable breakfast!! Including creme caramel!!!!

Milano Centrale train station is huge - fantastic actually! Paintings on the ceiling and about 20 platforms.

Originally we were going to be arriving early into Milan from Lake Garda at 9am but due to our earlier change in itinerary we came in from Venice so we didn't arrive until 11.30. By the time we had checked in and then arrived back at train station the next available train to Bologna was a slow train leaving at 1.30pm. (although the lcd screen inside the train did tell us that it was travelling at 153km per hour at one point!) We arrived in Bologna about 4pm.

Wandered through the streets under the porticos - there are about 38kms of them!


We eventually arrived at Piazza Maggiore (the main piazza) and settled on a place called Bar Guiseppe to have dinner. Mum had lasagna bolognase and I had tagliatelle bolognase - I was looking forward to having bolognase in Bologna but was half expecting to be disappointed as it had potential to be a cliche and expensive tourist trap - but wow - for such a simple dish - magnifico!!!!! I'm hungry thinking about it now!!! Was genuinely the best bolognase sauce either of us had ever had!




So we really enjoyed sitting out in the piazza watching the people go by and soaking up the wonderful atmosphere full of beautiful Italian words / language / people. Realised as were leaving that we'd had dinner (accidentally) at a restaurant talked about in John Grishams book The Broker' !




We loved our short visit to Bologna! Caught the fast train (1 hr instead of 2.5 hrs!) back to Milano. Arrived in Milano around 10pm.

27th April

Can't believe I'm in Italy !!! Really appreciating it and having a great time!!

This morning we went to see The Last Supper painting by Leonardo Da Vinci. It's painted on a wall inside the Santa Maria Del Grassi church. The church was used as stables by Napolean bombed during the war. Amazing the painting has survived!

We then caught the metro to the Duomo and Galleria - wow - the Duomo is an amazing structure. The photo from my weak iPhone camera doesn't do it any justice at all. Actually even my decent camera doesn't really capture it. Didn't have time to walk along the roof as had to catch train to Cinque Terre - also didn't go inside the Galleria but hope to on Sunday as we will be changing trains there on the way to Lake Como.





Really enjoyed what I saw of Milan - despite it being cold and raining !!

Caught regional train to Cinque Terre and arrived around 5pm. Staying in Levanto at a lovely family run (since late 1800's!) hotel.

Having some trouble getting reliable wi-fi connection here - so a bit behind with posts and replying to your comments. Will catch up eventually - keep the comments coming - it's fantastic to hear from you! We are relaxed and having a great time - enjoying trying out our Italian words whenever we can - although it kind of tells you how good we are at it when we talkbin our BEST Italian, thinking to ourselves how good it sounded, only to be answered in English :-). Surely they can't actually tell we are not Italian!!!! LOL

Buona notte and ciao for now (said in a VERY convincing accent :-) ).

xx

Venice - last day

24th April - forgot to mention that we saw a huge cruise ship leave the canal last night - fantastic!



25th April - started day having breakfast outside on the grand canal at the hotel we had originally booked into but couldn't get back into when our flights changed. The weather was PERFECT and the breakfast was amazing!!

Hopped on the number 1 vaporetto which took us all the way up and back down the Grand Canal. The weather was still absolutely perfecto!!! Took sooooo many photos!! We had a ball.







Lunched at a small trattoria in a back lane quite close to our hotel. No English or 'touristic' menu - yay :-). Ironically ..... Mum saw a lady with what looked like basil all over her pizza and tried to ascertain firstly, that it WAS basil and secondo, which pizza it was on the menu. So we ordered. My pizza came out, and ...... Mum's 'basil pizza' jalso arrived - here's a photo of what she got :-).






Funnily enough she said it was the nicest thing she'd had here so far - and I was a little envious too as I love the combination of basil, tomato and mozzarella (or boccocini). In this case it was buffalo mozzarella. It was very funny when it came out though! Love it!!!

