First Trip to Italy!

This trip was to get a taster of what Italy has to offer. Another cheap flight with Ryanair helped the course. I wasn't too sure on visiting Italy. My girlfriend, Olga, wants to go in the summer months, so I wanted to get a quick taster, to see how I could cope with the language, culture and food, and by what I saw, hear and eaten in the half day I was there, I was very impressed. This turned out to be on of the best day trips I have ever had. The trip started early from my house, where I met up with Oliver, one of me best friends, and Adam, one of my usual European travelling friends from work. We left and made our way to London Luton airport at 4am, checked in and had rubbish and over-priced breakfast there, when we met the other two people travelling with us, Justin and John, also from my work place.

 We arrived at gate 5, where there were around seventy people queuing up, but myself and Oliver had priority tickets, so we were in a separate queue and were the first onto the plane to grab the emergency exit seats where there is a lot of leg room.

 

After a quick one and half hour flight later, we landed, but before we did, we had some of the best views of the Italian Alps. Some had snow, some didn't. There is a shortage of snow across Europe at the moment. Now I was disappointed with the television back home, saying that the weather forecast would be around zero degrees with fog. OK, it was warmer than that, and was hazy sunshine, and I was wearing a thick jumper and coat, and brought my umbrella and thermal gloves with me.

I was not impressed. Could be worse, Adam, brought his work-jacket with him. We got to the passport control. Adam, Justin and John raced through as this Italian airport cleaner decided to help out with the control, and rushed all the European Union citizens through. Oliver and me were in this slow queue, with a lot of people in front of us getting there passport stamped. This took forever. I managed to dive underneath the barrier and went passed the cleaner at the last second, whom did not bother to look at my passport. The cleaner went away and Oliver was stuck behind these five Nigerians who were getting served. Two years later, Oliver came through country and I had to explain to him that queuing does not exist in Europe. Only England is champion of queuing. We would be guaranteed to win gold medals in this event, if only it was in the Olympics. So after all that, we were out of Milan Bergamo airport, or better known as Orio Al Serio Aerporto.

 

After taking a few photos of the Italian border sign, we managed to catch the number one bus to take us all to the top of the upper town inBergamo, known as Monte San Vigilio, for a total price of €1.50. Bargain. After an enjoyable bus ride along the slopping and bendy roads up to Monte San Vigilio, with elderly passengers on the bus making note of our presence, saying 'There are from England' in there wonderful and quickly spoken language, we were at the top. Straight away, I felt the air was lot cleaner and fresher. The sun was still out.

What a prefect day for a walk and relax. Shame I had only twelve hours to do this all in. Only one problem, we weren't at the top. We had to go up a Funicular to get to the top. So we did this, got to the top, and I tell you, anyone who goes to this place, must go to the top on a beautiful day liked we had. The views of the Alps were fantastic. The views of Bergamo and the lakes were great. Good for plane watching as well. There was also some sort of fort up here as well to walk through. Not many tourists up here, not many locals mind you. Unless it is usually this quiet this time of year.

 

After a short time, we headed back down to upper town Bergamo via the Funicular. Upper Town has splendid buildings, centuries old.

Worth a visit is the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, Piazza Della Cittadella, and Piazza Vecchia. The Ice cream store is great, a little pricey for Ice Cream, but it tasted great. The pizzeria didn't seem too bad either. After making our way to Porta San Giacomo, to catch more views of lower town Bergamo and the airport, we caught the bus number one down to the foot off the hill and disembarked at Piazza Cavour, in the centre of the lower town. This is the modern part of town, with its shops and banks, but still has old fashioned buildings, to blend in with the surroundings areas. Oliver decided to keep up tradition to have a McDonald's meal in every country. He brought three cheeseburgers and I think he enjoyed it. We made our way across to the train station and for €4.05 (€2.05 for Daniel) we were on our way to Milano.