I’m just going to pick up where I left off last time, because I was still in Milan when I wrote that post but felt I had to write it all down before I forgot it. So, despite it being messy and split into 2 posts:
The next couple of days in Milan we visited a load of shopping areas. Most of the shops were designer so we couldn’t buy anything, but the shops themselves looked beautiful and gold and shiny both on the outside and inside so it wasn’t a total waste of time.
We also visited Milan cathedral (a place where photos really do not do it justice AT ALL). It’s soooo much more magnificent than I ever could have imagined! The downside to the cathedral however, was that there were more people in front of it than anywhere else that I saw in Milan and it was a little scary at times with all the crowds, but that is why sam and I took a walk into the quieter side of town in search for a good place to eat. We ended up in a restaurant called Platina. It makes its pasta fresh every day and you really could tell. The food was incredible!
From Milan we caught a late train to Pisa. The journey took over 4 hours and we arrived about 22.30. It was interesting, to say the least, guiding our way through the Pisa streets that late in order to find our air bnb. Luckily, it was only about a 15 minute walk from the station though so it wasn’t too bad at all.
The next morning we hunted out a trusty PAM – the supermarket chain I mentioned in another post – and bought all of our dinners/breakfasts/lunches for the following days. This included A LOT of focaccia (as anyone I met in Italy realised, Italian focaccia is my new found love – sorry Sam!), ricotta and Spinach pasta, tomato and oregano sauce, bruschetta ingredients, water, a doughnut to share (if anyone goes to a PAM buy the vanilla icing doughnuts they are incredible – they even are packed with Italian creme even though they are ring shaped!), biscuits and breakfast stuff such as yoghurts. Doing a €15 PAM shop saved us literally like €100 as it lasted the two of us like 6 meals and lots of snacks. It’s a great idea whenever and wherever you travel to, to go to a supermarket for snacks and drinks and, if you’re in a place where you have kitchen facilities like an Air bnb, planning meals and buying the ingredients there is also worth it too. This is because in touristy areas you could find a bottle of water is €3 whereas at a PAM you could get one for only €0.24. Anyway, you get the picture so I’ll move on.
In Pisa we saw the touristy sights, we had some wonderful homemade gelato and we explored and took plenty of pictures. It really was a great place to end our travels.
By the time the day came to catch our flight back to Leeds though, I was ready. It’s difficult to say bye to Italy after so long, however the thought of my own bed and seeing the Leeds city skyline, the parkinson building and all my friends again was an idea so sweet it made my mouth water (metaphorically of course).
Yesterday was long. We walked an hour to the airport with our really heavy backpacks, flew back, got home, unpacked our things and then did all our food shopping for the next week or so. I plan on seeing as many friends as possible within the next week before uni starts so I’ll definitely be keeping myself occupied. I’m sure I’ll post on here if I get any withdrawal from my travels (usually that leads me to planning the next trip in some way as well). Within the next few days I’m also going to post on here a load of pictures so stay tuned.
As always at the end of these, I want to say thankyou to everyone who reads my updates and cares about what I’m getting up to. Love you all and I’ll speak soon!
-Alice xxxx