Italy trip report (long, with pics)

[ThaSaltCracka]

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I sum up Venice in two words: Italian Disneyland.

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You want a bet?

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That ride looks so lame.

[nolanfan34]

Venice

We were sad to leave the Cinque Terre and our apartment deck, but had reservations to get to in Venice.

Managed to figure out a train route to get there, for the low low price of about 75 euro for the tickets. It was our longest train ride of the trip, and we were lucky to have a 6-person cabin to ourselves for most of it.

Venice travel tip! When booking trains, make sure to book the one that goes to the station actually in Venice. There are other stops outside of Venice that don't actually get you onto the island, so that's something to watch out for.

Tired out after our previous day hike, we managed to make it through the train station and onto one of the taxi boats, the easiest way to get around the city. The boat was packed, and you certainly have to fight your way on there sometimes. The funniest were these old Italian women, who would just wait on the exit side of the boat dock, and then cut in line in front of everyone. Talk about spectator tilt. These old ladies clearly were just saying "f-it, I'm old, I'll do what I want".

We bought a 24-hour pass for the boats, which in hindsight was pretty dumb, since we were going to be there for two days. More on this development later on though.

Found our boat stop, and headed to our hotel, which was south of the main city center.

Street outside our hotel:



That night we got really wild and crazy - and did some laundry. That was a nice way to learn just how expensive Venice was, you pay a premium for being on an island, that's for sure.

Tuesday

Tuesday morning, we woke up bright and early. Why? Because the mrs had this great idea to get up before 7 am to take an early boat down the Grand Canal, before it got too busy. OK, it wasn't a bad idea, but good lord it was hard to wake up.

Add to that the fact it rained pretty good the night before, and the weather wasn't the greatest. This perhaps dampened my mood for Venice overall.

Anyway, we got on the 1 line (I think), which makes a ton of stops down the Grand Canal. Time for some pics:



Average Venice "street":



The buildings there are very colorful, and apparently they've really faded over the years, so it was cool to imagine how vibrant the city was in the 1500's.



Getting up early, we saw a lot of boats carrying various goods all over the place. EVERYTHING has to be brought in by boat, which is crazy. No wonder the prices are higher.



The famous Rialto bridge. Somehow we managed to boat under it a few times, but never walk over it. By the end of the trip we were getting a little tired of walking everywhere. [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]



Gondoliers ready for suckers with money! I keed, I keed, but really, we didn't feel like paying $100-$150 for a boat ride, maybe we're the suckers for missing the experience.



Take note Herm Edwards: Even Venice has the computerz and the internetz!



For the most part, going down the Grand Canal you see all of these old buildings - until you come across the giant skull made out of metal!



We're going to get this paint job for our house now that we're home:



Later on the clouds started to clear up a little, and we managed to take some nicer pictures.





One of the big draws of Venice is the famous St. Mark's Square. The previous night we did check it out a bit, and it's fun to stand and listen to some of the dualing music acts playing at the different restaurants.

The place was usually packed with tourists - and pidgeons. According to Rick Steves' book, they actually put birth control in the bird seed to try to limit the population. Doesn't appear to be working to me!



The mrs isn't a big fan of birds, so we stayed away from stuff like this:



Later in the day, we took a boat over to Murano, which is a small island known for glass blowing. It wasn't as busy as Venice, and we wandered the streets there for a bit and did some window shopping. The glass work was pretty incredible.

Here's a funny example. One thing we noticed in Italy is that The Simpsons appear to be really really popular. Everywhere we went, we saw pictures, ads, DVD's, toys, all kinds of Simpsons stuff. So in Murano, we liked these glass custom Simpsons figures:



Later that night, we headed out to find a place to eat. This proved to be a challenge much more in Venice than other places.

This is why I made the Italian Disneyland comment. To me, Venice was the most touristy of anywhere we went. Lots of tourists, and even though the city has a lot of history, there are so many shops and carts with various crappy trinkets that it starts to feel like a big theme park in a way after a while. I'm sure I'll sound like a big hater saying that.