After lunch we caught the ferry to Burano (a small island). We were both pleasantly surprised by how lovely and unique it was. My iPhone doesn't have a great camera so didn't really capture it (we have plenty of proper photos though! And video - which I'm sure you'd all like to see ;-). Burano is renowned for it's lace making and the cute laneways and canals full of bright and pastel coloured houses. We would have liked to spend more time there but had to get back to Venice so we could ride the vaporetto at sunset.

We were lucky enough to see another two cruise ships leave - what a spectacle!

So our last night in Venice was spent riding up and down the grand canal (and on some occasions, much to our surprise, AROUND it instead of up it - ooops! ). We continued this well into the night so we could see the lights of the Grand Canal- sitting right at the front, outside, and freezing by the end of the night - but we had a great seat / view!




Oh how we love Venezia! We were sad to leave this morning but glad we got a good position on the vaporetto for one last ride along the Grand Canal!

We are currently on another Eurostar train heading to Milano. We'll leave our luggage at the hotel and then catch a train to Bologna for the day. I'm hoping to have some spaghetti bolognese (:-)) and looking forward to seeing all the porticoes everywhere and seeing Bologna as John Grisham wrote about it in 'The Broker'.

Ciao for now!


Things I've learnt in Venice
- if you stand still too long you will inevitably swallowed up by a tour group!
- you shouldn't even turn your head towards the creepy 'looky looky you buy some bag' men or they will follow you for a while to try to make a sale -same goes with the rogue tour operators - 'u speaka English? - you come to Murano - you like!!'
- I knew this already but enjoying that Venice is magnificent and the experience can't be replicated anywhere else in the world





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Venice

Hi everyone! We are still in Venice! We arrived at 6.30pm Thursday night and checked in to our hotel around 7.30 - it was cold and dark and we were utterly exhausted from our 36 hour journey from Melbourne. The hotel doors were such a welcome sight! We left our stuff in our rooms and walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner. Then walked to Piazza San Marco - which looked stunning all lit up and was filled with beautiful classical music as several groups were playing - gorgeous. Walked around the piazza then back to hotel to sleeeeeeeep! I don't remember getting into bed!

Friday - so so so happy to finally be here in Venice. Certainly not taking any moments for granted! Started the day with breakfast at the hotel which was an excellent spread - eggs, bacon, little sausages, croissants (and packets of nutella - yum!!!), cereals, rolls, cold meats, cheese, fruit and our own DELICIOUS pot of espresso with another pot of frothed milk - was actually the best coffee we had all day!

After breakfast we walked again to Piazza San Marco and wandered through the shops, enjoying the porticos as it was raining! (It rained for most of the day and was quite cold - 17 degrees). We stopped at Caffe Florian and had an expensive (8 euros!!!) but delicious coffee - and really enjoyed the ornate setting (see pic below) and cosy feel. We knew we were paying for the location but we didn't mind. The musicians were playing again and it was just gorgeous being there!



We wound our way to Rialto Bridge through the picturesque lanes and alleys, over lots of bridges - loving being surprised by the large piazza that would suddenly open up before us, or the tiny canal with slow moving gondola.

We found a perfect spot to have lunch right next to Rialto Bridge - again paying for the priviledge through inflated price of the food -but why not!! Mind you the pizza we each had was HUGE and we could easily have shared one - it didn't look big on the picture on menu!! Oh well - was yummy and kept us going all day!










We just kept wandering all over the place for rest of day - sheltering from rain in various shops and stopping at a cosy caffe in San Polo area called Doges Caffe.

Got back to hotel quite late and had packet soup and some bread for dinner!

Really enjoyed not having to be anywhere in particular today - just really enjoyed feeling relaxed and just being here!

We thought it was a bit sad when we were approached by an American couple in their 50's looking for Burger King!!! Why why WHY!!?!??

