At the Vatican City

First up in the morning, I headed to the Vatican City to see the St Peter’s Square,  St. Peter’s Basilica and Vatican Museums. I was quite intrigued by The Vatican City. It is kind of in  middle of  the city of Rome, but not part of EU (but they do take Euros though!). It happens to be the smallest country of the world.

St Peter’s Square is a huge place with the obelisk, wonderful columns and statues all around. Don't bother planning a special trip to the square if you're planning to visit the Basilica -- you get to check it out while you're in line! 

First I headed towards the St Peters Basilica. Thankfully, there were almost no crowds (perhaps 9am was too early) . I walked right in. It is  brig and magnificent. The interior must have millions of dollars of statues, paintings, mosaics and marble columns. The main attraction for me was the Michelangelo's Pieta

Thereafter was a visit to the Vatican Museums. It was still early in the day and while there were lots of tourists, I would not call it crowded and luckily I got in with minimal queuing. Full cost was €16. Vatican Museum is absolutely huge, with various different rooms filled with mostly paintings and sculptures.They were all great, with amazing awe inspiring artwork. But, t o be honest, they started to look the same halfway through. Anyways the main attraction obviously being the Sistine Chapel and Raphael Rooms.  If the Sistine Chapel is your main goal, expect to have to walk forever to see it, which they strategically place at the end. 

Apparently photography is not allowed in the Sistine chapel ...but I didn't know till I snapped this shot and few more.

The famous Raphael bits are toward the end, i.e this fresco: 

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Rome in 48 hours

Decided to do Rome in 48 hours even-though just 2 days in Rome wouldn't be doing it justice. Landed in Fuimicino airport early morning, which is quite far off from Rome centre. I took the fast Leonardo Express train into the main city station (Roma Termini). My Hotel was well situated just couple blocks off the Termini station, and a short walk to all of Rome’s central sights. I  didn’t use any public transport  in the city, pretty much did walk extensively in order to see everything I wanted in a short period of time. 

Crossing the road in Rome is not something for faint hearteds..loads of tiny scooters paying scant attention to the road signals, treating them as suggestions, taxis  who honk at every opportunity... You just have to "Go for it!" and the vehicles will stop.

On the first day I explored the Colosseum and Roman forums , Pantheon,  Spanish Steps and Piazza Navona areas. First, a visit to the Colosseum, perhaps the one must see attraction. The Colosseum ticket includes Palatine Hill and the Roman Forums, which are more ruins. 

After spending the entire morning here, it was lunch time, so time to try some Roman food. Not sure where to go and to avoid the typical tourist trap restaurants that are around the Colosseum, I decided to head back to the main train station, Termini. Termini, being a major transport hub, has many cafes and restaurants that are open 24/7.  We went into one of the pizza restaurants. As my hotel was near Termini, I  ended up coming here for dinner also. Termini at night is dodgy...Lots of shady characters, policemen walking around, homeless people, beggars, all the weird and wonderful things one might expect from a big city train station. Not the best location to wander around aimlessly.

Afternoon, it was to the world famous Trevi fountain. An extremely huge and striking fountain, it is perhaps the world's biggest wishing well. Loads of people and everyone seemed to be more interested in throwing coins into the fountain! Walked around the area surrounding the Trevi Fountain and towards the Spanish Steps, lots of shopping and eating around this area. 

The pantheon was up after that- basically a church with a huge hole in the middle. It was fascinating to take a step off the main streets and explore the side squares and alleys around this area

Next day I visited the Vatican City. The Blog post is here

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Bellagio and around Lake Como,Italy

Lake Como is approximately 30 miles north of Milan. The lake is surrounded by many towns , all of which are popular with tourists. I took a train from Milan Centrale to Varenna-Essino, which is one of the picturesque little towns on the east shore of Lake Como. This is probably the best starting point to explore the lake, as there are plenty of ferries connecting other towns around the lake.