For restaurants, this is really magnified. One of Rick Steves first Venice tips is to avoid any restaurant with a tri or quad language menu. That was certainly the case - there are tons and tons of places that offer similar fixed price menus, geared toward tourists. Most of them appeared to have really crappy food. Key warning sign: you notice menu items with french fries. Ugh.

So it took a little more effort to find a neighborhood type of place, but we finally did, and had a wonderful meal.

Wednesday

Wednesday morning, we got up fairly early, packed, and headed out to check out the Peggy Guggenheim museum. Fairly small museum, but it was cool to check out some modern art after seeing places like the Borghese and Uffizi.

After that, it was off to pick up our rental car to drive to our next location - Trento - and to get the answer to our question Adsman, man, myth or legend?

I'll be back with the final chapter soon.

[Dominic]

this is awesome...Venice is one of those places I was very happy to see but I will probably never go back. Make sure you let us know how you like driving in Italy! I was once driving between Siena and Florence and an ambulence came screaming, lights flashing, by in the other direction - with three passenger cars right behins, all honking their horn and waiting to pass! Italian drivers are absolutely nuts.

[BretWeir]

Tremendous trip report. I ate at the same hole-in-the-wall sandwich place in Florence when I was there a couple of years ago. Best thing about it was the red wine (in tumbler glasses) that you could just take out onto the street and enjoy with your sandwich, and then hand back when you were done.

[nolanfan34]

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this is awesome...Venice is one of those places I was very happy to see but I will probably never go back. Make sure you let us know how you like driving in Italy! I was once driving between Siena and Florence and an ambulence came screaming, lights flashing, by in the other direction - with three passenger cars right behins, all honking their horn and waiting to pass! Italian drivers are absolutely nuts.

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Yeah, the driving was fun, going to write up that part now! I feel the same about Venice, I enjoyed it, but there were other places I'd rather go back to.

[diddyeinstein]

Thank you so much for tracking down Mullet-Fro man.

Great TR!

[grando]

yeah when I drove in Florence this spring I noticed that you have to have your balls to the wall or else you're screwed

it's like race car driving, with no room for error!

[nolanfan34]

Conclusion!

Yes, finally winding this report down here, with the final installment.

Some background first. When we were planning out our trip, we had most of the elements figured out with the exception of the last couple of days. Our plane home was to fly out of Milan, but neither of us had a great desire to spend two days there. Plus, as we looked around, hotels were somewhat expensive, and we were having a hard time finding anything.

Previously, I had thrown out the idea of trying to meet up with Adsman. I figured I don't know anyone else in Italy, and even though I had never really interacted with Ads much here on 2+2, I of course knew him from his On Changing Your Life thread. I've always had positive experiences meeting other 2+2ers in real life, and thought it would be interesting to meet such a character - is this guy even for real, given his crazy stories?

Well, that idea was shot down by the mrs at first, and I can understand, she didn't exactly want to spend our Italy vacation meeting up with a random internet person so I could talk about poker. Fair enough.

But as we continued to look around for hotel rooms, in Milan, and the Lake Como area, it was getting difficult to find something. So she came around on the idea of meeting up with Adsman for a day. In the end, we thought it would be a fun way to talk to someone who lives in Italy full time now, and to see another part of the country that we wouldn't see otherwise necessarily, the Italian Alps.

I contacted Ads, and he seemed genuinely excited to meet up. We set up a plan to meet in Trento, check out the town, then drive up to the valley where Ads lives to check out his bar and have dinner.

So, Wednesday morning, after the Guggenheim, we headed over to the Avis rent-a-car to pick up our vehicle. After a wait of about an hour, due to a single guy working the desk, and having to handwrite the orders because their computer was down, we finally got our car. It was a sweet little Fiat Punto, and I wasn't sure what Punto translates to, but I was pretty sure it was Italian for AWESOME.

Our little car first surprised us by being a manual - not a problem, but surprising coming from the US where you can probably barely get a manual shift car from a rental agency these days.

With a Michelin map in hand, we headed off to find our way to Trento!



