I've put up the pictures
of our trip to Italy: Florence, Milano, Bergamo and Como.
I won't get too much into details, as I mentioned our trip before.
However, I'd like to thank Paolo for meeting us and showing us around in
Bergamo: it was such lovely city and we spent such a great evening. I hope we
can do the same to him when he visits Japan!
I think Eiko and I will try to go again soon, as
we both enjoyed the stay, in spite of the sudden winter which gave us a hard
time...
Florence and Milano were very different but so interesting in their own style,
I really wouldn't mind finding more about them, especially now that I have
some practice of the Italian language ;-)
Venice was not part of this trip but that something you cannot miss in a lifetime so I guess we'll be going there soon!
I've just come back from my trip to Italy with Eiko: 5 days in Florence and 3 days in Milano.
My impression? Very quickly (more comments and pictures will come later!): Florence is indeed a beautiful city but unfortunately, it was full of tourists so it was kind of hard to take a break and enjoy the lovely streets of the old city, especially when they're full of cars, scooters and ambulances.
The architecture, the paintings and sculptures of the Renaissance are an absolute beauty though, so I think we will go again some time during the low season instead.
As for Milano, it didn't really start very well: our first minutes in
Milano were troubled by the taxi driver who was supposed to take us to the
hotel and who drove us around instead. When I noticed we were going through a
street we had seen before, I told the guy and he immediately stopped that game
and immediately took us to the hotel.
He discounted the fare of the ride compared to what was displayed but I
suspect it was still above what the ride was really worth.
Another thing that really upset me: the service at the restaurant La
Bruschetta (Piazza Beccaria 12, Milan). The restaurant was mentioned in
the guidebook so we decided to give it a try but as soon as we got in, the guy
pushed us outside (literally) and showed us a small sign through the window
which said "if you don't have a reservation, we don't have a table".
Lovely.
Well, we decided to give it a chance anyway (it was probably a good restaurant
since it was so full) so I called the next day to reserve a table.
Unfortunately, the service wasn't any better: as soon as the guy noticed I
couldn't speak a proper Italian, he said "It's full. Bye" (in Italian, it was
something like "Tutto complete. Ciao".
Great. I tried to tell him I wanted to reserve a table but he kept repeating
that "Tutto complete. Ciao" two or three times.
I was simply amazed so I didn't try to go any further: the guy obviously
didn't want to listen to me so I just hung up on him.
I'm wondering if a restaurant which is so bad to tourist can actually be good to local people.
Anyway, not everything was that bad in Milano: there are a lot of shops in
this city of fashion, the train station allows you to go to Como lake or
Bergamo (1h ride, when it's not late!), which are on the other hand lovely
cities.
The Duomo in Milano is also unique and it is really worth visiting it (we were
quite unlucky on that too, as the front side was all covered for
restoration!), since it's built in gothic style. It is also one of the biggest
catholic cathedral in the world.
Anyway, pictures will come in the next few days!
