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Lovener's 2012 Great Italian Caper
How does one describe the adventure of a lifetime?
We’re normally “frugal-splurge” travellers – we’ll scrimp & save on things that don’t matter to us but happily spend lavishly on the things that are important to us. For the benefit of cost-conscious travellers, we’re going to share the costs of the adventure (perhaps barring one or two handbag purchases ;) Lovener2 & I are in our thirties, we work hard to allow us to play hard, and we were travelling with our parents, all in their late sixties (good god, I hope they don’t ever read this, my Mother would be horrified to have her age even generally ‘outed’ on the internet). When we started saving for the great Italian caper, we initially planned a good 4 week holiday covering a wide range of destinations. Well, the more we read, the more excited we got, and the next thing you know, 4 weeks became 6 and then who’s going to notice an extra week when you’re already going for 6? ? so 6 weeks became 7. The great Italian caper was a special trip for us. My parents (Pop & Dorrie) had never visited Europe before and it was Lovener2’s Mum first major trip away following the passing of Lovener2’s Dad a year earlier. We were to be married (a surprise we’d kept hidden from the parents) and we tremendously thankful that my Mum Dorrie was with us, having been diagnosed with a terminal cancer two years earlier. Enough about us & on with the trip. Here’s the breakdown of the trip: Day 1: Auckland (NZ) to Hong Kong Day 1-4: Hong Kong (flying to Venice via Zurich in the evening) Days 5- 12: Venice Days 12-19: Canal boating in the Friuli Day 19: Transferring from Casale to Lucca Day 20: Lucca – Manarola (Cinque Terre) Days 21-24 Manarola (Cinque Terre) [parents went home after CT] Days 24-31 Pienza, Tuscany Days 31- 34 Elba Island Day 35 Transferring from Elba Island to Fano (overnighting in San Leo) Day 36 Transferring from Fano to Ortisei (Dolomites Mountain Range) Days 37-42 Dolomiti Day 43 Milan to Bangkok Days 43-45 Bangkok Day 45+ Bangkok to Auckland I’d stress that our final itinerary bares little resemblance to our early intentions. It was refined through the help of fodorites and a lot of research and, which I love doing. I also smile when I look at the itinerary because there are parts of it that make sense but then there’s that criss-cross from Pienza to Elba to Fano. All because of Andrea Bocelli ☺. The hardest part to plan was the Tuscany bit. The number of possible amazing choices was overwhelming. I’ve started this trip report on August 3rd – 3 months to the day since we departed and will make an attempt to post day-by-day. |
Day 1: Thursday 3rd May 2012
New Zealand and Italy are very far apart. We enjoyed many jokes with Italians about digging through Italy’s soil, right through to the other side of the earth and resurfacing in NZ. The jokes aren’t far wrong. To avoid a 26 hour + flight, we broke our journey with a 2 night, 3 day stopover in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is an amazing mosaic of high energy east meets west, and one of my favourite Asian destinations. We make our first attempt at being cheeky and try our luck getting all 5 of us into the Koru Airline Lounge. We know we’re good to get 4 of us in but the 5th spot is a bit tricky. Lovener2 is attempting to charm the Entrance Hostess who is both smiling at husband-to-be & eyeing us all up to calculate anticipated food & beverage consumption at the same time. Thankfully we’re saved by a lovely traveller who offers to make one of us her ‘guest’. Gotta love it. Entrance Hostess gives us a wry smile and open-sesame, we’re in ☺ We travelled AirNZ: the total airfare per person from NZ to Italy return was NZ$2300 per person (~E1500). It was a midnight departure, perfect for those that can sleep on planes. Not so perfect for me who spends every one of the flight’s 11.5 hours staring enviously at everyone else sleeping peacefully… |
Looking forward to this!
