Italy part VI Milan

We had Breakfast in our hotel in Venice and at around 8 a.m.  drove towards Milan. It was around four plus hours journey.  We stopped  in between in a local Italian store which was selling local items like  cheese, olive oil, chocolates, etc.  I found things were quite expensive.
The Bus stopped  at a High Way Petrol Station.  The Driver could not start the Bus.  Some Snag.  It was around 11.30 a.m. and everybody waited patiently  The driver was trying to repair and was calling for mechanics.  It was 12.30 noon by then.  We were to have an Italian Lunch in Milan.   Our guide took  the decision and cancelled the lunch, and asked  us to pick up lunch  in the high way restaurant.  Lucky we got stuck where we could get some lunch.  We could get some grated carrots, boiled beans, boiled potato, fruits, cake and that was indeed a good lunch.

                                          A vine yard on our way to Milan.

By then Driver had managed to repair the bus and  so we started towards Milan.   Milan looked like a industrial city (outskirts). City is modern with wide roads. In outskirts the apartments are ugly.

                                                         A fountain near the fort

We went straight to the city centre to see the Castle. It is huge and a moat must have existed. There is a Museum but by now I am used to the idea of not looking towards the Museum due to paucity of time.
From now on it is a completely walking tour.

                                                             The fort

                                                                  Inside the Fort.

                                                              The Moat?

       
                                                          Outside the Fort
                                 
                                                       

   
                                              I found a Niche for myself in the fort.

 We went  by walk to the Milan Cathedral which is called the Milan Duomo.  Oh My! It is so beautifully and artistically built.  The roads are Cobbled roads   and no vehicles are allowed.  Only cycles and modern cycle rickshaws  are there  which looked very very cute.

                                   
                                                       The Lovely Cobbled Road.

                                 Should I call this modern Cycle Rickshaw....

The square in front of the Cathedral leads to a shopping Mall.   Should I call it a  a road.  Wow beautiful buildings on both sides housing the world's best brands.  The street  has a high roof and looks nice.

                                    The Closed Roof Street  or is it a Shopping place

                                                        The lovely flooring of this Street.

                                                    Just outside that Street.

                                               The Branded shops on The Street.

  This Street  leads to the Opera house and City hall.  Opposite the hall there is a big   statue of Leonardo DA Vinci.

                                                                 The  Town Hall            

                                                    Leonardo Da Vinci's Statue

 The whole area has a laid back look and at the same time happening place. We could see relaxed tourists walking along with trendy youngsters.   People sit in street corners and in the  big court yard in front of the cathedral.   So many shops are there  you can just shop if only you have the money and the inkling to own a branded product.

                                                                   The Duomo.

                                     
                                                               Side View of the Duomo.

                                                            The Pinnacles.

We went inside the Cathedral and repair work was going on or should I say restoration.
.

                                       The red light showing The Nail.

                                                                   The Nail with red light.

                                                                   Inside the Duomo.
It is supposed that the Nail of the Cross in which Jesus Christ was crucified is kept in this place and it is marked inside the cathedral with a red light near the roof.  Once in a year it is taken out for public display.

The Expo 2015 is going to be held in Milan and city is getting prepared for it,  spruced up and all.  I remembered Expo 70 happening in Tokyo when we were in College.

                                              In this Road corner we sat  watching the crowd

 A shop which I liked .(to see)

                                                           The Ferrari Store.

   When we were sitting we watched a group of Hare Rama Hare Krishna group  singing  bajans on the                                       road with tabla and all.

We  just walked around and sat in a street corner,  enjoying the  hustle bustle around.
It was time to meet up our group and  go for dinner.

We had a Chinese dinner and as usual Nalini came to our help.  The hotel where we stayed was in a place called R.H.O. an hours drive from the city.

Next day was our last day and our flight was in the night.  The guide suggested that he would take us to a near by city in another country Switzerland  if all agree.  We paid for the charges to go to that place which was around 40 kms from Milan . We were excited.

We vacated the hotel after breakfast all packed and set..  We left around 9 a.m.

Lake Como in Italy.

 We crossed Lake Como in the outskirts of Milan just before entering Swiss.