Danielle, Argy and Shelley - note pic below :-). Yes!! I found Pocket Coffee!!!! :-)



Today - Saturday - was raining (light rain this time) until about 1pm - then AT LAST - the sun appeared for the first time since we arrived! Makes such a difference! Loved sitting having a superb plate of spaghetti carbonara (and Mum had a delicious lasagna) today, wandering all over the place again, and finishing the afternoon with gelato as it was actually warm enough weather for it.

Back at hotel to charge camera batteries (boy did our cameras get a workout when the sun came out ! Everywhere you look -literally - is picture worthy. For those that have been here - you know what I mean! For those that haven't - it really is a special place - no cars - only boats and pedestrians! I LOVE this city and I'm so glad we have another day here tomorrow. It is meant to be 23 degrees and sunny so we will catch the vaporetti up and down the grand cabal a few times then visit Burano in the afternoon.

As soon as our camera batteries are charged tonight we'll catch the no. 1 vaporetti up the grand canal to take night photos. Come onnnnnnn battery - Venice awaits!!!

Ciao everyone - we hope you are all well!

xxxx


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Have arrived!!!!!!!

We arrived in Rome about 4 hours ago and are now on the train to Venice. Sleep is a distant memory but we are so relieved to be here!!!! To actually BE HERE!!

Our flight from Singapore to Rome was delayed by four hours and when we arrive in Venice at 6.30pm Venice time we would have been travelling for 35 hours!!

Our flights were great - the flight out of Melbourne had lots of spare seats so we could really spread out. Flight to Rome was packed but with a few seats here and there. Crew were fantastic!

Am currently sitting on the Eurostar from Rome to Venice - it is a beautiful train - they even gave us cold drinks, coffee and biscuits - AND a chocolate! :-) it's nice when things like that are a little bonus! We were fortunate to get these seats - the last two available - and Mum and I are sitting in different carriages. When we arrived at the Rome airport train station to catch the Leonardo Express through to Rome Termini station, we heard an announcement that all tickets to Northern Italy are sold out until tomorrow. We previously had a reservation for Rome - Venice but that was of course for last Tuesday!

We just stopped at Florence and now I seem to travelling backwards!

I've managed to say some Italian words already
- sometimes even at the right time! Although I was so startled by the coffee/biscuit
man that, when asked what I wanted from the trolley I stammered 'oh er caffe, grazia' ... Only to realise when he put it down on my tray I should have said 'caffe latte' as I got a tiny esspresso black coffee :-) Will blame that one on lack of sleep :-) - I was so tired though I actually enjoyed how strong it was!

Oh now we are in Bologna! We are coming to visit here on Monday I think.

Well that's enough for now - just wanted you all to know that we were here. Next posting will be from Venezia!! Aaaahh :-)







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Singapore Airport

Hi all!  Well we arrived a couple of hours ago in Singapore.  When we got to Melbourne airport and checked in, they said "ok so you are going from Singapore to Barcelona... correct?"   You can imagine our reaction :-).   Mind you after the last week it wouldn't have been a surprise.  It was just a mistake (well, we hope - we haven't actually arrived in Rome yet I guess!!).    And our boarding passes DO say Rome!! 

Our flight IS delayed by four hours though so we have another 5 hours to go here.  It means we'll arrive in Rome around 12.00pm (Italian time) and then need to catch a train into Rome Termini station, then the first train to Venice (4.5 hour journey).  Boy.... are we going to enjoy that first night's sleep!  We estimate we'll arrive in Venice around 6.00 / 7.00pm Venice time (as long as there are seats available on a train to Venice!).  I think that will be around 4.00am Adelaide time ... er.. not sure what day - oh - Friday 4.00am Adelaide time - I THINK! 

