Week 14 (Part 1): Northern Italy

Italia, Italia! We've just spent 2 wonderful weeks in Italy and have dubbed it one of our favourite places. We split our fortnight into three segments - Northern Italy, Tuscany, and Roma. Here is some of the highlights of Northern Italy: Verona, Venice, Milan. Tuscany and Roma to come soon!

After driving through never-ending vineyards just inside the Italian boarder we settled into Romeo and Juliet's home town of Verona. Inside the walls of Verona we found colourful buildings with balconies at each window, glorious gelato and soaked in the sunshine. In particular, we loved walking along the riverbanks and seeing the different shapes the buildings made, listening to boys call to their brothers ("Giovanni!") and eating plenty of pizza. Our first day was their final day of a spring festival where we saw local produce for sale and in cooking demonstrations, as well as art in the street and some traditional drummers. 

Juliet's Balcony

We zipped across to Venice for a day and wandered across bridges, enjoyed watching the gondolas and got lost in the maze that forms the city. After walking in circles a couple of times we stopped for our first proper Italian meal of cannelloni and seafood beside the grande canal. Later, we listened to buskers play accordions and cellos and got our first sunburn!

While in the north we also visited Milan. For those who love Prada, Versache, Louis Vuitton and all things fashion - Milan is for you. But we aren't really those people. We got a kick out of walking into the beautiful building that houses these stores (below), but that's end of our enjoyment of big city fashion. Milan did show us one of the biggest cathedrals in Europe, and to make the most of our day we found a large park to make daisy chains (Ally) behind the 'Palace'. Milan was filled with very busy people wearing very fancy clothes and running between their important jobs... and maybe it was just a bit of a shock after our lazy strolls through small-town Verona. Oh well, can't love 'em all.

We've since decided that Verona & Venice are our two favourite cities of the trip :) The colour, relaxed atmosphere, music and food wooed us well. More of Italy to come!


p.s. we're now checking out Greece

Week 13: Munich

From Vienna to Munich we drove through beautiful scenery of snow-capped mountains, large lakes and thick forest. We passed towns with unique houses and the train lines were often the only sign of human inhabitance. We've already stamped Austria down as a must-visit destination for future travel! 

In Munich we settled into our very 'chic' airbnb - a photographer's apartment that reflected his oh-so-cool minimalist/industrial style. We were pretty comfortable, right on the outskirts of Munich and able to wander in within half an hour. Saying that, quite a lot of our time in Munich was filled with job applications and toasted sandwiches... lucky our apartment was stylish enough to make up for it ;)

We did get out and see the city, though. Each day we walked through Viktualienmarkt, a market for your food and Easter decorations, fresh juice and chocolate-covered fruit. We stood for half an hour in the main square waiting for the figures in the large clock to do their 12-noon dance (which finally happened at about 6 minutes past 12, and lasted about 10 minutes of repetition...) while all the other clocks in the area chimed within 5 minutes of each other.

We walked past protests on two days (our guess is they were both about education...), and made it to the English Gardens to check out one of the most renown beer gardens. The beer garden was unfortunately pretty empty at this time of year, but the park was beautiful and we saw many pups and runners pass us.

On our last night we popped in to the city centre for some take away dinner and beside the only seats we came across to eat was a 6-piece band (including a grand piano and various strings) playing classical music! Munich also provided some pretty tasty beer, and a vegan coffee shop around the corner from 'home' that gave us hazelnut cappuccinos while enjoying the apartment.

Now we're in Italy, and it's pretty great. More to come!