Gelatos, gondolas and most importantly pizzas

June 2019 - Italy

Italy was always a country in Europe which I wanted to visit for a long time. I went with some friends this time and we visited 3 different cities, travelling between the cities we took train which we booked online before as this was the ideal option (a highlight of our trip). Another option was considering take coaches, but the journey time was double.

Milan

The first stop was in Milan, we stayed here for 2 nights the first thing I craved to eat was gelato as it’s Italian ice-cream which is a bit softer than normal ice cream. I got mango and tiramisu flavoured which was quite tasty. The weather was nice seeing as the Europe heatwave was starting around this time. When getting around on transport we got a day pass which cost 4.50 euros which was rather cheap compared to like London.

Places to visit

One of the must visit places in Milan is the cathedral which is hard to miss. When choosing a tour consider including the terrace as you can get a nice view.

As football fans, we visited the AC Milan stadium which was good, apart from the green pitch being removed at the time for a concert.

Food

Close to the cathedral, there is a little bakery called lunini which serves panzerotti which is a street food in Milan. You can choose fried or unfried ones I chose strawberry and chocolate flavoured it tasted so sweet. It cost 2.70 euros.

Venice

One thing we would remember about Venice was arriving there, we kind of got lost and encountered a small area where there were mosquitos which was so unusual in a European country, but it was only in this small area (sadly we did get bit). But as a whole we enjoyed Venice as the best city out of the three visited. One of the interesting things about Venice is that water transport within the city so its mainly boats seeing as it’s a city built on water which was so interesting.

Places to visit

The best place we visited in Venice was Lido island which was a small boat ride away from the main Venice island. The main reason why we visited here was because of the beach. It was so nice and relaxing few hours.

Another must when in Venice is having the gondola ride this was through the grand canal and smaller canals.

Food

Spaghetti was always on my list to try in Italy, I tried seafood spaghetti which include shrimps, shellfish, prawns and clamps which I’ve never tried before. It tasted so nice and would highly recommend it tho I wasn’t sure how to eat the shrimps.

A weird thing we figured out was that they don’t give student discounts but Bengali discount in one of the Bengali Italian restaurants we ate at, not sure if it’s an actual thing within the country or if they were joking with us.

Rome

The final stop on our trip was Rome. This was the first time I stayed at an Airbnb which was a nice experience. An unusual thing which I noticed at the supermarket was that you had to scan your barcode from your receipt to exit the self-service checkouts.

Places to visit

The colosseum is a world-famous attraction and it was essential that we visited it. From the outside it was so nice, but I felt the inside was a bit dull. When visiting make sure you take your EU driving licence, as you can get a huge discount on entry ticket from 12 euros down to 2 euros which was amazing.

Food

There was so many more local food which I wanted to try in Rome.

Trapizzino is a street food which was like pizza base with the filling in the middle which tasted so nice, the best part was that it was only 4 euros.

Suppli was a smaller snack which has a breaded coating on the outside but tasted chewy due to the cheese and had rice inside.

We had pizza here, think it was our 2nd pizza in Italy. It cost 10 euros. This was really tasty and I would recommend the place we visited;Cantina & cucina. I had the capricciosa pizza, which had tomato, mozzarella, cooked ham, egg, olives, artichoke and mushrooms.

The final food which I would highly recommended is tiramisu which is a local dessert, I got the strawberry flavoured it tasted like trifle and sweet.

Overall, I felt my trip in Italy was one to remember for weird and wonderful reasons. There are other parts of Italy I do want to visit, for example; Naples and Amalfi coast.

Shugs