Firenze & Milano!!!!

Although some say Rome is the heart of Italy, I may have to disagree. Florence proved (yet again) to be one of my favourite cities in Italy. I am so glad we were able to squeeze it in before Zach had to head home from Milan. When we arrived, it was a beautiful, sunny, HOT day. There’s nothing like trying to find a hostel without a map, in the heat of the day, with your backpacks on…Needless to say, when we found the hostel we were very excited. We rested for just a little while and then began our hunt for food. I’ve discovered that while traveling with Zach, three meals a day is never really necessary. His logic is that if he eats breakfast that will just make him hungry so why not wait until the afternoon to have your first meal? That day, we got our usual shawarma (a first for Caroline) at 3:00 and that was our one meal for the day. This is not including gelato, of course.  The whole “rationing food” situation reminds me of when I was backpacking with my Dad in Switzerland a few years ago and we survived off of a 3kg bag of carrots for two days. Ahhh the good ol’ days. ANYWAY…we had some gelato for desert and made our way to the Ponte Vecchio, a very famous bridge lined with gold and silver shops. We took some photos and kept walking!




We did a lot of walking that day, but stayed in that night drinking wine and playing cards. Buying wine was cheaper than buying water so…that was pretty cool. Oh, and we somehow managed to justify getting gelato for a second time that day. It was so cheap! AND Florence is known as the best producer of gelato in all of Italy so we had to get in as many flavours as we could…The next day we were taking a day trip to Pisa and a little hill town called “Lucca”.
What I remember of Pisa from my last trip was the tower and that’s it. However, going to Pisa THIS time was a whole new experience! It was a very charming town with lots of young people (the majority of people living in Pisa are students) and many more shops than what I remembered. The tower was just as cool as I remembered, and we had to take some photos.






We spent a lot of time taking photos. While taking our “leaning photos”, people laying on the grass were very entertained. Mostly because we had to fall to the ground each time we did it and ended up looking like idiots who are willing to do ANYTHING to get a great picture. In other words, Caroline’s love for creative pictures is rubbing off on us. We didn’t stay in Pisa too long because we wanted to make it to Lucca for lunch and then have enough time in Florence that night to see the Duomo. Lucca was a really great little town. It was very cute and less crowded than Pisa. We only stopped for lunch because we had to catch the train back to Pisa but THAT ended up being a disaster because the train wasn’t working so we had to wait another hour in the station. We took some videos to entertain ourselves..

By the time we got home, the Duomo was closed (fabulous…) so Caroline went to see Michelangelo’s “David” statue

(and snuck some pictures from her purse) and Zach and went back to the hostel. Then, we got dressed up and headed out for a nice (relatively fancy) dinner. This would be a first for Zach in Europe so it was exciting. We had a three course meal that was really good and got to eat outside which is always lovely.
After dinner, we went for gelato (because I was not going to pay 9 euro for a desert) and then played cards all night.



Even though we were taking an early train the next day, we made time to see the Duomo before it left. While waiting in line for it to open, the Prime Minister of China decided to show up with his entourage so THAT was pretty sweet. The Asian tour groups were loving it. And I was loving their excitement and craziness.
Our train ride to Milan was the nicest yet. It was a high speed train so it had comfortable seats and more leg room than our previous trains.


I had only ever been to the Milan train station, so I was excited to see the city (even if it only was for one day). The main event of the day, however was trying to get Zach an overnight train ticket to Paris. Long story short, he couldn’t get it.

So…we went back later and got him a ticket for the next day. Bad news for him, but good news for Caroline and I-we got to spend one more night with him!
Our time in Milan was very, very random. Let’s start with the hostel situation. Caroline got us a really cheap hostel for the night (Bless her heart), but it was in the sketchiest, most random area of the city. Actually, it wasn’t even really in the city. We were told to get off the metro at a certain station, so we did. What we weren’t expecting was a somewhat abandoned road leading up to a street market with guys saying “Hello…baby” to Caroline and I. Weird. Also weird for Zach who was walking behind us silently. We only found the hostel because a woman basically told us to follow her. She led us into this random park that was gated off and we found the hostel. It was clean, and the reception people seemed nice enough, but it just had a really creepy vibe to it and the neighbourhood was definitely a lil’ sketch. But hey! That’s all part of the adventure. Zach was able to get a bed for the night which was good.
We didn’t want to spend our time in the creepy hostel, so we went back into the city. We got a giant pizza to share between us but the cashier made it VERY clear that we were not allowed to eat it in the restaurant because it was “take away”. So…we ate on the street. I think it was some of the best pizza I’d had in Italy! We saw the cathedral and fashionable people but mostly spent our day at the train station and in the metro.




Milan was cool but not my favourite Italian city. That night we went out for dinner to an even creepier area of town to eat (you guessed it) more pizza. We ordered the “American Pizza” not knowing what was on it and being surprised by the presence of French fries on the actual pizza when we got it. Then, we had our last gelato as a group and went home. As a sidebar, at this moment the streets were lined in wet garbage from the market and it smelled like a dog had died. It was definitely the most random day of the trip.




But we survived! And still had smiles on our faces the next day! Zach left in the morning, and it was hard to say goodbye!
I was always excited to travel with Zach because I knew he would make a great travel partner. It was really awesome to travel with someone who hadn’t been to Europe before because he was excited about everything which made me more excited! He also was very patient with me (apparently I can get stressed out pretty easily) and was always up for anything which was just so wonderful. Oh, and his photos weren’t bad either. JUST KIDDING! His photos were amazing. Our time traveling together was amazing and life in general is just amazing.
Stay tuned for updates on Verona and Venice!
A…and C