There was no hassles in the border as we had Shenzhen visa  . (only we needed visa.   Malaysian citizens do not need visa to Shenzhen countries or even to London)

Only the driver and the guide had to get down and the Bus just passed  through to Swiss.  Without problem we entered  another country.

                                                    Lake Logano in Swiss.

There is so much difference between Italy and Swiss.  This is much more cleaner and  lovely houses and lovely terrain.   It is a hilly terrain where we enter and has a very huge lake called Lake Logano.  The city which is also called Logano is very  cute with   up and down  roads.   As usual the Driver managed the big Bus so well in the ups and downs of the roads especially the sharp turnings.

Chocolate Fountain.

We were taken to a chocolate factory  and we bought some nice chocolates .
We proceeded  to the Logano City Center which is a lovely small town center on the banks of the lake.   We both started  walking and others went  to the super market for shopping.   The road lead us to a  lovely park with lots of flower beds.  We just walked  around  and went  to a Pizzeria for our lunch and had  Vegetarian pizza our last Italian food of our trip.

                                                       The Swiss Knife.                  

The roads were up and down and we saw roads were connected by steps.  Imagine coming down from home and forgetting something important .  What a pain it would be to climb back.

 We had such stone steps in N.R. Colony (not this long)  where we lived when we were children, connecting our road 3rd Main Road and 4th Main Road.  Unfortunately I heard recently they demolished those steps   and in that space where the steps were,  a building has been built.  Really we don't know how to preserve lovely things.

                                      On a path way on the shore of the lake.

                                                                 Garden.

                                                Waiting for my Pizza in the Pizzeria.

We  joined  the group after lunch and the Bus took  us to a big outlet mall inside Swiss  near the border.
Such a huge crowd was there .  It must be a very popular shopping place.   We bought  a Samsonite suitcase and Puma running shoes.  We bought  the 'must buy' Swiss Knife and also the famous Swiss Bell.   Had a wonderful Coffee (of course Italian) in the mall.  Tax rebate was given for people who bought goods in Single receipt for more than 300 Swiss franks.  The Tax rebate was given in Italy also for purchase of goods bought  for certain amount and refund was given.
We came directly to the Airport in Milan from Switzerland.
We were little early.   After check in,  there was a big queue in the immigration  and it was  really very stuffy.
We had  some Fries and Yogurt in the Airport  before boarding the Plane.  It was not very expensive.

 Our Change of Flight was  in Doha (Qatar Airways).  Airport though big  was not good.  Services are very bad.   Not enough Rest Rooms.  Coffee was so expensive 5 U$  for one small cup.  That too not good.  (Oh I had  already started missing my Italian Coffee)
Long winding Bus journey to board the Aircraft just like Dubai.
We reached home in KL and just crash with exhaustion.

Italy Part V Venice (Venize) The

It was  Wednesday,  18th September 2013. We had breakfast in hotel and started towards Venize.   Venice is written as Venize on all sign boards.   It was about 4 to 5 hours drive  from Pisa.  The terrain was hilly and traffic very heavy.  The traffic consisted  mainly   of  heavy trucks.  There were two lanes, but the lane width was very  small.  It could hardly hold two buses, but our  bus driver managed to over take the trucks and it was so narrow,  the two vehicles almost  touched each other.  One  needs real skill to drive in Italy .   The Bus  took  turns in impossible turning in impossible angle.

This road into Venice was very nice 

                        On our way into Venice  (to take the Water Taxi)  from Mainland.

We reached the main land in Venice which is known as Mestre.   The Bus  crossed the Bridge and stopped in the parking lot.   We walked down to take the water taxi to the Island (s) the famous Venice.

     
                                                                     water taxi

                                             The buildings on the side of the huge water body.

 The Water was quite wide and very much unlike what I had imagined.with buildings ,  that too, huge ones on both sides, all solid Marble/Brick buildings many of them churches.

                    How I wish I was the one sitting on the bench and reading a nice book

                                       Some more buildings on both side of the water.

 We were dropped at the main island called  the San Marco Island.

On the opposite shore was a small Island, on which stood a building which is the Art Gallery where the famous Venice Film Festival held every year.

              Art Gallery.  This figure was a temporary exhibit .