When we get there though I think we will finally relax.  We'll certainly start to relax when we do take off for Rome... a little bit more when we land in Rome, then completely when we arrive in Venice... ahhhh.. Venice..... can't believe we are going to be there.   Most of you don't know this but we had actually decided yesterday that we wouldn't go - if we were still going to be catching the Friday flight to Milan it meant a whole week of the trip had gone - and we really weren't sure at that stage if we would even be able to fly out on that day.  Or get trains when we arrive.  Or see the alps through the ash !!   (We are still not sure of this actually!).  We'd decided that we'd start cancelling everything today so we didn't lose too much money.  Then this morning got the call from Singapore Airlines to say they could put us on a flight to Rome today (only a few hours after the phone call!).  So more mad packing ensued!!!  And we quickly tried to get some accomodation in Venice (thanks Jo!) - not the original accommodation we had on the grand canal, but it is still near St Marks Square - and there weren't many rooms left - so we were happy that we could stay there at all! 

So - we are having showers etc here in Singapore airport and sitting in the the really quiet transit lounge.  We were expecting Singapore to be crazy busy - but it's actually fairly quite by Singapore Airport standards.  No people sleeping on the floor like they've been showing on the news!  We were relieved as hopefully that does mean Europe is getting back to normal now.  Hopefully Italy wont' be too crazy (any crazier than normal :-)).  Wow... we are going to Italy.   Ok - better go now!   Thanks again everyone for your support, phone calls, messages, comments etc.  It has made a difference! :-)

Love Trudy & Christine

Getting on plane now

Arrivederci :-)
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We might be on our way !

On way to airport - found out an hour ago that they can get us on flight to Singapore then Rome today - leaves in 2.5 hours at 3.45 melb time.
Will let u know what happens!


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Update

Hi everybody! Sorry it's taken a while to do this update. It will be a long one this time - and much shorter after that!

Well what a bizzare few days it has been! To recap:

21st March... volcano in Iceland erupts....
Ash begins to spread over Britain then continental Europe.
Rome airport remains open...
Ash spreads a bit further and continental European airports start to close.
Rome airport remans open...

Friday 16th April 3.45pm - both Mum and I are happily making final preparations and feeling really good, excited and fairly well prepared and organised.

Friday 3.55pm - Jo (cousin and travel agent) rings Mum to say that Singapore Airlines had informed her that our flights had been cancelled and the earliest we could now leave was the following Saturday (23rd April). Our flights hadn't been officially cancelled though and when I called Singapore Airlines to ask why we were now bumped from the flight as Rome airport was still open, they advised that if we travelled to Melbourne there was still a possibility that we could get on the flight. So we decided to try anyway - you never know!

Friday 4.00pm - 9.00pm - stressful time - trying to figure out alternatives, what do we cancel? What do we change? Realising that we probably wouldn't be going to Rome, Venice or Lake Garda (all in the first week of itinerary). Looking at all the 'what if' scenarios....

Friday 9.00pm - Singapore Airlines call Mum to say that all is good and we are definitely flying tomorrow. Guarded elation (only way I can describe how we felt - I know it probably doesn't make sense!!).

Friday 9.30pm - 11.30pm - Crazed late night re-packing of bits and pieces that we had taken out of baggage (papers, itineraries, chargers) and rushed last minute tasks that we had been expecting to do in a calm and orderly manner from 4.00pm onwards!!

Friday 11.30pm... FINALLY about to go bed... feeling organised but a bit rattled ... so need to relax a bit

Friday 11.31pm (I'm making up this time actually - but it was ABOUT then!!!) .....well most of you know what happened - but for those that don't, EARTHQUAKE - 3.9 on the scale!! Top floor of house visibly moving!!

Kind of over today so far!!!!!!!!!

Saturday 9.40am - family and friends see us off to Melbourne. Qantas landing made ... er.. .interesting... by crosswinds!

Rome airport remains open.

Saturday 12.45pm - standing in check-in line.. full of hope as looking good.... then advised flights cancelled and the 'whole of Europe' is closed to flights.

Rome airport remains open.

Then advised by Singapore Airlines staff that Rome airport had closed only '1 hour ago'....

Rome airport remains open.

Flights re-booked to Zurich for this Thursday and waitlisted for Milan. Given 2 nights accomodation (room only but a room each) at Airport Hilton - which we did really enjoy. Appreciated not having to find accom for that 1st night especially as we were pretty drained by then!

