Monteriggioni

This entrance might be a little bit different to my other pages, some things refer to the game Assassins creed, I know kind of lame, or not ?

Up there on the hill is the place we wanted to get around Siena.
Like I said in my last post we both like the stories about Assassins creed and thought it might be great to be for once in the home of the Auditore family. I know sounds a bit stupid, but we don't care.

We had to take the bus from Colle di Val D'elsa to get here, eight kilometres is to far for walking in the summer heat, also did not find anything to rent a bike. From the bus stop it was not a long walk to get up to the town, still the same size for hundreds of years within the same walls.

In front of the gate we had to wait for a while until the area within the walls was completely loaded and we could get in. Bernd was so excited of being here so he had some problems waiting outside.

Monteriggioni is an amazing town. Not very big, it doesn't have to be. It felt there like nothing big has changed during the past years or centuries, OK the houses got fixed on some points, they got windows and new stairs to get on top of the walls, but it feels like you can still feel the history.

From the top of the walls we got a great view above the Toscana and stayed there for a few more minutes. What an amazing country.

Also on the walls Bernd wanted to try his climbing skills, did not look so hard in the game. But it's not so easy to climb up a vertical wall, at least Bernd did not get hurt during he was trying.

Later he thought he would check his jumping skills, thinking of jumping from a wall on top of a roof. After taking the picture up there and talking about his idea I got him to the point that it won't be a good idea to try such a long jump, for sure he would have get seriously injured. Ohh and Bernd kind of forced me into showing him my climbing skills. Especially cause he knows that I've been climbing in the past.

We stayed so long at Monteriggioni, so there was no bus going to Colle anymore, so we had to get on the long way back. Eight kilometre (five miles) doesn't sound that far, especially when you're used taking the car. On our way we tried to hitchhike but no one stopped, only one guy waved for a moment.
So it got pretty late when we got to our nice town for the night. To celebrate our coming back we bought a pizza (still some guys left in Italy making good pizzas) and had our diner near the elevator, a good place to stay at and seeing the town below us.

Colle di Val D'elsa, unexpected great place to see

The big plan was to get from Milan to Siena stay there during the night and make a trip to Monteriggioni, following some tracks of Ezio Auditore, maybe we have been playing too much Assassins creed (-> wonna know more ?)
Plans didn't work as expected. Because on the 16th of August, the day we got to Siena there is the Palio di Siena (-> wonna know more ?), so the hostels were booked out and couchsurfing was again not working, seems on this point we got very bad luck in Italy.

But fortune lead us to beautiful Colle di Val D'elsa, a old town 8km away from Monteriggioni. We got a hotel up there in the old part of town, great to be in such a nice and great town.
To get there we got to take the Bus from Siena, cause we did not get any informations about the next stops I asked a woman sitting next to me if she could tell me when we got to leave the bus. As I wished she did and we got off the bus. We shouldn't have trusted her. She told us to leave at the first stop in the area of the town, still four kilometres away from the centre. Fortune came back, a nice Italian girl also left the bus and as we talked to her she offered us a ride to the centre (luck-bands still working ?), in town we got on a elevator to reach the old town and headed to our hotel.

After settling up we walked around in Colle di Val D'elsa and at night we ate a very good Langnese ahh Lasagne (kind of a running gag, a few weeks ago I put a Lasagne in the oven, when Maria came in she asked me what I'm cooking and I said Langnese, after a while of laughing she said that she also want have a Langnese) and enjoyed the sunset above town.

The town with the leaning tower

It felt like a must be to visit Pisa. Very famous for the leaning tower and nothing else. Well but also other cities are only famous for one little thing, so it's not a big problem.
Since we left Milan in the evening and arrived late at night in Pisa first we went to the hostel. Cause we spent the last hours in Milan walking around and having this train trip Bernd fell into his bed until we finished our business at the reception.

We got a very nice place to stay at, with several sleeping rooms, in the centre of town, close to the train station and a big room for relaxing and maybe meeting people. In the room I met a nice girl from Miami and chatted with her for a longer time, also helped her setting up her next travels. Too bad that she was leaving next morning, otherwise we could have explored Pisa together.

Next day we started doing what we did the other days before, we got outside the hostel and started walking. And I say, there are many interesting things you might see, so not only a leaning tower.

In the park I had got kind of a flashback to my childhood, during we were walking through. In my childhood we traveled several times to Italy and I can still remember the smell of the pine trees.

Of course our way let us to the leaning tower standing next to the cathedral, there were felt like thousands of tourists around acting in a strange way. Trying to take a picture nobody has taken before. Was quite entertaining looking at them.

