Post #10- North Italy

Even though my original plan was pretty much exclusively Eastern Europe, I just broke my own rule (big time) and spent a week in Italy. It seems that these things tend to happen when a seasoned traveller insists that you visit Venice if you're nearby, when you have a friend working in Turin for the summer, and when you find a flight there that works out to about $40.

The reason I was hesitant at first was because I didn't think I'd be satisfied with such a short amount of time in Italy. I was right- I'm already itching to go back to see Rome, Naples, Florence, Sicily, Firenze, and all of the smaller places in the south that I can't remember the names of. But it was worth it to get a little taste (literally)!

As I mentioned earlier, I made a friend in Bratislava, Luis from Colombia, who I also hung out with in Budapest. He decided to join me in Venice with his friend Ewa, who flew in from Ireland.

From Budapest, we figured out how to get to the airport beforehand and were pretty much professionals with the underground metro network by then. But just our luck, when we got to the station, some officials were standing by the doors and told us that the subway was closed (the slight language barrier prevented us from getting the whole story, but I assume it was some form of technical difficulty). Before spiralling into full panic mode (me, not Luis), we managed to find a few city buses that took us to the airport. We narrowly made it, since this took longer than planned.

The flight was short and sweet, and when we landed we took a bus into the city, and then a ferry bus "vaporetto" to the island (!!!!) that our hostel was on. Ewa had arrived the day before and was waiting for us at a nearby cafe. We spent the rest of the evening and the entire next day zipping around on the vaporetti  across to the main part of the city and up & down the Grand Canal, getting lost in all the narrow alleys, and of course sampling as much of the local cuisine as possible, including pizza, pasta, red wine, and of course gelato. So much yummy!

I'm infinitely glad that I didn't try to tackle Venice alone. The city is unbelievable, I've really never seen anything like it, but trying to use a street map to get around is more or less useless, since the only ones I could find didn't even label the street names. In spite of this, we walked around everywhere and took some beautiful photos, then ended up having a picnic on a dock on our little island, La Giudecca. Paradise!

I was sad to leave Venice after 2 days and to say goodbye to my new friends, but also very excited to see Ali again in Turin. It took 2 trains and about 4 hours. Maybe it was because I was coming from a confusing city, or because I knew someone in town, but I immediately felt completely at ease in Turin. My hostel was far, about a 40 min walk from the train station. But since the city is laid out in a grid system, the route was straightforward and I refused to take a bus there. I'm slightly regretting that decision now because my back is still a little stiff from lugging my massive backpack all over the place.

I went over to Ali's that night to check out her flat and met the family she's au pairing for (yes I know that's not actually a word) and we made some plans for the following few days. The next morning we met up with 2 of her new friends Katie and Inez, both from Australia, and we checked out an enormous outdoor market then walked around the city. We found a really beautiful park that had a little stream and waterfall too.

The only thing I knew about Turin before was that it hosted the 2006 winter Olympics, but it's actually stunning. There are lots of pretty squares throughout the city, all the buildings are beautiful, the streets are lined with big trees, and the Po River runs through it, which I learned about in my Roman History course last fall, except back in the day they called it the Padus (wish I retained that much detail from my biochem courses).

The next morning, Ali, Katie and I set off on a small trip to a beautiful place called Lake Maggiore. We only stayed for one night (the town was actually called Verbania), but got an impressive amount of exploring done within that time since we got there by about 10:30. There are 3 islands on the lake, so we hopped on and off a ferry that took us to each of them, plus to a few villages on the opposite side of the lake from where we were staying. I could go on and on about how stunning this place is, but you’d never believe me from the photos I took. It was a bit cloudy that day, which really darkened up the pictures. Google it, you’ll see!

It was a great day, followed by an even better evening of (what else) pizza and red wine. Our trains back to Turin weren’t until the afternoon the next day, so we spent the morning looking for hiking trails in the outskirts of Verbania, trying to get up high enough to take pictures of the lake, and trying not to trespass on too many private properties. The rain held out until about half an hour before we got on the train, but there was a great gelato place on the way to the station, so no big loss.

                                           mmmmm oops. 

I wanted to stay in Turin for a few more days to hang out with the girls a bit more before moving along to my next destination, and Katie let me stay with her in her apartment! It was such a treat to not have to sleep in a bunk bed, and really fun to hang out with her and Ali while they weren’t working.

                                                   THANK YOU KATIE!!! 

Definitely the best detour I’ve made so far, but I can’t wait to go back and see more of Italy. For now though, I’m back on track with the original plan and hanging out in Slovenia for a few days! 

                                          Lake Maggiore

                                            Classiest picnic I've ever had, Venice