Rome airport remains open.

Spent next 2 days feeling like Tom Hanks in 'The Terminal' and wondering how many different views from video cameras they had of us! :-)

Rome airport remains open.

1.00pm Sunday: Noticed on Singapore Airlines website that the only flight that seemed to leave on Saturday was the Singapore to Rome flight... and then the return Rome to Singapore flight on Sunday morning ..... Feeling that this COULDN'T be the case but wanting to know for peace of mind, walked over to the Singapore check-in counter... showed them the site on my phone - they double checked and confirmed that it was true!! Our flight actually did leave Singapore and arrive in Rome. This wasn't a nice moment!!!! We'd coped pretty well until then - but that was a bit hard to take!

Even right to this moment (12.05pm Melb time), Rome airport remains open!

Sunday 9.00am: checked back at check in counter in case situation had changed - told our flight to Milan was confirmed by the first person that 'helped' us. A guy named Leon (who had originally looked after us the first day and found us seats to Zurich), came over as he recognised us from the day before - he wanted to ask how we were going - when he looked on system he saw that our flight to Milan WASN'T confirmed and the woman was just reading it incorrectly (!!!!!!). After much discussion and searching - we are currently waitlisted to Milan on Thursday night from Singapore, and CONFIRMED to Milan on Friday night from Singapore. So if the waitlisted flight doesn't come through then we'll be in Singapore for about 30 hours.

Monday - we moved to the Docklands apartments in Melbourne CBD - have a FABULOUS view over Melbourne - had yummy ribs for dinner at the Meat and Wine Company (restaurant) in Southbank - then came back to apartment and crashed - watched Masterchef etc etc :-). Really like apartment!

Tuesday 10.00am - heard the great news that the airspace was clearing and we wondered if we dared to get a little excited.

Tuesday 10.15am - heard about the second ash cloud

So - that's where we are up to at the moment! And yes, Rome airport is STILL open. We are trying to enjoy ourselves but every time we get a phone call or sms we wonder if it is the airline letting us know we can go. If we don't get on Thursday morning flight (leaving Melbourne at 10.10am to Singapore) we'll go to Sydney sometime Thursday for a few days and will forget about all of this for now and just relax.

Thanks everyone for your emails, facebook comments, text messages and phone calls - we've really appreciated it! We've still been having lots of laughs and have been enjoying ourselves between the bizarre moments and disappointments (really is a rollercoaster ride!). We'll get there eventually - this week - or this time next year (and if it's next year, we'll just have more money for shopping :-) :-) :-) ).

Cheers and love to everyone!
Trudy & Christine
xxxx

Will post update later today

Hi all - will post an update later today - we have a bunch of phone calls to make so will know more later this afternoon. Choosing to have fun anyway :-) xxx


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4 sleeps!!!!!

4 sleeps to go! I still can't believe that we are actually going! This time next week we'll be leaving Rome and on our way to Venice!!

Have nearly finished packing - well ... Ok.... everything is organized and READY to put in the case! :-)

Next post will hopefully be from Rome!!

Ciao!!




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Planning!

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Just testing our trip blog connection with Facebook

Did this arrive as a status update in Facebook?

13 sleeps!!

Just posting from my computer - showing Mum our blog page. We have 13 sleeps to go - really can't believe we are ACTUALLY going!! Don't think I will till I'm on the plane.

Tonight we are talking about what to do in Rome, Paris and London as they are the 3 major cities we'll be spending time in that we do need to plan our time carefully for as we are not really spending MUCH time in them! Never enough ! :-)

So - our first stop... Rome..... we have both been there before, and have both seen the Sistine Chapel - so no need to wait for hours on the queue to see that again! We'll be going to St Peters though as the piazza is fantastic - all the columns.... and I'd like to take a photo of the view from up high in St Peters overlooking the piazza as I didn't do that last time and regretted not seeing it! We'll definitely go to the Colosseum, Pantheon, Piazza Navona, Trevi Fountain. Now... to plan some more!