Cheech

European adventure begins with a trip to Milan and Lake Como, Italy. My Italian adventure started nice and early at 2:20am to so I can get on the 3:00am bus from Queensway to Marble Arch so I could catch another bus for 1hr 30 mins to Stansted Airport to get the 6:40am flight to Milan.

This was my first time on Ryan Air, and its an unusual experience. Where do I begin. Ok well you have to pay for everything, more than Jetstar. You pay for any check in luggage, food, drinks and even scratchie’s! The seats are also non recliners so its pretty hard to sleep, they are made of plastic and all too. But, you can’t really argue as its only cost us £100 return including taxes. Still expensive, considering we are getting £30 return flights to Madrid later on.

You check in and they give you a ticket and you line up. Once the gates open it’s a free for all as everyone rushes over to the plane through either the front or back door. Once the scramble is over, we all settle in to our seats and try and snooze our way to our destination, but it’s a battle.

Finally after a few hours and a really bumpy landing we arrived in Bergamo, Italy. First thing was to get to the Hostel and drop my stuff off. The language wasn’t too bad, as most italian’s helped me out. Tried to just ask all the pretty girls. It was raining once I got to the airport and it didn’t let up the whole day. But that’s not going to stop me from sightseeing. I got a bus from the airport to town and then another 2 before I got to the hostel. Travel is cheap, with an all day ticket only E2.50.

I headed off to Citta’ Alta, the old town on top of the mountain. It’s a nice view from up here of the town of Bergamo. The city up here is nice and tight very cosy. All the buildings are nice and close together with lots of old stone roads everywhere. Adds to the character of the place. There seemed to be lots of food places especially, bakeries and gelato.

After hearing about all the fancy pizza’s available in Bergamo, I settled for the Apple, gorgonzola and prosciutto pizza. This was awesome pizza from a place called “Il Fornaio”, where you buy it by the kilo. Due to my limited Italian, I just said, that one, and Sii man. Next thing I know I have ½ Kilo of pizza, plus some free raisan and fig bread.

After lunch went on the up the S.Vigolo Funicular to the higher area where I walked around the older area on the Via Castello, Monte Bastia, Scorlazzone and San Sebastiano walks. These walks took in some nice views and old roads with small little pathways hiding old houses tucked away on the mountain side. From here I used the famous steps of S.Lucia in Via Tre Armi to walk back down. These were very tricky steps as the stones used on them were very rounded.

Once the upper section of the old town was completed, I went to look at some of the older historical buildings. This included the Piazza Vecchia which contained the Palazzo del Comune and Della Ragione. Also here was the Colleoni Chapel which was decorated inside with all artwork painted on the walls. This looked like the chapels with all the famous artworks. Now I had completed the upper town it was time for one more Funicolar ride down using the Citta’Alta Funicolar. Compared to the upper town the lower town was pretty boring as it was a bit like a modern town. I did check out the Propylaea of Porta Nuova which is the entry gates from back in the days. Once this was finished I completed the wet day with some Mascopone and Gorganzola Crepe and topped that off with Noccolioni and Margino Gelato.

When I got back to the Hostel met some ppl around there but nothing too special. Then about 10:30 the party started. Only with a difference! There was a bunch of school children there from Spain, they were probably about 12-14. The teaches put on a dance party with full on mad house music and some other weird stuff it was crazy and she partied with them too. Was crazy!

Anyway it was time for me to sleep as they weren’t my type, and also the girls come tomorrow.