Varenna , itself is a very lovely place. It has some nice villas and lots of restaurants & cafes. I met few tourists in the train who were staying at Varenna, so I guess its popular with tourists. From the train station I crossed the village by foot and walked to the embarcadero through the lake-front skywalk. After stopping for a gelato I headed towards the ferry port to get to Bellagio.
Bellagio is one of the most distinguished & famous holiday destinations in all of Europe. It should probably be said a celebrity haunt, if you're interested in that sort of thing. I heard Versace family, Sting , Richard Branson and of course our own Mr. Clooney own a villa here.


The ferry ride from Varenna to Bellagio is 8 euros round-trip and takes about 20 mins to get there. 

Bellagio is definitely the prettiest village on Lake Como’s shore. Even today Bellagio is a small village, with cobbled streets that favor foot traffic. The narrow sidewalks angle upwards into the hills and form the center of the town. The main promenade stretches along the waterfront, with the exclusive hotels and quaint cafes facing out towards the lake. There is no shortage of lakeside shopping and dining.

There are many luxurious villas and gardens scattered around its shores. Couple of tourists whom I met in the train were trying to find George Clooney's house. I had no interest where Mr.Clooney lived, and was quite content heading to the nearest gelato shop instead.

Huge ferries dock at Bellagio every few minutes, with different itineraries depending on which village you want to visit that day. The easiest way to get around the lake is by taking the ferries to the various villages.

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24 hours in Milano, Italy

I was in Italy for 3 days for the F1 Italian Grand Prix at Monza. I arrived in Milan in early morning and got a bus from Malapensa Airport to Milan center. Given a choice I always prefer taking an airport bus to the city rather than a subway train, because you get to see the outside whereas in the subway you are in a dark for the entire ride.The walk from the Central station to the taxi stand was interesting, but not far, although when you are a little lost its does seems far. I took a taxi to my hotel and the taxi driver gave me the real Italian taxi ride experience. He was cursing all along at other vehicles, cutting lanes, honking and what not.

I checked-in to my hotel, rested for couple hours before venturing out for some site seeing.

Milan is a big city, but there is not much touristy stuff to do. Most of the tourists who arrive in Milan, actually head north to the Milan lakes. But there are definitely things to do in Milan if you have a day or so, firstly you can see Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper. I was happy to pass this as I have no interest wasting couple of hours standing in line. I took a tram to the Duomo square (Piazza Duomo). At the first glance Duomo (Milan cathedral) looks like any other cathedrals you see in european cities, but a closer look at its facade , its impressive especially the roof. The square was crowded as it also happens to be the main shopping area. I walked around for awhile and came across the popular Milanese cheap food store "Luini " and tried their Panzerotti . Panzerotti are kind of like calzone but deep fried instead, it was very tasty and very cheap too.

Duomo

Square at the Dumo (Piazza Duomo)

Shopping Arcade at the Square

Milan is the fashion capital of Europe and undoubtedly is a fashion shoppers' paradise. The main shopping area is the Fashion Quadrangle (quadrilatero della moda), a set of streets, couple of blocks from Duomo Square. This is the home of all the major high end Italian fashion labels whom our Hollywood starlets shamelessly advertise during the red-carpet events. It was very crowded with the real shoppers as well as window shoppers like me. Some of the streets are pedestrian only and shop windows resembled more like an apartment windows and some stores looked like houses. Compared to Rodeo drive, its definitely a very unique experience to walk around these streets. If you are not a fashionista, you may as well as skip this area, if not its definitely worth a visit.

Main Train Station

Inside the Train Station

I walked around for couple more hours, it was well into the evening and shops started closing down.I was starting to sense the jet-lag at this point so decided to head back to the hotel before gradding a slice of pizza. I had to get up early the next morning to head out to Monza.

You can read about the F1 grand prix here.

On my final day, I ventured out of Milan to the Lake Como area.  You can read my Blog on Bellagio and Lake Como here

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Formula1: Italian Grand Prix' 2008 - Trip Report

Of all the races on the Formula One calendar, the Italian Grand Prix at Monza possibly generates the most buzz, not because of the very energetic and emotional Italian fans (Tifosi) but also due to the heritage and history of the race track itself. The grand prix is held in one of the oldest tracks in Formula 1 on the outskirts of Milan in a small town named Monza .



