Venice

I arrived in Venice from Milan via another €12 Flix Bus, leaving from the Milan Lampugnano Bus Station at 10:35 and arriving at Venice Mestre Train Station at 13:50. Venice Mestre is situated on the mainland, so I caught a train to Venice Santa Lucia on the main island, costing €1.25. I had booked into the cheapest hostel I could find, Apartment Garden Venice, which had 7 beds squeezed into a 4 bed dorm. It was €20 a night, including city tax and cleaning tax (whatever that is?!), which for Venice is not too bad at all. The location was very good, just don’t expect too much. 

I had 3 nights in Venice, 2 full days so I spent my first full day getting lost. The weather wasn’t fantastic but that didn’t really matter as it is such a beautiful place. The main places to see are: The Rialto Bridge, Bridge of Sighs, St Mark’s Basilica, Doge’s Palace, The Santa Maria della Salute and the Scuola Grande San Marco. This easily takes up a whole day, especially when you get lost down all the different alleys, but you will eventually stumble across all these places. The best part about Venice was getting lost and discovering the quiet little alleys, and beautiful bridges, with no one around. There are plenty of bars and restaurants lining the canals but there’s something about eating a pizza and having a glass of red wine overlooking the water on your own that doesn’t isn’t quite as fun as doing it with someone else. I did find a great little restaurant called Gino’s that had a margherita pizza and a glass of red for €7.90. It’s situated a 5 minute walk after taking a left out the train station, on the main strip. 

On my second full day I decided to splash out €20 and buy a 24 hour boat taxi ticket. A one journey ticket cost €7.50, so as long as you jump on 3 boats then it’s worth paying the money. I was skeptical about purchasing the ticket as it seemed like a lot of money, but it was definitely worth it. You can’t go to Venice without zig-zagging from side to side down the canals on a boat. I decided to head over to the island of Murano, famous for it’s glass, and spent a while looking at all the different fascinating glass shops. I then continued over to another island called Lido and spent a bit of time walking the calm street and enjoying a coffee, in one of the many coffee shops.

I was then going to head back to the main island, but at the last minute changed my mind and jumped on a boat to Punta Sabbioni, which I thought was another island, but it turned out to be miles away and actually back on the main land of Italy. I went for a walk to an old castle and ended up walking for 2 hours through some beautiful idyllic farmlands and eventually stumbling across the biggest beach I have ever seem in my life, with not a single person on it. I walked along the beach for a bit and ended up getting stuck inside as a fence ran along the whole length of the beach and big padlocked gates stopped anyone getting in or out. After walking for 20 minutes I had to turn around and leave the same way I got in, which turns out was a building site I wasn’t meant to enter. I eventually made my way back to the port to catch a ferry back to the mainland, for my last dinner in Italy. 

I am now on my way to the Netherlands, to stay with some friends for a while that I met in Vietnam, after a fantastic 2 weeks in Italy. I am flying out of Marco Polo Airport which is a 30 minute bus ride from the Piazzale Roma Bus Station, which is located next to the Santa Lucia Train Station on the main island. Bus number 5 heads to the airport every 30 minutes costing €8. I really did have a great time in this beautiful country and I will definitely be back someday!!

Milan

I arrived from Florence via another Flix Bus, leaving at 13:30 and arriving at the Milan Lumpugno Bus Station at 16:45, costing €12. It was a pleasant, easy journey but the scenery wasn’t amazing due to the amount of tunnels we went through.

I was never really very interested in Milan, I’m not the biggest fan of fashion and needless to say I definitely cannot afford to shop there. For this reason I only booked for 2 nights and set aside some time to watch the final three 6 Nations games. Once arriving at the Lumpugno Bus Station, the Metro Station is located directly opposite. I was one staying 2 stops away, a 5 minute walk from the Lotto Metro Stop. This was a nice area to stay, it felt safe and it has good transport links to the city center and back to the Bus Station when I needed to leave.

I woke up early in the morning and went to explore, catching the Metro to Duomo in the city center. This is the main area to explore, and like in Rome the Metro ticket cost €1.50. I however bought a 24 hour ticket for €4.50, with unlimited travel in the 24 hours. Once at Duomo you exit onto the main square of Milan’s iconic cathedral, so name Milan Duomo. It is free to enter the main building but to go into the treasury costs money. It it a very impressive building being the largest church in Italy and the fifth largest in the world.

From the cathedral I walked over to Castello Sforzesco, an old castle with a nice fountain out the front, and some gardens and parks to explore. It is an impressive castle, originally built in the 15th century, but extensive renovation work has since being carried out. I continued through the grounds round the back and side of the castle, which opens up into a beautiful park where you can lose an hour or so walking around or relaxing on one of the many benches in the sun. If you walk all the way through the park you will stumble upon the Arco della Pace an impressive archway built in the 19th century, to mark the gateway to the city, but it’s origins can be traced back to the where the original Roman walls stood. 

From here I continued north to the FourFourTwo Sports Bar, situated very near Gerusalemme Metro Station. I settled down to watch the 6 hours of rugby, mingling with the Italian fans who were there to watch Inter Milan play and lots of Irish who were celebrating the St Patrick’s weekend and who were also overjoyed that the Irish best the English. This bought an end to my time in Milan, I don’t think I really gave it the time it deserved, but for now I’m off to Venice, maybe to return to Milan someday! 

