Torino, Italy

Back to my journey in Italy. On 26 March, i went to Torino (Turin).

'Torino, is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River surrounded by the Alpine arch.'

Source: Wikipedia

So, from what i understand Torino is a capital of Italy in the past (Not sure one hah!).

And since Milan is just near to Torino, my colleague and I decided to give a visit there.

The train from Milan to Torino takes about 2 hours, with a cost of Euro 9.55 per trip.

This is a very well organized city i must said, the maps can prove you.

All the buildings and streets were well organized in shape!

I can't believe there's a city as tidy as this. You gotta be believe me, you can try your own and visit there! (Italy should reward me something for writing so many blogs about italy lah! haha)

2 hours of journey, we reached there at almost noon time, Torino greet us with a very nice view as above. The weather was awesome, the streets are beautiful & so many things (except the blacks that annoyed me).

The typical western style of building is the train station, Stazione Di Porta Nuova.

And do you know that Italy is celebrating their 150 years old this year?

This is the statue of i-forgot-the-name. haha..

The location was Piazza San Marco.

You can easily reach this monument by walking from the Stazione Di Porta Nuova to the direction of Palazzo Madama.

This is me, taken while waiting the traffic light in the middle of road.

If you spotted carefully, you can actually saw the railway of Turin Tramcar behind me. :)

To visit Torino, this is a place you must visit and take picture.

The landmark of Torino, Mole Antonelliana (National Museum of Cinema).

It's very beautiful building indeed, and there's offering panoramic view from up.

You have to pay for the visit, too bad there were so many people at the time we visited, and also i've no idea and not interested with Italian movie so we decide to give it a pass.

More about Mole Antonelliana here.

From my point of view, you must visit the old city of Torino also!

It's seperated by Fiume Po, a river that used to seperate the modern city and the older city.

You have to experience yourself to believe that you can actually differentiate two kind of city just in front of your eyes. Crossing a bridge makes you actually feel like you're walking a time machine to the older city of Torino.

So, for sure i crossed Fiuma Po and reach the old city. First thing welcome you was the Piazza Gran Madre Di Dio. Thus, i took this photo while i was crossing the bridge. Beautiful pot of flowers were nice decorate!

This is the shot i took when we were walking uphill.

Our destination was Monte Dei Cappuccini, it's a mountain that actually give you another panoramic view beside Mole Antonelliana. This gotta be a better option coz it's totally free! The only thing is you have to walk up to the hill. :)

This is my favourite shot of the day. :)

The location was somewhere around Monte Dei Cappuccini too.

It was a good place for some photography actually, too bad my model (my gf lah) wasnt there.

Tada~ the view from there. Nice nice nice?

Just one shot of all the shots i took..hehehe..

Soon, we went down and this is the view of Fiume Po when we were walking back to the direction of Stazione.

Since it was still early, we decided to walk walk at Vio Garibaldi before we went back.

This is the place that the tourism information counter recommend me for shopping.

and yeah, i bought ice cream (Gelato) at there too. In Italy i bought their ice cream in almost all of my visits. It's very nice! :) Average price was Euro 2.

This is my one day trip to Torino, not bad for this city.

If you have more time in Italy, you should try to visit here too! :)

Regards,

Jing

Venice (Venezia), Italy trip. Part II

Continue from previous post..

So if you're first time to my blog, i wrote about my previous trip to Venice.

A random photo took in the bridge you can see once you come out from Venice train station.

Okay continue from my previous venice uncomplete post.

We crossed the Ponte Dell Accademia and crossed Canal Grande.

Actually one of the most common photograph taken in Venice were the small river when you across the bridge/ponte.

This is one of the view on the way to walked.

It's somewhere along Fondamenta Zattere Allo Spirito Santo.

I found this view is kinda like so i took it.

We walk to the southern part of Venice, the Fond Dogana Alla Salute.

It's the last point that we could reach by walking. From there we saw the view of Piazza San Marco that we were there earlier. Notice the tower? It's the tower of Piazza San Marco.

This is one of the famous church / duomo named Santa Maria della Salute.