And, heading out of Venice, we promptly missed one of the exits for the Autostrada freeway, and ended up on some side roads, driving through some little towns. We at least were heading the right direction, but it took us about half an hour to find our way back to the freeway.

Finally we got to experience some freeway driving, which in Italy means speed limits are merely a suggestion. Our Fiat was pretty zippy, but once in a while I'd end up with someone right on my ass, like a foot away from my back bumper. The speed limit particularly didn't seem to apply to Audi drivers, they pretty much went as fast as they wanted.

Our car only had 1/4 tank of gas in it, so we had to stop and fill up along the way. For the low, low price of about 1.30 euro per litre, I put about 35 litres into the tank - meaning a euro price of 48 or so euros IIRC, or about $70 US!!! Guess I can't complain as much about our prices here in the states.

Finally, we made our way to our meeting place in Trento, where we found Adsman. We thought this would be interesting - would he be a cool guy as it seemed on the boards, or a possibly crazy axe murderer from the mountains? First impression it seemed to be the former, luckily. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

After meeting Ads, we headed into Trento to check out the town and get a tour. It was great to have a conversation with someone else in English, and learn about Trento and how Ads ended up in Italy.

Here he is explaining a local sight to mrs nolanfan.



One of the key historical facts about Trento is the fact it was the location of the Council of Trent, back in the Martin Luther days. I'm not a big history buff, but I was impressed with Adsman's knowledge of the town and its history. He was a slightly better tour guide than Evan was when we were in NYC (sorry Evan [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]).

Big castle in Trento where the council met (Ads can correct me if I'm wrong).



Close up of the statue in the square.



We walked around for a bit, then stopped to have an aperitif, in the Italian pre-dinner tradition. We each enjoyed a traditional spritz, which is basically an orange liquior with white wine. Very tasty.

This is where the trip almost went downhill.

See, we started talking about 2+2, since I was the first 2+2er that he had met in person, and we almost came to blows when I learned he was an "OOT as in shoot" person. I'm firmly in the oh-oh-tee camp, and our meeting was almost over before it began. Thankfully, we were able to patch things up, and the visit continued.

We had a great time people watching and talking about all kinds of things. We were even lucky enough to hear a couple of the stories he left out of the famous Life thread - ones that he thought were too outrageous for people to believe. Trust me that they are good ones, and you'll have to watch for them when his book comes out.

And oh yes, he did admit the he has been working on a book with an editor, so there's hope that we'll eventually be able to read the full story! Good news for the El D forum I think, and as I told Ads, he already has like 10k people probably lined up to buy it when it comes out.

After our drinks, we checked out a little wine store in Trento to pick out some local wines for dinner. Ads had demanded that we come over to his house for dinner, and we were glad to oblige by picking up some wine. And how nice having someone who speaks fluent Italian with us, because he was able to pick out a couple of nice local reds, and a great dessert wine too. We also picked up some grappa to bring back home with us.

Next it was time to hit the road again, with Ads giving us one piece of advice - "try to keep up."

Heading into the mountains:



The drive up to his village was pretty crazy. Not only do people drive fast, but you end up on these mountain roads that have hairpin turns, and can barely fit two cars crossing past each other. I did the best I could to keep up, much to the chagrin of mrs nolanfan, who was a little nervous with our speed. I thought it was awesome though, and driving the Fiat felt like I was playing some sort of video game.

We eventually made it up to the village, which was pretty incredible. The scenery was amazing, up in the mountains, with great views of the Alps and the valley. Reminded us a lot of some of the mountain resorts in Washington and Idaho that we've been too.

First off, we stopped to check out the famous bar! It's not open on Wednesday, but we still had a chance to see what he's done with the place.

Mrs nolanfan checks out the bar and the drink menu:



New drink menu ready to go up on the wall!



The bar is really cool, and we were really impressed with the job Ads and his partner did on the place. We really liked some of the custom white leather furniture he got in Milan. The sound system was also very nice. He cranked up some music, and I was really surprised how uniform the sound was, even if you were standing next to one of the speakers. Nice job ads!