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Jamikins, you'll just have to be patient hearing about Honkers for a few days until we get to Venezia. Don't fret though, I won't drone on too much about Hong Kong when there are great Italian tales to be told! :)
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Day 2: Friday 4th May 2012
Even at 7.30am, Hong Kong is buzzing. We get ourselves sorted for the Octopus transit cards – these turned out to be magnificently easy to use and convenient, especially when getting used to a strange currency. Our next stop was the money machine. We awaited our turn and had trouble getting the machine to work until we discovered that the reason why it didn’t want to work was because it still had a load of cash waiting to be collected. We frantically looked around but in our jetlag haze, none of us had any recollection of what the previous punter looked like. We noted the time of the transaction and tried unsuccessfully to get Airport security involved. We eventually found the police office and handed over the cash. It was a significant sum so I am hoping it eventually reconnected with its owner. The Airport Express train was an excellent way of getting to our apartment rooms in Tsim Sha Tsui, the Chi 314 Residence: Chi 314 Residence 314 Nathan Road Tsim Sha Tsui (Kowloon side) (exit b, Jordan MTR) +852 2912 3982 [email protected] We can’t recommend the team at Chi 314 enough. It’s a great facility for tidy, clean, nothing flash but very pleasant accommodation. For Hong Kong, it’s very reasonably priced. Our rooms worked our NZ$120, E80 per person per night. We happily wandered the streets for the remainder of the day and made a beeline for the tailor where Lovener2 needed to covertly organize for his wedding shirt to be made. We were very pleased with all of our purchases at William Cheng Tailor. We had 3 mens shirts, 1 ladies shirt, 1 jacket, and a dress made. The total cost was less than a ¼ of what we’d pay at home and the quality superior. I would have confidence ordering from home. Their postal service for the items we didn't want to lugg around for the next 6 weeks was very cheap and prompt. William Cheng 10am-7pm 8/F, Han Hing Mansion, 38 Hankow Road Kowloon 852 2739 7888 The travel was starting to catch up with us by now so we headed back to Chi 314 for a quick snooze. We awoke only feeling slightly refreshed but energized enough to wander to the Temple Street Night Markets for a browse and a delicious cheap eat. |
Day 3: Saturday 5th May 2012
We awoke to the mugginess of Hong Kong weather and it wasn't long before we all felt like we needed a second shower. Today we decided to go to Oceanpark to see their panda bears. We caught City bus 973 from Tsim Sha Tsui (Kowloon side). The bus is a comfortable scenic ride and we were at the park in no time. Oceanpark costs NZ$45 (~E30) and is open 10am-7.30pm during May. Oceanpark was immensely enjoyable and to see their two pairs of panda bears was a real thrill. They exude serenity despite their formidable size and are remarkably child-like in their play. It's been some 15 years since my last visit and the park owners have invested heavily during this time. There was a great variety of animals, rides, displays and it was far less tacky than I had expected. We'd originally planned just to enjoy the cable car ride up and then to zoom in to see the panda bears but we soon found the light fading into night-time. This resulted in a dash back to the bus to make it back to the tailor for the next round of fittings. The trip to the tailors revealed that they'd done a great job and I suspect the second fitting visit was more for our benefit than theirs. Dorrie was, by this time, itching to do some shopping. It's probably time to point out that my Mum takes shopping into an art form and gets tremendous enjoyment from every step of the process. She is, without question, the only person I have ever met that achieves pure delight even from a simple browse of a shopkeeper's wares. Dad & I were mindful of the bridges and steps of Venice that lay ahead so made valiant attempts to postpone the shopping until a later leg of the journey... not all that successfully. Feeling a bit buggered by this point, we meandered back to the Tempt Street Food Market area and fed both our bellies and souls on stuffed crab, salt & pepper squid, seductive Singapore noodles, and butterflied prawns.... (hmm, mental note to self- do not write trip report at dinner time when what's on offer at home is uninspiring....) |
Day 4: Sunday 6th May 2012
Our goal for today was to get out of Hong Kong and have a look in the outer areas. We had made an advance booking at Loaf On – a Cantonese seafood restaurant in Sai Kung. Loaf On 49 Market Street Sai Kung Ph 2792 9966 Loaf On has received a Michelin star and we were after a special lunch. Given it was a Sunday, I was expecting the restaurant to be packed but this wasn’t the case and we enjoyed a nice quiet lunch of razor clams, stuffed crab, scallops in garlic, and butterflied prawns. I don’t know if I got overhyped in my enthusiastic anticipation of the Michelin starred restaurant (the Michelin rating system isn’t used in our home country, NZ) but the meal was very nice but not exceptional. The meal worked out at E52 per person for lunch (which was 10x more expensive that the food we’d eaten at the Temple St Night Markets but honestly, the food was only 3x better, in our opinion). The most lovely part of the day was spent wandering around the Sai Kung neighbourhood where dogs are treated with more reverence than children and given pride of place at the dining table. On a Sunday, the Sai Kung streets become a fashion catwalk for Hong Kong’s most primped & preened pooches. Truly astonishing. A fabulous day drew to a close and we stopped by the Chi Residences to pick up our bags before boarding the Airport bus. Our flight to Venezia was operated by Swiss Air (all very precise) and departed at 11.15pm for Zurich before connecting through to Venice. Twelve hours of staring wistfully at other people peacefully sleeping to endure before arriving in La Bella Italia. |
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Love this so far--I've been thinking about going to Hong Kong for a while. And we're off to Venice in September, so I can't wait for your next installment!
