Yeahhhh.. Finally I start writing about my summer trip, the amazing 18 days of my life. I've visited amazing countries, never occur to my mind that some day I able to visit My Dream Countries.. well it's all started with a dream and a courage to chase the dream. I spent only 900euro for this trip. I use easyjet to travel, because for me it's a lot cheaper to travel with plane instead of wasting hours sitting on the train. The key of cheap plane ticket is early booking. I only pay 247euro for tickets (Amsterdam-Milan, Rome-Athens, Athens-Milan, Milan-Prague, Prague-Amsterdam). And spend some of my night sleeping in Airport. I'll tell you about the details shortly.
Day 0 - Ready to Leave Rainy Netherlands
The rain pouring down, I drag my suitcase to the train station, take my train to the airport. Wet and cold, I tried to survive in the cold of Netherlands, with a warm mind thinking about a warm Italy. I went to Italy with my friend Mariella. We met up at Den Haag CS and took our train to Schiphol airport. We had 21.10 flight to Milan, which will arrive on 22.50. We decided to sleep in airport instead of looking for hostel to save some money, since we're gonna go to Verona first thing in the morning. Because my friends that already went to Milan said it's not worth to visit, unless you're very rich and want to buy all the branded stuff. To sleep in Milan airport it's better you take the free shuttle service to Terminal 1, where you can find some cafe that already close, so you can sleep in their sofa. You will find a couple homeless people sleeping there. But it's quite safe there because the security guard always walk back and forth, but don't worry they won't bother you whatsoever.
Day 1 - A Little bit of Milan and Verona
A day sleeping in airport wasn't that bad. After we woke up we catch the bus that bring us to Milan Central Station, the shuttle cost 7.50euro one way and 12 for return trip. After we get there, we took a little picture of us in Milan, the capital city of fashion, and the get the train to Verona. You can buy the ticket in the ticket machine, and pay in cash. You don't have to book in advance the train from Milan Centrale to Verona Porta Nuova, because the price will remain the same (11.50 euro) the journey took about 2 hours. We don't book a tour whatsoever, and we don't even have a map, but yeah we ask people how to go to Juliet castle and you can see the direction on the street, and sometimes you can even find a map that other people dropped. Or you can just go to tourist information and ask for free map. Verona is quite interesting, it also has Colosseum like in Rome, and the main attraction of Verona is the Juliet castle, the reason I want to come here is because the movie "Letters to Juliet" but when I get there there's no wall with love letters, only a wall with lots of gum that people use to stick their love note, which is pretty interesting to see, because it's colorful, but just don't stay too close because it's still a used gum, so you have no idea what kind of germ they have it there. To enter the Juliet castle you have to pay for some amount of money, also to take a picture in the balcony, but I didn't do that. I better use the money for something else. We're a little bit hungry when we got there so we went to supermarket and bought 12pack of chocolate croissant for 1 euro, that's our breakfast/lunch for today. Oh yeah be careful with the guy that wear Romanian Soldier outfit, they will come to you when you're taking pictures and want to take a picture with you, but at the end you have to give them some money like a euro or 2. When you get to Juliet's House you can see lots of people trying to take picture with the statue of Juliet, oh make sure you touch the right breast of the statue (Sounds dirty I know) but they said it brings you luck in love. So whether you believe it or not, it's harmless to try ;)
Verona has a lot to offer other than the Juliet's house, the city itself is quite interesting, you can see "Street Artist" almost everywhere in the town, and beautiful church, even the house of Romeo, but when we're there the house was closed :(
It took around 3 hours for us to explore the city (we still have our suitcase with us, so we dragged it all the way in Verona). After we finished with verona we went to Venice. We took a regional train (7.50euro), it took 2 hours to get there. You can also buy the hispeed train and pay 23euro. You can just buy the ticket at the ticket machine in Train station We booked a cabin in a campsite (that's the cheapest accommodation there, 16euro/night/person), Camping Rialto. It's not located in Venice (the tourist spot) but a little bit out of town (4km from Venice Mestre), and you can take a bus to go to Venice Mainland. The bus cost 2.60 round trip you can buy the ticket in vending machine, they have some kind of magnetic card that you have to tap when you enter the bus. The cabin was quite nice and cozy and the bathroom is also clean, but it's quite hard to find a cheap food here, they also have supermarket but it's quite expensive, and they don't have kitchen so you can't cook there. We decided to buy bread, some ham, and chips for dinner.
