Here's us on top!
Then we visited Milan for lunch. On the way out of the Como train station, we ran into another guy from CA, and he asked what I do. I told him I'm starting KPMG in the fall, and it turns out he owns the Pilates studio across the street … strange.
In Milan, the only thing really worth seeing is the Duomo, literally translated “dome” but used as “cathedral.” It's the largest gothic cathedral, and the third largest cathedral in Europe. We toured it and ate lunch at a restaurant nearby, where we were attacked constantly by pigeons and sparrows. We successfully navigated the subway system, and made our way to and from train stations and the duomo without getting terribly lost.
Duomo:
Post-Milan we moved on to Genova, where we had a reservation for 3 nights in a hostel. We got to the train station, and ran into another hosteller from Finland looking for the same hostel. After asking numerous bus drivers how to get to the ostello in broken Spanish, we figured out that we needed to take a bus and transfer to another bus, which we managed to do!!! The ride to the hostel took a whole hour, and it turns out the hostel is at the top of a hill with nothing else on it except RAIN. We asked the receptionist if the kitchen was still open, and he said there was no kitchen . . . but there were vending machines and microwaves. Kim and I decided that microwave meals were probably not the epitome of Italian cuisine, so we decided to find a restaurant. We grabbed some random people from the hostel living room, and went up the hill to a restaurant clearly marked FOOD in neon lights. As we walked up the hill, we heard club music and got super excited about the epic dinner awaiting us.... except when we got there it was a CHILDREN'S BIRTHDAY PARTY. AT 11:30 AT NIGHT. AT A BAR. WITH CLUB MUSIC. It was strange and disappointing.
Hostel review:
We stayed at the HI Hostel, which was just called Genoa. Awful hostel! They took our passport to hold, which made us nervous, AND made us give back our keys every time we left! Both really dumb policies. Our room had 8 people/room, which wasn't bad, and lockers outside the rooms which is ideal so you don't wake up roommates rustling around. The showers had no water pressure, and the whole place was very impersonal and dull. The rooms were sweltering hot at night, and for some reason EVERYONE woke up super early. The only hostel so far where people don't sleep in. The fact that there was no kitchen, and only vending machine food made it even worse. In ADDITION, the hostel is only accessible via an hour bus ride up a hill - a hill with nothing else on it, except residences and that one restaurant. Awful location... bad amenities. Also we bought wifi access, but the wifi died and they didn't want to give us our money back! Boo :(
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