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oh good, there is somebody out there! I shall hop to it with the next installments ;)
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Day 5: Monday 7th May 2012
I find it hard to describe to the feelings that surge through me arriving in Venezia without sounding like a complete knob… My heart starts to race and then I feel all glowie. Coming into Venice via Switzerland was breathtaking. The plane came through the clouds to reveal snow on the Swiss Alps and before we knew it we were staring down on what is, my undisputed magical kingdom, Venice. Lovener2 & I had been making valiant attempts at Traveller's Italian mastery and now was time to put it to the test. I navigated the VeniceConnected machine to pick up our pre-booked vaporetto passes but to my dismay, the bathroom cards did not come out of the machine. After a couple of unsuccessful retries, it was time to make some enquiries at the nearby desk. I immediately felt my throat dry up and my palms get sweaty. Thankfully, it was just an unfounded fear and enough tourist Italian rolled off my tongue to get me understood, successfully redirected to the correct desk in the greeting terminal, and a week’s worth of bathroom cards into my (still sweaty) palms. Taking the Extended Grand Canal Tour (through Venice Link see http://tinyurl.com/9bf554o) is the only way to arrive in Venice if you can spare the funds (e155 for 5 adults). Our water taxi driver was Dennis, a Venetian local, who had been raised on Saint Erasmo. Dennis got just as much enjoyment as Lovener 2 & I did watching the expressions on our parents’ faces as we started to navigate through the Venetian canals. When you come from a young country where the landscape is dominated by bright greens and blues (& the oldest building we have dates to the 1820s), Venice’s soft light and pastel-hued palaces (dating back to the 13th Century) are almost incomprehensible. Nothing can prepare you for it & one must quickly try to regain their dignity and pick their jaw up from the bottom of the Canal before too many Venetians notice. I had to pinch my good fortune to be returning to Venice. Lovener2 had brought me here to celebrate my 30th birthday 5 years ago and now we were returning with our parents to be married in 4 days time. The sun was shining and I couldn’t be happier. Dennis stretched our ride out for as long as he could (“lentamente per favore” with a big smile paid off!) but we did need to exit the water taxi eventually. We arrived in Castello neighbourhood and we greeted by our Halldis apartment representative (Dennis had been kind enough to ring them & advise of our arrival). Our Halldis apartment, Venis Terrace (E2,200 for seven nights) (see http://tinyurl.com/8o787ro) turned out to be fabulous. It was far far larger than I had expected (never been all that good at understanding sq. meterage!) but this made for a very comfortable stay with 5 people that don’t normally live together. Dorrie & Lovener2’s Mum were starting to look a bit rough by now (poor Mum’s health conditions meant she had to be awoken hourly during the long plane ride, almost a form of torture for her!) and decided to take a wee nap. We popped next door to the handy Coop supermarket and trawled the aisles examining all the wonderful products. In my jetlag haze, I almost picked up a vegetable item without putting the glove on but clicked just in time after receiving the evil stare down from a local. My favourite shopping moment was enjoying the stares from locals as we ordered items from the delicatessen in Italian. They could, of course, have been staring at the extent to which we were butchering their beautiful language, but we’ll choose to remember the stares favourably ;) It was approaching lunch time by now and I didn’t dare try and work out how long we’d been awake for as my eyelids were getting r e a l l y h e a v y. A splash of water didn’t do much to reverse the situation. The very special Nan McIlroy arrived at 1.30pm for our Venice 101 (see http://tinyurl.com/8aq7g6w). For Lovener2 & I, this was a bit of overkill. We’re pretty familiar with Venice and well-researched. It was, however, excellent for giving our parents more confidence navigating & I will personally treasure the friendship that has come from meeting Nan who is a delightful soul. Nan was generous with her time and gave us some fabulous dinner recommendations that did not disappoint. We’d been thinking about what to do for dinner and Nan became rightfully worried that we’d hoped to dine on a Monday without a reservation. Whilst reservations are not required everywhere, they are essential for the