Milano, where even the pigeons make me sad.

 

Before I had even flown back to England, from Rome, at Christmas, I had put together a general itinerary for when I returned to Italy in the new year.  I would fly to Pisa for the day, then onto Florence, for two weeks of WWOOFing on a horse farm, catch the train to Bologna, then Venice, Verona & Milan, all for a day each.  Finally traveling across to Genoa, for a week of WWOOFing, before catching the train to Nice & seeing where the wind took me.  On paper this all sounded great, very organised & within budget.  Sadly, in reality, very little of this has gone to plan, but, as mère says, you can't plan life.  Seemingly, never a truer word has been spoken.

So, as planned, at the beginning of February, I flew to Pisa & spent the day there alone, sightseeing.  Then, the next day, I caught the train to Florence, only the farm I had intended to stay on, ended up turning me down & with it being too late to find a suitable replacement, I ended up just booking a hostel for the night instead.  This then turned into two nights, after arranging to meet Kate & then obviously meeting Italian Beard & combining it all with one too many drinks & staying out all night.

Having one of my mini meltdowns about what to do next, I decided to scrap going to Bologna & headed straight to Venice, which once again, ended with me staying for far longer than anticipated after various events & meeting of people.  After finally leaving Venice for Verona, I made the last minute decision, at the train station, not to stay for the night & instead head to Milan after a few hours.

Sometimes, you just have to go with the flow & things end up turning out better than your original plan.  The only issue with all this free flow, is it can end up being a little financially challenging, which I discovered when I got to Milan, late Monday evening.

After checking into the New Generation Hostel, two metro stops from Milano Centrale, soggy from the rain & starting to feel rather under the weather, all I wanted was to sit in bed & watch TV.  Setting up camp on my top bunk, surrounded by snacks & blankets, I allowed myself an hour of Homeland.  Blubbering my way through that, I thought it was probably a wise decision to check my overseas account...Witnessing that my month's budget had been devoured by too many unplanned nights in hostels, dozens of museum entry fees & several train rides, all in a week, I felt a little sick.

Already feeling ill, the thought of my impending poverty pushed me rather over the edge.  I'm afraid that, generally speaking, I am terribly disorganised in my own life.  Put me in an office & I'm fine.  Ask me to advise you on your life plan & I'll happily give you direction.  Place me in front of a mirror & I'll fall apart & seek answers in all the wrong places.  I think the issue is, faced with more than one option, I crumble.  Self doubt washes over me & I find myself unable to trust my own decision making skills.  Currently, I am standing in the middle of a roundabout, surrounded by sixty different exits, all perfectly acceptable options & I have no idea which route to choose.  Grilling everybody for their opinions, only to never really find the answer I'm looking for.

After some frantic emails to mère, I decided to wipe Genoa from the itinerary & hop on the train to Nice the following afternoon.  Maybe France would ease my soul.  So, sleeping on it all, I arose the next day, packed up my things & headed for the station.  Deciding not to shell out another €5 at the Left Luggage department, I kept my things with me & went & bought a ticket for Nice.  Italian train stations, predominantly the larger ones, require you to take a number, quite like you're waiting in line at a deli for a few slices of prosciutto.  Despite having eighteen desks, only eight were actually manned, which resulted in me waiting over twenty minutes for my number to be called.

I paid €38.50 for my train to Nice, which, although was very cheap, unfortunately was not direct.  Due to a break in the line, I was informed I would have to catch the train to Albenga, then get a bus outside the station to Ventimiglia & catch another train from there to Nice Ville.  Inwardly rolling my eyes, I took the ticket & headed out of the station, looking to spend a few hours sightseeing in Milan.

Milano Centrale to me is like a vortex.  Every time I tried to leave, I seemed to end up back inside, clueless.  I asked half a dozen people where the Tourist Office was, so that I could get my hands on a map & every one of them sent me off in different directions, which never ended at the elusive destination I was aiming for.  I'd made a note in my notebook about the buses, but had failed to say where outside of the station I caught them, or even where I was supposed to get them to!

I figured I could just hop on the metro, but equally wasn't sure what stop to get off at.  Losing my patience, I began to abuse the internet on my phone for answers, only for my phone to start threatening me with a dead battery.  Feeling overwhelmed by my ridiculous situation, I sat on a bench, on platform twenty two & just began to weep with frustration.  There I was, twenty six years of age & I couldn't work out how to get out of a bloody train station!  I mean honestly, it's so ridiculous.

Sobbing away, I took out a bread roll & started nibbling away on it, feeding the falling crumbs to the pigeons, which had gathered around me.  Finally getting a grip, I got up, brushed myself off, took a trip to the train information office, asked, once again, where the Tourist Office was & an hour after I had first arrived, I finally found the place, gleaming at me in front of platform fifteen!

Grabbing a map, I sped downstairs, spent €1.50 on a single ticket & jumped on the metro to the Duomo.  Coming up for air, I felt so stupid at how long it had taken me to get there.  I took in the cathedral, the whole of the square, the people & just felt relieved.  Stupid, but relieved.  With time running out before my three o'clock train, I took a stroll down the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, round the various side streets, had a quick look in the & Other Stories store & took a brief break outside the cathedral, before rushing back to the station & onto my train, which, thankfully, came with a power point for my phone.

There's going with the flow & there's just simple disorganisation.  Seemingly I need to learn the difference.

RECIPE: Gooey Vegan Brownies

I am currently in Chabanais, in France, staying with one of my favourites, Kate.  The weather outside is grey & damp, but inside we're snuggled up with the fire roaring, the dogs dozing on the rugs & a film or two to entertain us.

Making the most of being in one place for more than a moment & having access to a kitchen, we decided to do a spot of baking.  Looking through numerous recipe ideas, we settled on trying our hand at these...