Rome

Arriving in this beautiful city from Ancona I had to get my priorities straight, Wales had beaten Ireland in the 6 Nations the day before, meaning that if England beat Scotland then they would be crowned 6 nations champions. I went out for my first walk on the streets of Rome, bypassed the Colosseum and went straight to a pub showing the game. First up before the England game was Italy v France, which had a great atmosphere in the pub and then England thrashed Scotland, what a great start!

I had 3 days in Rome altogether and I knew I could fit everything in that I wanted to do in the remaining 2 days. First up was the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. A ticket cost €12 and allows entry to both sights and the Palatino (I actually forgot to go in the Palatino… oops) and is valid for 2 days, with 1 entry into each attraction. If you are between the ages of 18-25 and are from an EU country the ticket is only €7.50. Now I missed the whole Brexit thing, being in the middle of the Gobi Desert with no WIFI, but I’m pretty sure we are leaving the EU, luckily that didn’t matter, I managed to secure the cheaper ticket.

The Colosseum, or Colosseo in Italian, is an amazing piece of architecture. Make sure you approach it from the park to the east as you will see it growing bigger and bigger through the trees, and eventually it towers over you, a spectacular sight. After your visit follow the walkway round the outside which takes you to the Roman Forum and dive inside to explore. A good tip given to me by my mum’s window cleaner (weird I know!) is to purchase your combined ticket at the Roman Forum, that way you skip the queues at the Colosseum, however I didn’t have too much trouble with the queues as its not a busy time of year! The Roman Forum is huge with a large number of historical ruins, with information boards next to each ruin to fill you in on the history of this fantastic site. 

From the Roman Forum I continued north by foot and arrived at the Pantheon, another fantastic building and very similar to the one I had just seen in Athens, just in a lot better condition. There are plenty of restaurants and cafes surrounding the Pantheon, so it’s probably a good place to stop for lunch and soak up the atmosphere. From there I walked over to the Trevi Fountain which was incredibly impressive and then I continued on to the Spanish Steps. After I walked up the Spanish Steps I took a left and followed the road into the park, where I spent a lazy afternoon recovering from the long walk and I took my time watching full grown adults falling over trying to learn to rollerblade.

I then walked over to the view point and looked down over the Piazza Del Popollo which offers great views of the city, if you time it right you can catch the sunset. I then went down the steps to view the Piazza Del Poppolo up close before catching the Metro back to my hostel to freshen up, before an amazing Italian dinner. I was staying a 10 minute walk from the Central Station or Termini which I felt was a great location. It meant I was close to the public transport links if I didn’t feel like walking, and I wasn’t far from the Colosseum. A ticket for the Metro costs €1.50 and is valid for one whole journey with a total time of 100 minutes. It means if you want to travel from the end of Line A, swap lines at Termini and continue to the end of Line B, as long as it takes under 100 minutes, it will cost the same as travelling 1 stop, €1.50.

On my final day I caught the Metro to the Vatican. The stop to get off at is Ottaviano even thought the stop before is called Lepanto Vaticano. You will see a lot of people getting off at Lepanto but it is a longer walk to the Vatican. The 2 main attractions are St Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museum, which houses the Sistine Chapel. One thing to note is you are not allowed to enter if you are wearing shorts or showing your shoulders, no matter how hot it is or what gender you are, I saw people getting turned away. Also the Museum is shut on a Sunday which can be annoying if you are only there for the weekend. When you enter St Peter’s Square you will see a huge queue with people queuing to go through, airport security style, to enter the Basilica. I decided not to join this queue and went back outside and round to the left to join the queue for the Museum.

I had about 20 touts come up to me and say that the queue was over 2 hours long and I could pay them €60 so I could jump to the front of both lines, for the Museum and the Basilica. I decided against this and joined the queue, which was down to the second corner and I was inside within 37 minutes. Now this was quite a long time to wait but it saved me tons of money and everything moves quite quickly. The entry ticket was €16 and the Museum is home to sooooooo much art and history, if you are an art lover then you could easily lose 5 hours in the museum.

If you haven’t purchased the queue jump ticket make sure you visit the Sistine Chapel last. It is an amazing piece of art and it takes a while to get through the crowds. Once you are through to the end there is a door on the right which says “Exit Strictly For Tour Groups Only” and an exit on the left which takes you back out the front. If you take the door on the left you have to walk back round to St Peter’s Square and join the queue for the Basilica. Or you can be cheeky and do what I did… I immersed myself into the middle of a tour group heading out the exit on the right and 2 minutes later found myself in St Peter’s Basilica, looking out at everyone queuing in the square.

I took my time looking around and taking in the amazing architecture before joining another queue to head up to the top of the dome. This is definitely something you have to do, as the views from the top of the whole city are amazing. You can pay €6 to walk up all 551 steps or pay €8 to get an elevator up some of the way and then walk up 301 steps. It’s not worth paying and waiting for the elevator, the first 250 steps are small, wide and its an easy climb, its after that things get narrow. The final 301 steps are quite steep, tight and tricky but I thought it was fantastic. There are a few places to stop and rest if needed and the views from the top make it all worth while. After I took a few snaps I made the descent before walking back into the center of Rome along the river, appreciating my final walk in this beautiful city.

From Rome I’m catching a bus to Florence, supposedly one of the most beautiful cities in Italy, it will do well to beat Rome