smaller neighbourhood places where Venice’s food gems reside. Nan booked us into La Cantina. La Cantina Strada Nuova Cannaregio 0415228258 La Cantina has a fabulous atmosphere within its wine bar and small eatery. Apparently well-loved for their fish, on a Monday they serve meat. A boost of iron was just what we needed to counteract the jetlag. We were seated beside the Chef’s area and enjoyed a lovely banter backward & forward (A chef can quickly spot a couple of foodies as Lovener2 &I started to drawl at the amazing produce and meat he had at his disposal). We might have got a bit cocky about of Italian prowess and ended up over-ordering. It seems you order a platter of the meat (note the use of the 'singular') your choice and we interpreted this as the platter coming with duck, beef steak, lamb, and pork and venison (rather than having to choose between them, duh!). This might have been frustrating if it hadn’t all been mouth-wateringly delicious. We rolled ourselves back to the apartment knowing we’d been treated to magnificent meal which was very reasonably priced at E25 per person. We had eaten like kings. My head hit the pillow and I drifted off to sleep thinking “how could we possibly top this amazing day?” |
Oops. Lovener2 tells me I've missed out a whole chunk of our first day in Venezia.
It was such a beautiful clear day that we decided to push through the jet lag and go sightseeing. Rain was forecast for much of the week ahead and we wanted to be sure that we got a great view of Venice from above. Leaving at 6pm, we vaporetto-hopped across to Saint Giorgio Maggiore and paid the E5 entrance fee to take the lift to the top of the bell tower. This bell tower gives a magnificent & quite different vantage point. We were blessed with blue, haze-free skies which only made Venezia's charm stronger. I personally prefer the view from Saint Giorgio Maggiore's bell tower over the St Mark's Campanile. A little more distance from the square provides a great perspective and the throngs of tourists were absent. We didn't feel any time pressure or as though we were blocking someone else's view. It was peaceful and mesmerizing. |
See http://tinyurl.com/9zwqv8d for photos of Day 5: Arriving in Venezia
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Day 6: Tuesday 8th May Venice
I’m not quite sure how I do it, but as my normal at-home routine, I awoke by 6am. I lay in bed listening to the sounds of the canal below: boats going past and Venetians calling out to each other as the navigated the canal outside our bedroom window. I opened the shutters to see another lady across the canal opening her shutters too (also in her nightie but Italian numbers are decidedly smarter!). I’m normally a get-up-and go kinda gal so needed to adjust my expectations that we’d all be able to leave the apartment 20 minutes later together. Lovener2 & I went for an early morning walk and rediscovered the hugely delicious croissant with apricot (which would later play a contributing role in a significant holiday weight gain, particularly after the concept of ‘second’ breakfast was conceived where one consumes another pastry mid-morning after the early morning pastry has been forgotten). The highlight of the walk was watching the gondoliers clean up their boats in ready for a day’s tourist business. We were on a bit of a mission today. We wanted to do a bit of sightseeing and then find a way to ditch the parents so that we could attend to some top secret wedding business. We visited the majestic Basilica Saint Marco together (prebooked through Alata http://tinyurl.com/8mubotd ) where we had a guided tour. We had a wonderful guide whose passion for Basilica knew no limits. My favourite moment was when she was warning everyone to watch their footing on the uneven Basilica floor “be careful, the floor is like a mountain” . We then slotted the parents onto the 11am tour of Dogues Palace which was our parking spot for them while we rushed off to do the secret wedding business. Our wedding business was to be a fun insight into Italian life. We had been determined to make the arrangements ourselves without a wedding planner. We knew that with careful organization and getting lucky with helpful administrators in the NZ Embassy and Venice Commune, we could do it. Our job for the day was to take our paperwork (documents that had already been to Italy for processing) to the Preffetura. The Preffetura seems to be the Ministry for citizen matters. We knew we needed to go there with the paperwork and pay the E14.62 stamp duty. We navigated our way there at pace (knowing we needed to get everything done before the Dogues Tour was over). We