There were some just-married couple taking wedding photography there.

First time experience their style tho.

Random shot of a lovely couple with Canal Grande as background river.

*Romantic feeling, dont you?

After this point we walked back to Rio Tera's Leonardo.

Which is the road near to the train station.

There were some stalls selling fruits & vege.

My dinner place suggested by wikitravel. It's budget dinner.

So if you're on tight budget for venice trip, it's recommended to grab some food in Brek.

It's somewhere along Rio Tera Lista Spagna. Near to the train station.

So here's some incident that i've met during the night.

I was planned to go back at the night initially, but when we reached train station prepare to go back, we actually found that there's no normal train for the time. It's different with the time and schedule as planned in trenitalia.com . Their reason is, the normal train at the specific time is only on public holiday. Just so coincidence, We've also missed the FrecciaRossa which is the more expensive train. It was the last train just gone in front of our eyes.

So, we decide to sleep in Venice that day. We were quite lucky to get a cheap fare hotel just beside the Brek restaurant that we had dinner earlier. They left last unit of room and the reception is very good enough to offer us with cheap price, since it's late and he was lazy to charge us high price. We had our room for Euro 40 per person. Good deal right? God blessed.

Not to forget, some shots for the night view of harbour in Venice city.

In the next day, here's my photo for last few shot about Venice, before we went back.

And the river, as well.

With their old buildings.

Time to say good bye to Venice.

It was kinda unwilling to go back though, I dono when is the next time i would step on Venice again. Missing there.

Lastly, the picture of train station, before we back to Milan.

Venice (Venezia), Italy trip. Part I

On 19th March, we went to Venice (Venezia in Italian). The world most beautiful water city.

A place you have to go if u're travel/work in Italy. It's beautiful, and amazing floating city that you'll never seen in Malaysia! <3

'Venice is a city in northern Italy known both for tourism and industry, and is the capital of the region Veneto, with a population of about 270,660. Together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area.'

Source: Wikipedia.

It takes up to 3 hours and 30 minutes from Milan Centrale to Venezia, with a price Euro 14.65 with normal train. And Euro 32.50 for fast train with duration 2 hours and 35 minutes. In my trip to Venice, we chose the normal train because 1 hour different doesn't make sense for us.

We went there around in the morning, couldn't remember the exact time.

So after 3 hours and 30 minutes, we arrived in Venezia train station.

You must be very curious, train or plane? I suggest train if you're traveling and wish to see the beautiful scenery during the distance. Another thing, the destination in Venezia, is just exactly in Venezia. You'll be seeing how awesome view is Venezia. Believe me. :)

*Remember to get yourself a map before you walk, can easily get from stalls.*

This is what we saw once we step out from the Venezia Station. Do you feel familiar with this view? A lot of movie took the scene at here, and here we are, Venezia the Floating city!

This is the station that we walked out from. Nothing much to see.

The first bridge we saw, and i took a photo with it. The main river of Venezia.

Every place in Venezia you'll be able to see Gondola and the Gondolier.

I didn't take the chance to try because it was too expensive.

In Venezia, you can't see a single vehicle except boat. Everything that done by car/lorry/motor in our usual place are done by boat in Venezia.

Some random photo of the house in Venezia.

The scenery is awesome and i feel like i'm in the other world.

Very very different with Malaysia, for sure.

Rumors said that Venezia is the city that having most bridges in the world. 400++ bridges, not to sure about the figure but one thing definitely is, there are many bridges.

This is the Rialto bridge (Ponte di Rialto). One of the most famous place you must go in Venezia. In Italian, Ponte means bridge. So when you heard of Ponte, you have to know it's bridge! :D

The feel is just so 'Venice' when you have bridge and Gondola~

'The Rialto Bridge is one of the four bridges spanning the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. It is the oldest bridge across the canal.'

Source: Wikipedia.

A random shot at the wall behind the shop at Rialto Bridge.

A lot of tourist hired Gondola for their Venice trip, but not me.

