recent travels

As much as I'm finally starting to love Parma for all its little quirks and traditions, its winding backstreets, extremely fashionable inhabitants and constantly terrible weather (though let's not dwell on that as I'm currently staring out my window and seeing beautiful blue skies and sunshine), there's nothing quite like escaping the City.

Armed with my amazing friend Meg and a different handful of people each trip, we managed to fit in three visits to three very diverse cities over the past week and a bit.

Torino

Having started out our three-hour train journey with blue skies and sunshine shining promisingly through our window, when we actually got to Torino that had all gone... We were left with some seriously huge and grand pieces of architecture placed on wide streets with every single building towering above us.

The place itself seemed lovely, but we didn't get to see too much of it. We were too busy savouring the Piedmontese cuisine and wondering how on earth we were supposed to get into the Gardens (which we eventually worked out were closed for the winter...)

We did get to ride up in a lift and see the (extremely foggy) view of the entire city.

After several treats of tasty panini and some gorgeous Venchi ice-cream, we left Turin feeling happy and exhausted.

Milano

Having already spent two days and a night in the city, and all four of us travellers having already been there before, we were determined to do something a bit different in Milan that none of us had done before. We climbed up to the top of the Duomo and explored the gothic spires and the strange walkways on the roof and admired the view over the Piazza del Duomo - seeing hundreds of tourists being conned and pigeons flying about left, right and centre.

From there, upon my very very eager request, we had a wee explore round the city, ate a spot of lunch in the least touristy-looking place we could find (good Milanese food, and we were spoken to only in Italian!) and then headed off to the Museo La Scala. 

A €4 entry and if you're lucky, like we were that day, we got a good sneak peek at the dress rehearsal of Verdi's Nabucco happening right on stage before our very eyes. I was grinning from ear to ear!

After another wander, we entered the Pinacoteca di Brera, exiting only 20 minutes later feeling totally robbed of the €7 euros we had spent to go in (our friend remaining happy with the fact he'd got to see a Correggio) and wondering if we'd missed a bit...

Too shy to go back in and check, we headed home, via Mcdonalds for a cheeky cheeseburger - after all we'd spent the whole day being sophisticated and cultured!!

Cremona

The home of Stradivarius the famous violin-maker, this old city was full to brim with proud mentions of his name, beautiful old buildings and some very brilliant sunshine and warm weather for a change!

We only really managed to do one main thing aside from generally walking around, as we'd only come to the city for the afternoon, which was climb the big tower next to the Duomo.

We finished climbing the 500 or so steps with hardly any breath left in us and just in time to see the start to a spectacular sunset.

Feeling like we'd achieved something with our day (which had originally been intended as a hangover day), we found ourselves a cosy café where we had our afternoon treat of Chai tea and hot chocolate and then caught the train home.

Having written this post, though the places are so different, it's dawned on me that it's very difficult to visit a place in Italy and not want to climb up to the highest possible point and gaze over your surroundings. My legs will thank me for it later...