headed in and clearly failed the “looks like an Italian” test and were shooed out by the security guard with the Italian equivalent of "bugger off, pesky tourists". We produced our paperwork and talked our way into the facility, taking our number to be served. It was about this point that the efficacy of Traveller’s Italian began to fade. With good humour and thinking laterally about the Italian language, we ascertained that the E14.62 stamp duty was not a fee that we paid in cash but in fact a sticky stamp that needed to be purchased from a newsagents. We also needed another photocopy of our passports which we’d had certified at home. So off we trotted to the newsagents for the E14.62. My proudest Italian language moment was asking for the stamp in Italian. The ‘helpful’ newsagent assured me that I did not need that kind of stamp and wanted to know what I was posting & where. I had a giggle and then insisted it was correct and that we needed it for the Preffetura. Time was starting to become a bit pressured by now so we hop footed it back to the Preffetura. Well, it seemed the bureaucratic adventure was only just beginning. We smiled triumphantly as we handed over the e14.62 stamp and our extra copy of the passports. The frown on Annah, the Adminstrator’s face, indicated we’d got something wrong. I interrogated my brain for more Italian verbs & nouns to get me through the situation. It seemed that the stamp was required to either authenticate or process the piece of paper we had provided and now the passports were copied onto an extra piece of paper, this required yet another E14.62 stamp. Not only that, the passports needs to be witnessed at another office across town which handled different matters of the citizen….Oh crumbs, now we really needed to battle time for both picking up the parents and getting back to the Preffetura before they closed for “la pausa”. When arrived across town at the Venezia di Commune for the Affature? we were hot and bothered and most definitely lacking in Italian style. We looked like tourists that had got hot and bothered and decided to come into the nearest building for some free air-conditioning. It’s hardly surprising that the locals glared at us as we took our number and then slumped into the seats provided. The heat was steaming off us by now. We received many sideways glances. The international language of “All Blacks” and rugby broke through any cultural barriers with the Commune Administrator. We were in & out within about 30 minutes with hopefully everything we needed. We raced back to the Preffetura and with 15 minutes to spare before “La Pausa” and declared victory over bureaucracy. Hurrah ☺ We lunched at a favourist tourist haunt near the Rialto bridge and reminisced over the lunch we had enjoyed at the exact same place 5 years earlier when we were falling in love. A “La Pausa” of our own was definitely required; we’d clocked up 14kms of walking before lunch. For dinner we ambled along to Osteria Alla Staffa: Osteria Alla Staffa Castello calle Ospedale 0415239160 La Staffa was fantastic. A tiny place with a lovely buzz about it. Flavourful, family-style cooking with a menu that changes regularly. Thankfully Nonna’s lasagna is a consistent menu feature and is not to be missed. Pop ordered it and I tasted it (and then spent the remainder of the meal looking longing at it, despite my own meal being fabulous). Our meal worked out at about E14 each for main courses. Definitely share an appetizer as the servings are large. Nonna also makes the tiramisu – despite disliking tiramisu, I decided I needed to give it go on the strength of Nonna’s lasagna. It was perfect and I found myself in love. |
ps- we highly recommend paying the small fee to go upstairs to the Treasury in the Basilica San Marco. It's fascinating and you also get access to the outside part of the Basilica. Amazing views.
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see here for day 6 photos:gondoliers cleaning up their gondole in the gondola parking yard, Basilica San Marco, wedding paperwork at the Preffetura & Commune, dinner at Osteria Alla Staffa
http://tinyurl.com/9f3y4er |
ttt
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Love your pics---you have a good eye.
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I married in Venice is 1989 and, like you, we did the paperwork on our own. Your details of the scramble from the Preffetura to purchase the marcobolli brought back fond memories. I'm enjoying your vacation with you.
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Marking this for later leisurely read. Good going!
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