And there was the tower, did not look as leaning as I always thought. And no I did not fix it the minute I got there or made some photoshop action on the picture.

Bernd did not like the tower and got mad about it. A famous building and when you get there you feel kind of bored. Well that were his feelings, to get rid of all this anger he did something he should not have done.

It was not a good idea what he did to the tower, luckily we could get out of there without getting trampled to death from the crowd fleeing from the place. And also did not get caught by the police.

So they do not have the famous tower anymore, maybe they now get famous for their ruins of the formerly leaning tower.

Oh and one other thing I got to tell about our stay in Pisa. Before Bernd smashed the tower I got this strange idea to do something special around here. Because some friends started saying to me that I'm like Casanova, I was thinking to try my luck. Don't know if it was just me being nice or the luck sent to me by the African luck arm-band I got, but it worked.

Milan, Mailand or Milano

Next stop of our journey is the lovely Milan. We stayed at a small private hostel near to the centre of the town. The guy running this business is very frindly and gave us some good informations about Milan. First we went to the cathedral, before we arrived at the square in front of the cathedral we saw a woman playing on a piano placed on the street. She was playing pretty good so we sat down to listen to her.
A few seconds later we realised that she also was only a tourist passing by and the piano belonging to another guy. After she stopped playing he started and it was even better. Well he's a professional, so he should be good.

After listening for a while to the musician we took a closer look at the cathedral, a pretty famous place in Milan. Also great from the inside, this time Bernd was too afraid to take a pic, because there were too many guards around. So we only took some outside of the cathedral.

Milan has some big plans in the future, 2015 the expo will be here. The citizens already started decorating the city, feels strange to start in 2013. Flags are hanging around and statues of 'Feed the people' standing on several places.

A few metres away from the statues in front of the castle I could not stop Bernd before he could jump into the fountain. The tourists around were a totally surprised to see someone swimming in the fountain, usually only kids fall into the fountain, but they also do not swim in there.

What else we got to tell about Milan is, that it felt like every business is on vacation right now. We passed by at many many closed shops, bars and restaurants, they did not like that the owner gave up his business.

and we met two nice girls from Kazakhstan and enjoyed some hours hanging out together with them.

Next stop Padova

Before we started I was not thinking about traveling to Padova, but after sending some couch requests to the area in Venice and taking a look at some pics of that town we decided to get there too.
So we did not spent our second day of the journey in Venice.
Padova is about 35 km west of Venice and it does not take too long with the train to get there.

When we left the train like most time, when I'm traveling I had to remember the words Bilbo Baggins said/sang:
"You step onto the road, and don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to"
So we left the train station and started walking. Our feet directly lead us to the centre and many old buildings and churches. From the outside the churches look like huge brick houses, but from the inside they got a nice decoration with very high ceilings.

Bernd wanted to have a picture of him in a church so we made sure that no one would see us, I did not want to be disrespectful. But when Bernd wants something he never stops bugging you , so he got it.

In the evening we got back to Venice and Bernd was totally exhausted and immediately felt into the bed and slept. So I left him in the room and got on the roof terrace, thought that this evening might be not as interesting like the last ones because the girl from Berlin left that morning.

But in the end the evening felt better than the last one. First I spent a lot of time talking with a nice girl from South Korea, in the room also had some good conversations with my roommates, one from Mexico and the other one from LA. It felt kind of strange that the Korean girl and the guy from Mexico learned German at school, I never had that feeling that German would be such a common world language.
   

The real journey begins

Time for small travelings is over. Now we took the train from the Munich central station to S. Lucia in Venice. As expected the train did not start in time, as usual. Some things never change ...

On our train ride we could not only enjoy the view on the Alps. Bernd found a little Violett friend, talked to her very long. During that time I talked to a nice couple from Bozen, they were going to Venice to visit some friends, they gave some good hints about Venice and some other nice places in Italy.

 After arriving in Venice it took a while to find the hostel, address was not really helpful. But at least we could also see some places in Venice. In my room I met one of the two other travelers I had to share the room. He was a friendly guy from China, who is studying in Paris.   The Hostel has no luxury but is a nice Palace to stay, especially there is a big terrace on top of the building giving a great view above Venice. In the evening I met there a nice girl from Berlin and spent some hours chatting with her, Bernd was to tired so he got to bed before I went to the terrace.

On our first complete day in Venice we spent a lot of time walking around in town. We found several blind alleys and thousands of channels. Also some sights, like the Rialto bridge and the San Marco place. At the San Marco place we spent a long time at the pier relaxing and watching the gondoliers and other ships driving around, well and also the view we got.