Gooey Vegan Brownies

 

Simple to make, with not too many ingredients & they came out super delicious!  The chocolate chunks in them were all gooey when they first came out of the oven & then returned to firm chunks once they'd cooled.  We have all of one left...

Ingredients

2 cups of plain flour
1/2 cup sunflower oil

2/3 cup of cocoa powder

3/4 teaspoon of baking powder

3/4 teaspoon of salt

2 cups of granulated sugar

2/3 cup of water

3/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1/2 cup of chocolate chunks

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 180º.

In a large bowl, sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder & salt & mix together until fully combined.

In another bowl, whisk the sugar, oil, water & vanilla extract, until all the ingredients come together & form a gloopy consistency.

Mix the dry ingredients into the wet, mix thoroughly, then add in all the yummy chocolate chunks.

Pour into a tin of your choice & bake in the middle of the oven for about thirty five minutes.

Et voila, delicious, gooey, chocolate brownies, which will add warming layers of fat to your thighs & a smile on your face.  Parfait!

Verona, Verona, wherefore art thou Verona

Arising very early last Monday morning, I threw on my clothes in the dark of my hostel room, attempting not to wake all other sleeping inhabitants & hopped onto the vaporetto to the train station.  Having learned my lesson from my bus ride to Venice, I had been sure to make a visit to the station the day before, with Jessica, to inquire about the cheaper regionale trains to Verona.

Running roughly every forty minutes, the regionale train costs €7.60, which is far cheaper than its alternative option, which costs €23 & majoritively speaking, if you're savvy with picking your departure time, the journey duration is the same.

My ride to Verona was smooth sailing & just over an hour, however, once there, having been unable to locate affordable accommodation in town, I made the last minute decision to only stay for the afternoon & head to Milan for the night.

Throwing caution to the wind, I made a visit to the Left Luggage room & parted ways with €5 & Sir Fleming's little hand luggage suitcase, which he has thankfully lent me for the trip.  Annoyingly, as you pay per bag, I was still left with a very oversized & ridiculously heavy plastic bag of, quite frankly, crap, that somehow, I have managed to accumulate, in the short time I've been back in Italy.

So off I went, bag of crap in hand, to the ticket office & bought myself a one-way ticket to Milan for the afternoon.  Costing €11.65, the trains for Milan leave Verona regularly & the ticket does not fix you into a set time.  Left Baggage on the other hand, gives you five hours & so, with it at that time being ten in the morning, I figured I should attempt to make it back to the station for three.

The weather in Verona was dire.  Cold, wet & miserable.  I remember watching Letters to Juliet & how beautiful Verona looked.  Me being me, after watching any film that's set outside of England, I become immediately enamoured & start adding destinations to my travel wishlist.  In reality, few places tend to live up to their onscreen beauty.

Having been unable to locate a tourist office in the station & therefore procure a map of the city, I wandered around outside, rather cluelessly, for some exaggerated period of time, attempting to work out which bus I needed to get on, in order to actually reach anything of interest.  Eventually reaching a 'sod it' state of mind, I hopped on a bus destined for Piazza Bra, minus a ticket.

It had taken me long enough to pick a bus to get on, I wasn't about to faff about trying to find somewhere to buy a bloody ticket.  Thankfully, no one in Italy ever asks to see your ticket (don't hold me to that, sod's law you'll now be asked) & even more thankful, it turned out Piazza Bra was the right place to be.

Jumping off right outside a tourist office, I went & grabbed a map of the city & began to locate & circle points of interest.  Unfortunately, my attempts to pack in a morning of sightseeing, before speeding off to Milan, was scuppered by Verona's Monday opening hours.  Both the Arena & Casa di Giulietta, along with essentially all points of interest, were closed until after one.  Brilliant.  Sodding brilliant.

With the rain beating down my enthusiasm & the wind breaking my umbrella, I wandered around, past the Arena di Verona, a smaller version of the colosseum in Rome, up Via Giuseppe Mazzini, passing all the shops & ended up in Piazza delle Erbe, looking at their pitiful market stalls.  Wandering off to the Duomo & being bemused to find an entry fee sign, I ended up in a store doorway, hiding from the rain.

On the verge of tears, my phone dying of battery & my useless umbrella leaving me soggy, I felt tired of traveling.  What was I doing here.  What possessed me to give up the comfort of my beautiful home, my pink Smeg fridge, my French grey walls & my comfy wrought iron bed, to be here, standing in the rain catching a cold.

Just as I was about to throw down my bags & give up entirely, I looked to my right & there, just within sight was a rather nice looking cafe.  Walking closer to get a better look, I was amazed to see the word vegana chalked onto their sandwich board outside.  Could it be, I'd stumbled upon a vegan friendly eatery.

Creeping in, I fell in love with the interior.  Recycled vintage furniture, exposed brick, wooden floors.  All my favourites.  I ordered the cake of the day, an apple tart & it was delicious.  Relaxing into a seat, I plugged in my phone, whipped out my map & gave myself a pep talk.  Deciding that my love affair with Verona was null & void, I decided to cut all losses, wait for one thirty, go check out the Casa di Giulietta & then bugger off back to the station.

The courtyard at Casa di Giulietta is small & not at all like it is in the film, but I really liked it & it's free entry.  There is the statue of Juliet, which, it is said, if you rub her right breast, you will find new love.  So, obviously I gave her a good old grope.  There's a huge gate, laden with multicoloured padlocks, scribbled with people's initials & plenty of gum.  Literally walls covered in chewing gum.

I sacked off paying €6 for entry into the house & having fully grown weary of Verona & the rain, I headed back to the station, via another free bus ride, picked up my bag & caught a train to Milan.