03/03/11 (Rome Day 1)

This day was the first day of 2011 Chinese New Year, the day we are supposed to be serving tea to our parents and get red packets. But there I was waking up in a hotel in Rome around 7.0am before heading for the 1st sit down breakfast in Italy. It was a buffet breakfast that serves cereals, eggs, ham bacon cakes and of course, coffee.
We being typical Chinese who had not seen a normal breakfast in days, ate till our hearts and stomach were content. At the same time we also took away some of the stuff in the buffet which were strictly prohibited.
Due to all the commotion and lengthy breakfast, we ended up 1 hour behind our original schedule (we decided not to follow the tours and walk Rome by ourselves.) We then headed down to Vatican city and reached the area around 11am.
First we went to St. Basilica church. Here, I got a nice surprise when a got a warm hug from Auntie Tang and Uncle Liew who were also visiting Italy and were spending their first day in Italy that very day.
After visiting St. Basilica, we took a turn in the Vatican museum which was really big. We only managed to finish sight seeing the whole place at around 2pm. The place was full of sculptures and paintings that were elegant and detailed.
Me and my friends then started to head towards the town center but our were already sore. While walking pass Palaza Chiggi, we were shocked to see a scene that we get to see only on movies usually( a car was being chased on foot by reporters and when the person got off the car, he was swarmed by the whole school of reporters that wanted an interview with him). At the Palace itself, there were more reporters stationed at the door and some Swat police teams were on stand by.
While walking down to the Sacred Area, we went into a souvenir shop owned by a China Chinese which we exchanged greeting on the Chinese New Year. My groupmates and I then reached Novano square which was the place we were to meet up with the other batch of friends at 7 and since we were early, we took the oppurtunity to give our legs a rest by sitting in a nearby church.
Though we were feeling cold and the wind was blowing strongly, we were still crazy enough to buy a cup of gelato each. After meeting up the other group at 6.45pm, we headed down to look for a place to dine in. we ended up eating in a pizzeria that served food that were a little too salty to the liking. Though, I thought what I had was pretty decent.
That night, we managed to find our way back to the hotel safely without any obstacles. By 10.15pm we reached back the hotel and at 11.15pm I was already chatting with sandman.

02/02/11 (Florence and Rome night 1)

This day was Chinese New Year eve. As usual, I woke up at 4.30am and packed up before a quick shower as we were going to stay in Rome for the next few days. After having our pre-packed breakfast, we headed to Florance from Rimini town at around 6.30am.
The scenery on the way to Florance was pretty breath taking as the surroundings were of mountains and hills that were covered with snow on the top. Upon reaching Florence, as we came down from the bus not at the center but the near the suburbs I got a false idea that Florence was a countryside town. Though, as we walked into the town center, the all so familiar modern mixed with ancient feeling came back(just like what I felt in Milan). We only had 5 hours to walk about and there were loads of place to visit, so we detached from the main tour group and walked off by ourselves.
With little time to spare, we rushed from one spot to another but managed to get a taste of the local food and found one of the cheapest gelato stores which charged us 1.50 euros for 2 scoops.
Although we were running around in order to visit all the places, we had loads of fun, especially when we had to run to catch up with the tour at the end of the journey because we left the T-shirt buying for the last.
With that, we left Florence at 4.30pm for Rome. We stopped in a nearby factory on the way to Rome which produces chocolates, truffles, wines, olive oil and other Italy food products and alcoholic drinks. Being the usual chinese, we practically had our dinner by tasting all the tester they had there.
As we were going to reach Rome at a rather late hour, the tour guide decided to stop at a nearby rest house at around 6.30pm for dinner. Owing to the fact that the meals were very expensive, all of us decided to go without dinner which was kind of pitiful to think of. It was CNY eve and there we were skipping one of the most important dinners to us.
We manage to reach the hotel in Rome at 8 pm and after checking in, we decided not to waste time and visit some parts of Rome that were spectacular even during the night. While walking in Rome city center, we had a brief dinner which taste bad.
That night, we visited the Spanish steps and also Trevi fountain which is a very very amazing place and a place which I would say i liked best in the whole trip. Everyone of us decided to follow the tradition of throwing a coin into the fountain which is supposed to allow you to return to Italy in the future( it was what one of my friend did during her last trip to Italy and there she was standing in front of Trevi Fountain again).
After all the photo sessions, it was already 11.30pm and the metro stations have already closed. We had to walked back to the main bus and metro stations to get a night bus back to our hotel. We hopped on the night bus only to find out that we were in the wrong direction and had to take another bus and waited for another 30minutes. We managed to return back to the hotel only at around 1.15am. Went back to the room for a shower and went to bed around 2am.