Finally we made it back to Ads apartment, where he also graciously offered up his guestroom for the night. Settled in with our bottles of wine, and basically just had a great time talking about all kinds of things while he made dinner.

Not only is the guy a river guide and world traveller, but he's a pretty good chef as well, as he whipped up an excellent risotto, and had picked out some great meats and cheeses locally for our appetizer. And yes, I was able to have some strawberry pie from his neighbors, which was also delicious! Never did see the missing cat though.

nolanfan and adsman:



Being the first 2+2er that Ads met in person, we of course had to talk about the forum a bit, the usual stuff, funny OOT moments, the last time we remember posting the strat forums, Dids, how many people post on the El Diablo account, etc.

We did determine that Ads really needs to do something he hasn't done - visit the US. So, hopefully we helped convince him to make a trip, maybe next May, which of course will include a Vegas stop. Perhaps it's time for a big OOT/El D forum meetup, mark your calendars now!

So in the end, the mrs and I were very impressed to have such a hostpitable host, and one that's not even an axe murderer.

Thursday

The next morning, we had the pleasure of meeting Ads ex-gf, who came over to bring by some breakfast and hang out for a bit. She was really great, and it was very cool to meet an Italian who was excited to speak English with us. Although we did note that her English has a hint of Australian in it, haha, wonder why...

After a nice breakfast, we packed up to hit the road toward Lake Como and Milan.

Ads was kind enough to lead the way out of town, and got us pointed in the right direction on the back roads. We really enjoyed checking out the difference in architecture compared to where we'd been elsewhere on our journey. The Austrian influence in northern Italy is really apparent driving through the mountain towns.



Heading out for the last leg of the trip after thanking Ads for being a great host:



So we hit the road for another harrowing drive on the twisty backroads heading to Como. It was actually somewhat stressful driving. There were parts where we would have like 4 inches of clearance on either side of the car when someone passed the other way. Good times!

The nice wide roads:



Seeing trucks coming the other way was always fun:



The views along the way were pretty spectacular, and we were really glad we had a chance to check out this part of Italy.



Eventually we made it to Lake Como. Here's a view of Bellagio - yes, not just a Vegas hotel!



Another view of the lake:



Lake Como was very nice. Sadly, mrs nolanfan did not see George Clooney, as she had hoped. The hotels along the way were very nice as well, particularly the one we wandered into to find a restroom.

Tired, hungry, and finally ready to go home, we wound our way through little city after little village and found our hotel outside of Milan. We found the motel through Expedia, and it was pretty awesome.

Check out the mirror on the ceiling. The hotel was brand new, very modern, and even had a remote for the colored LCD lights in the mirror.



There was also an awesome shower in the bathroom, that you could pay 5 euros for the day, and have it function as a sauna.



Well, the next morning, we headed to the airport nice and early, for a 6:30 am flight. That wraps up the trip report. Hope I provided some good info on Italy, and certainly would be glad to answer any questions. We had a wonderful time, and hope to go back someday.

One last parting pic....saying goodbye to my wonderful Pinto. Ciao!

[adsman]

I just want to say what a pleasure it was to meet Scott and his lovely wife Jamie. Quite a few 2+2ers have threatened to come up to my Alpine abode, but Nolanfan is the first one to have made the effort.

It was great to finally meet somebody from the boards. Scott filled me in on a lot of insider gossip, quite a few surprises there. I had no idea that two of the more highly placed posters were having a clandestine relationship. Heady stuff indeed...

I also had no idea that there could be any other pronunciation for OOT. O-O-T. Weird.

Much to Jamies relief we didn't talk about poker, I just blathered on trying to keep them from becoming bored whilst hoping that I wasn't coming off as a dick-head. Thankfully it seems that I didn't, which is a relief.

And as Nolanfan said, we're thinking of organising a get together next year in May sometime. I need to finally haul myself over the the USA and meet some of you guys. If you're half as cool and laid-back as Scott then I'm sure it will be a great trip.

[Dominic]

If you get to Vegas, Adsman, we'll have a cocktail party at my house in your honor!

Fantastic trip report, Nolanfan...excellent in every way!