Day 2 - Venice
We didn't expect the night would be cold, because it's summer. But the night was soooo damn cold, so I woke up in the middle of the night, open my suitcase and try to find something that can warm me up a little bit, because they didn't provide a thick blanket, just a really thin-bedsheet-like one. We packed our bags and ready to check out, the receptionist will give you a map of venice when you checked in. We dropped our bags in the receptionist, because we don't want to drag our bags again at Venice. We took a bus from in front of the camp and it take 10 minutes to get there (You can buy the ticket at the receptionist). Venice, a city in northeastern italy sited on a group of 118 islands separated by canals and linked by bridge. Venice is famous for the beauty and the artistic buildings, it's also one of UNESCO World's Heritage. With the map from the hostel we begin our trip in Venice, it's beautiful and breath taking. I got lost in Venice, I walk according to the map but for some reason we end up in the same place where we're started, and we spent 1 hours walking in circle :(
Other than that bad experience the overall of Venice is nice. Tips, don't buy souvenir on the first store you see, because after you finished walking around Venice, on the way out you will find lots of cheap souvenir store where you can buy the souvenir for only 1euro or even less, sometimes they also have the 70cent one. People in Venice is pretty conservative, so if you wanna visit the church make sure your shoulder and knee is covered, or you won't be able to enter the church.
It took 4-5 hours for us to explore Venice, we had our leftover sandwich from dinner last night as our breakfast/lunch. After we're done with Venice we went to the train station to continue our journey to Florence
Day 1 - A Little bit of Milan and Verona
Verona has a lot to offer other than the Juliet's house, the city itself is quite interesting, you can see "Street Artist" almost everywhere in the town, and beautiful church, even the house of Romeo, but when we're there the house was closed :(
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| Some Random Building in Verona |
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| Infront of Colosseum |
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| Bubbelgum Wall |
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| Juliet Statue |
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| One of the love note |
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| Cozy Cabin at Camping Rialto |
We didn't expect the night would be cold, because it's summer. But the night was soooo damn cold, so I woke up in the middle of the night, open my suitcase and try to find something that can warm me up a little bit, because they didn't provide a thick blanket, just a really thin-bedsheet-like one. We packed our bags and ready to check out, the receptionist will give you a map of venice when you checked in. We dropped our bags in the receptionist, because we don't want to drag our bags again at Venice. We took a bus from in front of the camp and it take 10 minutes to get there (You can buy the ticket at the receptionist). Venice, a city in northeastern italy sited on a group of 118 islands separated by canals and linked by bridge. Venice is famous for the beauty and the artistic buildings, it's also one of UNESCO World's Heritage. With the map from the hostel we begin our trip in Venice, it's beautiful and breath taking. I got lost in Venice, I walk according to the map but for some reason we end up in the same place where we're started, and we spent 1 hours walking in circle :(
Other than that bad experience the overall of Venice is nice. Tips, don't buy souvenir on the first store you see, because after you finished walking around Venice, on the way out you will find lots of cheap souvenir store where you can buy the souvenir for only 1euro or even less, sometimes they also have the 70cent one. People in Venice is pretty conservative, so if you wanna visit the church make sure your shoulder and knee is covered, or you won't be able to enter the church.
It took 4-5 hours for us to explore Venice, we had our leftover sandwich from dinner last night as our breakfast/lunch. After we're done with Venice we went to the train station to continue our journey to Florence