Italy - North side

We left Fribourg, Switzerland on the 21st by train to Genoa, Italy, changing trains at Milan. We had many different plans on where to go through Italy, mainly to do with train routes and the amount of time we had. We wanted to do both sides of Italy and really wanted to stay near the beach since the weather was great for swimming. We decided on a rough plan which changed a few times but having the interrail passes made it much more easier to travel to the destinations in mind.

We settled on Genoa as our starting point, booking an Airbnb for 2 nights. We mainly chose this destination because of the buildings and how they were laid out on the ground. There wasn't too much to do here but it was still a nice local area, with its own personality.

I think Italy wins the competition on having the most stairs in the world, cause far out, we had to walk up so many to get to our accommodation. The locals put us to shame as it's just an everyday commute for them. We got to the top of the street with our baggage, sweat dripping off our face. After that we pretty much didn't want to do anything for the rest of the day. It was 37 degrees and our room had no air-con or fan. It seems to be a common trait in Europe to have no air-con in houses. You'd be lucky to get a small table fan in your bedroom.

We went down the street for dinner, ordering pesto pasta as Genoa is quite famous for their Pesto. We also got a bit carried away and ordered dessert and a few drinks. I managed to dirty my white shirt by spilling chocolate Gelato on it. I should just stop wearing white because this isn't the first time I ruined a white shirt on this trip, and it wasn't the last.

The next 2 days we just went for walks around the area and down to the port, hunting for some good Gelato and patting all the cats we saw wondering the streets.

We were off to Padua for the next 3 days where we could access a few other places without actually staying in the area as it would have been too expensive. Padua was a great time, the home we stayed at was super lovely and the host, Elisa was very welcoming. She wasn't there most of the time but when she was, she just felt like another house mate. The house was about a 15 minute tram journey away from the train station, and just a 5 minute walk to the shops which was perfect. There wasn't much in Padua, but the location was good for travelling to and from places.

The first night we just bought food and watched movies like we always do. The next day we went into Venice and this was a super exciting time, but we had a lot of high expectations for the place which can be good and bad. We rocked up by train and got a Coppa Del Nonno which was amazing, I think I got like 50 of them on the rest of the trip after trying it for the first time. We carried on through exiting the station and Venice is a really pretty place, but LOTS of people and prices were pretty high on everything. We decided to go around the left side and do a big loop around the place. Our host Elisa recommended a few restaurants and cafes to visit while here. One of them being a pasta/meatball restaurant, tucked away hidden down a very small street. The inside of the place was quite dark and moody, with dark brown wood tones and warm candle light being the only source of light.

We ordered meatballs for our entree and they were quite different, having a crumb outside and almost crispy texture, but were very delicious. For our mains we ordered pasta. I had a seafood pasta which was great.

All the food in Venice, and I mean all, has to be imported into the city since they are a floating city and cannot grow or produce their own food. They have no soil for fresh produce and no space for livestock. That is why the prices here are high, they have to mark up quite a bit so they can make some coin.

This also goes for clothing, building goods, and other daily materials, but not as reliant on import because they do have craft shops and businesses in the city that supply.

After our meal we went and got some drinks and our host recommended that we order aperitifs, which are alcoholic drinks that are usually bitter sweet. Such as Campari, Aperol and vermouths. We went to a bar located next to a waterway, and going inside they had photographs from every time the water made it's way into the store, flooding it out. They had designed the store with tiles on the floor that made their way up the walls and counter top, pretty much 5 feet up, which would be for when it did flood it wouldn't damage the inner structure of the building. It was quite cool to see, but it has been happening more often than usual, and this is for a number of reasons.

The water vehicles that make their way through the city are meant to go no faster the 5km and majority of the time they do not follow the speed limits. The wake they make when passing through the narrow water ways hit against the structure Venice is made on top of, and flood over the top onto the streets and into the stores. This is slowly but surely, weakening the structure Venice is built on top of. Venice sits on top of wooden pillars and clay, which has hardened over time, giving it a concrete type strength. That's it. Nothing else.

The other reason is the ocean levels rising due to climate change and global warming. It is said that Venice will sink before the year 2100.

Anyway, went off track a bit. We carried on through Venice and ended up at saint marks square. There were a bunch of Pigeons that people were taking pictures with and Caroline and I went over to take some ourselves. Some people were trying to sell dried pasta pieces, putting them in our hands to attract the birds for pictures. We knew straight away they were trying to get money out of us for using the pasta even though they put it in our hands when we didn't ask for any. We turned them down when they asked for 5 Euro for a handful of pasta. We got some photos anyway and left as they kept haggling us. We arrived to a small bridge where some gondolas were going down and it was pretty quiet with no people around, so I took my drone out and put it up in the air to get some video footage of the area. Bad idea.

I had it up for about 2 minutes and then a local came running down from his small house with his 2 bulldogs, yelling. I saw him coming over and knew right away it was about my drone. He came over and started yelling at me, I told him I will land my drone now and leave. He was very angry and kept on getting in my face. I told him I am landing it and was concentrating on my remote so I could land it safely. I had a waterway and 2 buildings I had to manoeuvre around so I could safely land it. He got on his phone and started to call the police and then his dogs got off lead and were making their way to my drone that was still the air because of its loud sound. So now I was dodging 2 dogs. He came back over to me and and was telling me the police are on their way and kept telling me to leave.

MATE, I'm trying to land my drone and you're helping in no way to speed the process up when you're in my face and your 2 massive dogs are sitting right where I'm trying to land. So I go over to the dogs and get them to move and then my drone hits the wall of the building and comes crashing down to the ground, propellers still spinning and then both dogs go over and try munching on the damn thing. I grab my drone that is now damaged, and start packing it down, ignoring small Italian man cause I'm all mad. He's still smacking his gums about how it's illegal to fly here. I tell him my drones app has a built in Safe Flying Zone locator for my drone and it allowed my drone to launch which meant that this location was okay to fly in. I had read that most parts of Venice were banned flying zones, like the Saint Marks Square and other monuments in the area. But recently, a whole ban on Venice was put in by law and my app hadn't registered it yet. So, I legged it with Caroline, cause the last thing I wanted was to have to deal with police. We went over to the other side of Venice, and carried on sightseeing there.

We went onto one of the shopping centre roofs with a free entry tour and looked out over the top of all the Venetian red tiled roofs. Mad Assassin's Creed vibes.

We ended the day at a Gelato bar and walked back to the train station. That night we grabbed a litre bottle of Disaronno and 4 litres of milk, and just watched movies for the night. The next day we went to the local pool in Padua and had a bit of a splish splash for the day. Went back to the Airbnb and finished off the bottle of Disaronno with some dinner and packed to go to Vicenza the next day for the next week.

Mum had put us in touch with a friend of her friends who had a home in Vicenza. A mid thirties couple with a son from America who have lived in Italy for a couple of years. They were nice but so overly American. My time there was not that great as I did not get along with them but I was super grateful they put us up for a week and fed us.

We went over to Verona for a day and the city is super lovely. One of my favourites. We visited the Romeo and Juliet balcony and statue, and wondered around the city for the rest of the day.

We went over to Florence, which I had always wanted to go to because of Assassin's Creed 2 (don't judge me).

Gonna end the blog here and carry on the rest of Italy - South Side in next weeks blog, where we travel to Florence, Naples, Pompeii and Giovinazzo.

Thanks for reading.