Our Italy trip started from Venice, the city of love!

Venice is all about the waterfront and the boat and gondola ride, that is beautiful and well preserved for many many years now. Though due to global warming the buildings are sinking 1mili meter every year. We passed through many historical buildings on our gondola ride. Marco Polo house was one of the them. Well, though our gondola rider did give lot of information, like I expected he did not sing for us 😦

We loved our first authentic Italian lunch. After wandering around for sometime we bought a few souvenirs and decided to return to our hotel at mestre.

Dinner was as usual an exploration of good place to eat around our hotel. We bumped into a very quiet place ” Gustoclick” the food was good and our server younis from morocco was very patient and understood and spoke good English. He was yet another person we met who loved Indians and bollywood. Probably thats the reason for extra attention and good service 😉

Our journey to Florence from Venice was our first euro rail experience. The Trenitalia took us 2 hours from Venice to Firenze (Florence) it was a very pleasant experience.

Florence is another beautiful city, quaint, happy and colourful. The city is very well connected with rail and road service.

Our hotel staff at Florence were very warm and helpful, specially Ale the bubbly young lady. They were very excited to help us and also helped us find some very good place to dine authentic Tuscany dinner.

Our first food stop was at the organic icecream shop Barroccino. This sure was a fun experience with children around and the staff enthusiatic to make us taste all the flavours. Their ice-creams are made using fresh organic fruits, milk and cream. They are churned everyday at the ice cream laboratory.

Next stop was dinner at Osteria. This place serves authentic Tuscany food. They have innumerable collections of wine and meat. We got to taste reindeer meat at Osteria. This place is totally packed, but we were lucky to reach there early, before 7.30pm and also had Ale make a reservation for us. The food was authentic and nothing like the Italian/Tuscany we get in India. I understand and appreciate the difference in taste now. How every food is tweeked for local palate.

Next morning was our trip to one of the wonders of the world The leaning tower of Pisa! And my God, this magnificent structure is mind blowing. The cathedrals around are something to watch too. And if Italy is your only destination, there is some good bargain shopping one could do outside the tower campus.

Rome the most famous city of Italy was our next and final destination in Italy. This time we decided to ride the first class train. Well, the first class is no different from the 2nd class, expect for that the seat cover’s are made of leather, but all said well it was an experience and we enjoyed it, as our train touchdown the 240 speed, it was rather exciting.

The train station of Rome is like a huge airport, it is crowded and one can get lost for a while.

Important information that we wanted at the station and could not get and I think I should share it here to help others. There is bus service on the left side of the main entrance when you get out to go to Fiumicino. Many of them prefer hotels and B&B in Fiumicino because it is close to the airport, it is a country side and you get better places to stay there.

The place that we stayed Smallville was a amazing place. The rooms, bathrooms and view was mind blowing. Our super host Danny and Franco were the best, very warm host who offered to drive us around and also very enthusiastic to show us around. I cannot thank them enough for their hospitality. Will miss you guys for sure and you will remain always in our memories of Rome.

We preferred to take the hop-on hop-off in Rome since it covered most of the places we wanted to see.

Our first stop was the Colosseum, this magnificent historical monument is never to be missed.

The Vatican and the Trevi fountain makes our trip worthwhile.

After the hop on hop off we decided to drive back to Fiumicino and spend the evening at the Mediterranean sea front. Our host Danny and Franco were were excited to take us on a drive to the seafront.

Stroll on the beach and seafood dinner with awesome sunset was an excellent finale to our Italy trip.