So, it might be that beautiful, you can try it :)

My lunch! Seafood Spaghetti. It's around Euro 15+- including Coke.

A place you have to go at Venezia, the Piazza San Marco!

If you want to see the full view of Venezia, you can pay the entrance and go up to the tower. I wasn't pay for the tower because it was so crowded and everyone were queueing up. Since i've limited time so we decided to skip.

The wall beside Piazza San Marco, with the trademark of Venezia! The flying lion!

This is me, taken at Ponte Della Paglia with the background of San Giorgio Maggiore.

There were quite many stalls selling souvenir along the Fond. d Farine, somewhere near to San Marco Giardinetti. It's the seaside though..with a nice view along the street! <3

This is the Ponte Dell Accademia, a wooden bridge to let you crossing Canal Grande.

So now we crossed the Canal Grande..

To be continue the journey in the next post. <3

Florence (Firenze) & Pisa trip. Part III

After a night in the hostel, which is quite okay (except my friend's snoring).

We woke up in the morning and continue our journey to Pisa!

The fresh air in the morning make so in love with the Duomo~

There are nobody at this morning, feels like Firenze is mine! :D

In case you don't know, Pisa and Firenze is just an hour of distance.

The trenitalia ticket (or we called it Biglietti) is just costs for Euro 5.80 per trip.

But to be honest, this train is just average class so don't expect any luxury feel.

You'll see a lot of beggars to beg for money from you, just say No or ignore without looking them is enough..

Normally they won't touch you, they will just put a paper beside you and write down how poor they are..Better don't touch the paper and they will collect it back after some time.

The seat wasn't that comfort anyway, but still acceptable for Euro 5.80 pricing.

And yeah, that's me posing anyway..

After roughly an hour of journey with the accompanion of beggers..wtf..

We reached Pisa city, famous with their......

...... Pisa Tower? :)

Always seen on internet/movie/travel guides but this is the first time i'm looking for the real naked body..It was started to built at 1173 (wah! Almost 900 years!) and obviously standing still until now..just a little bit of leaning..haha..a 'little'..But it safe! it's safe :)

With Euro 15, you can enjoy climbing up to the top of Pisa Tower and have a look.

Such a fehmes tower, it's so waste if you choose not to climb up..isn't it?

With the fees, you get another booklet writing down some info about Pisa.

The stairs..It's kinda small in size and you might need to be careful..

Up to the tower you can view the city view of Pisa, and the full view of the church beside the Pisa leaning tower..

This, is the leanest part.

If u're not that brave, avoid coming to here..but actually no worries, they won't let you fall down and claim your insurance so easily. Of coz they will make those safety things lah!

The city view.. i likey!

Pisa tower, in UWA 10mm mode! xD

This is one of the moment, i fell in love with my wide lens coz i don't need to talk so damn far to take this shot.

The must-do post when you're here in Pisa! haha..Everyone is doing the same thing lah, don't laugh :P

Just around 4 hours of visiting in Pisa, i returned back to Firenze.

Basically in Pisa there are no much things to visit. Just..the tower, i think.


Back to Firenze, we quickly grab the time and walked to the Ponte Vecchio.

The famous bridge in Firenze which was there many many years ago..

When you heard 'many many years ago' in Italy, it means at least few hundred years and maybe up to thousand years ago. But on the other hand, don't use this thinking in Malaysia, coz according to my friend, the most old mosque in Malaysia is only 300+- years, correct me if i'm wrong.

On the bridge there are some shops selling gold, souvenir, leather stuffs and etc.

If you like, you can buy..remember to bargain a bit..don't bargain until 80% like in China ok?

On the bridge there's a statue there, and a lot of ppl putting lock on that..

I guess it was hoping to lock their love forever..

But when you look at the signboard carefully, it stated 'Don't put your lock' there..

Palazzo Pitti, nothing much to see here so i just came here to visit and take pics and ciao!

We were just walking around the city in Firenze before we go back..
Our train back to Milan city was in the evening, so i shall ended my Firenze/Pisa trip here.

Good bye Firenze & Pisa! I will miss you..