                            This is where we got down from the Water Taxi .

                                                               The Doge Palace


The Main island where we landed has  the Doge Palace which used to be the Palace of the Head of State of Venice.  It was huge.

Saint Mark Basilica

 There is  St. Mark's Basilica which is on a place called St. Mark's Square. St. Mark's tomb is inside the Basilica and his body was smuggled out of Alexandria ,  where he had died and brought here.

                          Side building in St. Marks Square.  This was Napoleon's Palace.

                          The other side building in the St. Marks Square.

                                                 The St. Mark's Square.

                                                                  Our Group.

This place  is a huge square and one side stands the Basilica.  The other three sides have lovely buildings.  When Napoleon occupied Venice , one of the three buildings was his Palace.

 A Small Lane.

                                                A Lane with Wooden Planks.

                                                         The Water Ways.(Canals)
Inside the Island there are lot of small lanes.  Some  of the lanes have wooden planks to walk on.  Some of the lanes are just water ways the famous Canals of Venice.  The island gets flooded quite often and water level increases due to high tide.  This whole water body is kind of back waters.  The water is quite dirty but not very!!(dirty) .   There are lot of small bridges to cross these water ways.


We were taken to a glass blowing factory.  There was demonstration and the artist handled the red hot glass with ease with his tools and he made a horse in a jiffy.  The glass things displayed were quite expensive.


My dream of going in the boat which are called Gondolas came true.  One Gondola can have six people and it was quite expensive.  Alas the person who was rowing the boat in the narrow water did not burst into a song like they show in  Hindi movie.  I  was later told you have to shell out more money if you want a boat in which the boat man sings.!  (I am not sure if this is true).

The Gondolas.

We are all ready to start.

                    A song from the boatman would have made this more memorable.

                            We are going very  close to the walls that too broken ones.

Thanks to this lady who sat on the opposite side and took so many of our pictures.

                       The Balcony has some greens.but House needs some repairs??

Watch out for the traffic coming.  Mirror on the Road... Canal

On both sides  of the water ways , 3/4  storied buildings were there.   Some of them were shops.  and some were houses where we could see clothes hanging to dry  and some had lovely flower  plants in the balcony.    The boat man brought us near the large  water body and then took a turn into another lane (water way ) and brought us back in a different route.  There was traffic jam with lots of boats coming one behind the other.  It was funny looking at people who were watching us from the Bridge.
 It was an unique experience the twenty plus minutes ride, though the reality could not match my imagination of a Venice Gondola ride.
But it is worth the ride and one should not miss it.

                                               The beautiful Masks

                          Lovely . could only take pictures with the wares.

                            Again only picture was taken nothing bought.

Another Church.

Dogi Palace.

The Winged Lion seen here is the symbol of Venice.

                            A Statue .  we were waiting here to meet our group .

There were innumerable shops selling Masks, Souvenirs, Beads, Glass items and what not.
Masks seem to be the main  souvenir in Venice and some of the masks were extraordinarily beautiful. I just bought one , but had to be very careful while packing as it is very delicate.
We had lunch in a local Italian restaurant and the food as usual was good the vegetable soup, etc.

We roamed about on our own for some time.  All the places are extremely crowded and we could not cover the whole place.  We did not have  time to cross over to the other side of the big water body and stayed put in the San Marco Island..  I wish we had more time so that I could have explored the whole place and just could keep  on walking crossing over the Bridges.

I was happy my dream of visiting Venice was fulfilled.  It was evening and we had to return to  main land by water taxi .  The water taxis were crowded .
We returned to the mainland and took our  Bus to the  city to have dinner in a Chinese place.  It was very  crowded.    We had to wait   long for  our turn.
Luckily I could get some rice and I had wisely brought some edible powder (puliogere powder)  given by my friend  Nalini  who always gives me when I go to Bangalore.  I could eat some boiled vegetable also but not as good as Italian vegetarian food.
We had to drive another one hour away from Venice to  our place of stay.  We stayed quite far from the main attractions as those places are expensive.

                                                    A Nice Divider outside the Hotel.

So we have come to almost the last lap of our tour and we are to start for Milan the next morning.