As I had planned on arriving in Milan early Saturday, I had bought only the race day ticket instead of the usual 2-day ticket ( qualifying + race). My plane touched down in Milan around 8am. Compared to my last F1 race at Montreal, where the entire city including the airport was immersed with F1 fever, there was absolutely no buzz about the F1 in Milan, except for the Ferrari store in downtown Milan which was all about F1, but I guess its like that all 365 days. I was a bit surprised by this but my hotel concierge explained to me in a sentence," Italian Grand Prix happens in Monza, not Milan". Well, that actually made sense.

The grand prix takes place in Monza which is about 10 miles or a 20 min train ride from Milan center. On Sunday there are special trains for the F1 fans to get to Monza from Milan central station. Even though it wasn't raining that day, the sky was grey and there was a continuous faint drizzle. It had rained heavily the previous day, so the track was still wet, and we all had come to terms that this year its going to be a wet race. I arrived at the Milan central station on time to get on the 9:30 am train and was greeted by herds of fans wearing the Ferrari red and also tons of Mclaren fans who had travelled from England. The train ride to Monza was slow and took about 30 mins. I got off the train at the Biassono-Lesmo station around 10am which is close to the track itself.

The race track (autodromo monza) where the the grand prix takes place is inside a park (Parco di Monza). Depending upon what kind of tickets you got, the walk for the station to your grandstand could be anywhere between 15 - 45 mins. Since I had to pick up my tickets from the voucher exchange boothat the paddock entrance, I had to walk all the way to the entrance of the park. The actual entrance to the Monza park was on the other side of the train station so I ended up walking a good 45-60 minutes . Its also confusing if you don't understand Italian, but most the Italian police who were guiding the crowd spoke english, so its better to ask them rather tahn trying to figure out on your own.

The entrance was very crowded with thousands of fans trying to get inside and also lots of vehicles transporting the F1 personnel, media and paddock deliveries were arriving at full force. There were lots of fancy cars entering the paddock too, I presume these were the VIPs & celebrities.

I picked up my ticket, entered the park and went straight to the F1 village. I personally think the highlight of going to a F1 race is visiting the F1 village. This is where all the sponsors and F1 teams display their cars and all other cool F1 stuff which you rarely get to see anywhere else. This year they had Ferrari, Mclaren,Toyota, Honda & Red bull f1 cars on display and many stores selling official F1 related merchandise. There was a long line in the Mercedes Benz booth since they were allowing fans to actually sit inside the cockpit of a Mclaren F1 car, usually we can't get very close to these cars.

Since I had general admission ticket I walked around the race track to find a good place to watch the driver's parade. I always prefer getting a general admission ticket rather than a grand stand ticket, because you get a chance to watch the race from different parts of the track, if you are sitting in a grandstand you will end up watching 90% of the race on big television screens anyway. I also felt that sometimes with a general admission ticket you can find a much better spot to watch the race than the grandstand itself, if not its three times cheaper than the chapest grand stand ticket, so ts a win-win. I was in a bad spot of the track during the drivers parade so couldn't watch the drivers very closely. I walked around awhile and ended up finding a good spot when the race began. Unfortunately I forgot my ear plugs so it was very uncomfortable for the first few laps, till my ears got used to the screeching sounds of the F1 cars. Watching the race with the Italian fans was very different experience, they are indeed a very passionate Ferrari fans as they were booing whenever Hamilton passed and they never stopped booing until the last lap was over. Even though Ferrari did not finish at the top, it looked like all the tifosi went home very happy since the other Italian team, Torro Rosso ended up winning the race.

If you have a General admission ticket, then head down to the Lesmo curve of the race track, they have free stands from where you can sit and watch the cars pass by at a very close distance. Once the race is over you are allowed to enter the track. Everyone ran to the track and were walking around trying to find bits of pieces of the cars that might have dropped during the race. Anyways after everything seemed to end I walked back to the train station, there were Italian police everywhere to control the crowd. We took the same train back to Milan. Even though the weather was not that great, it was a great and fun experience.
Checkout the pics at;
http://picasaweb.google.com/vaishak77/F1ItalianGP08#

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