01/02/11 (Milan)

I woke up at 4.45am feeling sore all over the body from all the bag carrying the day before. After a brief breakfast in the lobby (the same things we had for breakfast the day before). We were then picked up from the bus stop at around 6.05am and I fell into a dead sleep almost right away despite the tour guide was in front briefing us about the day ahead.
We reached Milan at about 11am and decided to follow the tour as we had not much of a place to visit over here. The tour was very informative and interesting. The excursion ended at 12.30 and all of us went our own ways. Me and my friends ended up in a very nice looking bakery in which I bought a peice of Tiramisu cake that cost 38 euros per kilograms. Then we walked back to Doma Piazza which is the world's 3rd biggest and most elegant church. Then, it was one of my favourite building.
We gathered and headed back for our little Rimini town at 4pm. Manage to reached back at 8.30pm. Headed to Billa supermarket to stock up our water supplies as the price might hike up in Rome. Due to our exhaustion, we decided to just have dinner in the restaurant next to the store which was the one we had our dinner on the first night.
Felt a little bit disappointed as I couldn't find any cheap clothes that I could afford to buy in Milan.

31/01/11 (Venice)

I woke up at 4.45am, had a bath before heading down to the lobby to collect our prepacked breakfast consisting of a bun with ham and cheese in it, an orange(which i detest out of all the fruits) and a bottle of water.
The tour bus picked us up from a nearby bus stop at 6.15am and we left for Venice. At 8am we took a short toilet break at a rest stop and had a cup of coffee. Italy really does serve nice coffee. It tasted superb and was very smooth.
At 10.30am, we arrived Venice. We decided to leave the main group and walk Venice by ourselves. First we went to Rialza and San Marco square, then we headed off to sight see other places. On the way, we bargained with a gondola owner and took a ride on one of the gondolas for a price of 15 euros per person. The ride was pretty nice, our guy was singing and introduced us to some of the places that we went by such as Cassanova's house, Vivaldi's house and the theater. After the ride, we started feeling hungry and went looking for food.
Finally we decided to have some local bread for lunch instead of having a sit down meal. According to posts on the net, we were advised to loose the map and just wander around till we got lost. And that was exactly what we did. At around 2pm, we finally got ourselves lost after we found out that we have been walking in rounds for the last 30 minutes.
We then started to look around and followed the map's direction back to the area for regrouping with the tour while stopping at places to take a peak at souvenir shops. We then took the the ferry back to the mainland and touched foot at 3.30pm.
We reached back in Rimini town around 7.45pm and decided to walk around the center of the town while looking for food. We found a restaurant serving a set meal only for 13 euros which consist of starters, 1st course and 2nd course. It was a very filling and satisfying meal. Took a 15 minutes walk back to the hotel which we reached only at 11pm. After washing up, fell right away to sleep around 12am.

30/01/11 (Rimini)

Me and my friends left our town(Kursk) on 29/01/11 around 10pm. We arrived at Domodedovo airport around 5.30am the next day. The place was pretty quiet, though I wasn't sure the usual noisy and busy airport became so silent due to the fact that it was early in the morning or because of the blast that happened not long ago. One thing was sure, the security was tightened. We had to pass through a security check before being able to enter the airport. As we till had much time to kill, we went to the lounge and rest for a bit.
We were traveling to Italy by Ural Airlines to an airport in a small town called Rimini. After boarding the plane, I was pretty much a little disappointed since the flight was devoid of any entertainment, and there weren't any pillows or blanket. Furthermore, the air stewardess were quite rude. The food that were served didn't look very apetizing but at least it taste alright.
Upon reaching Rimini airport, it was slightly drizzling, the airport was a very mini one. After getting our baggages we were leaded by the tour guide to the bus and to our hotel. I was pretty impressed at the hotel as what I had in mind was some very run down motel. After some rest, me and my friends gathered at the lobby and went off to have a walk nearby the hotel.
We wondered around to look for an ATM machine so we could get some money to use for the next few days as we didn't bring much. I was lucky as I got a Maybank ATM card due to the fact that the BSN one was a little bit more troublesome and had some troubles with withdrawing money.
I underestimated the weather and ended up feeling very cold because of the strong wind that was blowing. We had a our dinner in a nearby restaurant which was located near the supermarket Billa.
We returned to the hotel at around 7pm. After taking a hot shower, I went over to my friends room for a game of cards and went to bed around 9pm.