Even though it was gloomy and raining, F and I went out for a quick walk around the city centre. Most of the main sites seem to span from the main train station, along via Roma, and up to Palazzo Reale. We visited most of the cities main squares in a hour or two. I guess the city centre is quite small.

We only spent 2 nights in Turin but that was more than enough for me. It’s a very quiet and older (the people) city, quite different from Bologna, and not really that interesting.

Turin

The city is bustling with people, mainly young people, with most of them spending their time shopping, eating, or drinking coffee in one of the many cafes. My kind of city.

The most striking feature of the architecture in the city are the porticos which can be found on most of the buildings in the inner city. This was a building requirement put in place by the town planners way back when but I’m not sure why. It does make the buildings seem more grandiose and it’s convenient for staying dry when walking around the city on a wet day.

Bologna has around 40 towers around the city including one half finished leaning tower just near the centre squares, Piazza Nettuno and Piazza Maggiore. If you go up the hill on the outskirts of the city you get a great view of the towers and the old city. You can also see how polluted and hazy the city is, not unlike most Italian cities.

Bologna

However, it seems that having the Australian visa in her passport makes it easier for her to now get other visas. So she applied for a Schengen visa at the Italian Consulate and got it almost immediately. We thought it would take a least a couple of months so were caught off guard a little. The big problem being, where was she going to stay? We only have a studio apartment.

We quickly gave notice on out apartment but I’ve yet to start looking for a new place. I hate the thought of having to call people to look at overpriced apartments and then have them laugh at my flimsy dossier. The Particulier a Particulier comes out tomorrow so I really should start looking then.

Safura’s visa stated she had to enter Italy before the end of August. So I booked flights for us to go to Rome with Vueling and we checked into one of the crappiest hotels I’ve ever stayed in, the Hotel Primavera. It was filthy with the most disgusting towels I’ve ever seen. At €90 for a triple room it was way overpriced. The old hag working there refused to return my passport until I paid extra for the air conditioning which had already been included in the price. Only after I yelled at her did she return it. What a cow. I must admit the location was fantastic though. Right next to Piazza Navona and a short walk to the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, The Vatican, and Trastevere.

Ferbent and I spent one night in Rome and then he went to Bari to pick up Safura. Her ferry had been cancelled so she got a later one and different arrive until 10pm. They then got a lift back to Rome and knocked on my room door at 5am, exhausted. The stupid hotel doesn’t have 24hr reception so they were stuck outside for a while ringing the bell until they got the owner out of bed. He was less than impressed, not surprisingly. If the 2 new mobile phones had arrived which I had ordered 3 weeks earlier then we wouldn’t have had that problem. That’ll teach me to buy something from a French website.

The 3 of us then did the hop on hop off bus tour and showed Safura around Rome. I think that was my 5th trip to Rome which is really more than enough. I do love the city but I’ve seen everything now. I couldn’t get over how many tourists were around, especially those in groups. I was really disappointed with the food. I always remember the food in Rome being great. This time it was mediocre at best. It was cheap though. Around €5 for a pizza margharita and sometimes as low as €3.

After a few days we got a slow, crappy train to Nice and I was happy to be out of dirty, heavily polluted Rome. Ok, the pollution was probably due to the numerous fires surrounding the city but anyway…

Before he went to Albania we spent a few days together in Milan. We’ve got some friends there which explains why I’ve been to Milan at least 5 times. There can’t be any other explanation as it’s one of the crappiest cities in the world.

Milan has the worst weather ever. In summer it gets extremely hot and extremely humid. I’m from Perth which is a very hot city but it’s generally very dry. It’s the humidity which I can’t stand. We briefly considered living in Milan before moving permanently to France and I’m so glad we didn’t do it. It would have been a nightmare.

Reasons to never visit Milan:

1. It’s too hot.
2. It’s too humid.
3. Milan is expensive (not when compared to Paris though).
4. The pollution is a nightmare.
5. There are no trees anywhere. Like nowhere!
6. There only seems to be 2 parks in the entire city.
7. There are no places to sit down. So forget about sitting down in Piazza Duomo or any piazza or street or wherever.
8. My friends are too cheap to eat out even though you can get pizza for €5.

Reasons to visit Milan:

1. Great shopping.
2. Great ice cream.

Well, the shopping isn’t better than any other big city, it’s just different and you can obviously get great ice cream anywhere in Italy. So don’t bother visiting Milan.

I had to put all these reasons in writing so I remember to never ever go to Milan again, no matter who I know there.