My 7 day trip through Italy (pics of cars, food, nature and architecture inside)

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Germany
Hanover/Germany
alexpkas
Hey, so I was touring Italy for the first time for 7 days and came back quite impressed. My gf and I decided to do that rather spontaniuosly. I guess that's one of the advantages to live in the European country with the most neighbours (9 to be exact) :P. I thought it would be fun sharing some of the things I saw, did and what I ate with all of you through text, pics and video. Food is very important to me. I love eating delicious, high quality food. I'm a gourmet if you want so, so there will be quite a few food pics :P. I came to Italy on Sunday the 11th of August (my birthday :embarrassed:), and left yesterday. I will post the dates in the following order: Day/month/year (as it should be :P). So let's just get to it:

Friday the 09.08.2019: My girlfriend and me started our journey in my Golf V from Germany/Hanover, our hometown. We made our first stop in Munich (about 5h drive) , at one of my girlfriends relative's place. We slept there.

Saturday the 10.08.2019: Since it was my first time in Munich, and one of my good friends lives there, I thought it would be nice to visit some places in the city and also the Alps (I love trekking). We started our Alps/Munich trip at 08:30am in the morning, which for me, was very early, considering it was saturday. We first strengthened ourselves with a nice...
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and headed to the Alps, about 45 minutes a drive away. I don't exactly remember where we stopped, but it was a public parking lot and from there we started trekking up the mountains. Stupidely I forgot to take my running shoes with me and so I had to do the trek with my very thin sneaker shoes (5h total trek over very stoney tracks and paths with sometimes quite steep downhill and uphill sections, where it was basically more climbing, than trekking). The scenery was absolutely breathtaking as you can imagine and see (on the following shots). We trekked on one mountain top in about 1200 meter hight (about 4000 feet) and went from there to another mountain top (along the top(s) of the mountain(s)). From there we took the funicular to get down again. Getting down by foot would have been too time consuming and exhaustive, quite honestly, because by the time we got to the funicular, I was already quite hammered to be honest. Having done the trek in my run down sneakers, I had to be very cautious, as it was raining on some parts of the trek, and I could easily slip on the stones and mud, and quite franky, could have fallen down the mountain and...die. :dunce::eek::scared::lol: So here are some of the shots:

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After that we drove to the Munich city, visited the "BMW World" and went up the Munich Olympia Tower. Some pics:

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To finish the day, we visited a nice Afghan restaurant in Munich. We had Mantu (pastry with meat), shashlik and lamb meat with rice. Can only recommend this restaurant. The food was delicious. I ate Afghan for the first time. It was interesting to compare the Mantu, to the Mantu my parents did (and still do), because my birth place is Kazhakstan (it's right above Afghanistan and right under Russia). What tasted better? Hm. I like both versions equally I guess. Pics:

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Sunday the 11.08.2019:
My girlfriend and me headed early to Italy, to the home of my girlfriend's relatives, in the town of Vicenza (northern Italy). We had to drive through a smaller part of Austria and had to buy a vignette for 10 Euros for 10 days (as we also had to drive back). Austria has a toll system for their highways, so before you enter the highway system, you also have to pay an extra 10 Euros each time you enter it. We drove to Italy through or on the "Brenner"=a hundreds of kilometers long highway through Austria and Italy, going next to and through the "Brenner" mountains. The scenery was once more absolutely breathtaking. Some pics:

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In the evening we went to a German themed restaurant :confused:, but I ordered Pizza. Sure I can eat Pizza in Germany too, but not like in Italy. :sly: We payed the meal, as it was my birthday and it seems to be common in Serbian culture (my gf and her relatives are Christian-Orthodox Serbs) to invite friends and family on your B-day and pay (like in many other cultures I reckon).

Monday the 12.08.2019: We visited the town of Verona. This is the place of Shakespears' "Romeo and Juliet". Following pic is the balcony of the couple:

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Obviously it is an overrun tourist attraction, but it was still nice to see. The weather was great (as the entire 7 days were), and the city of Verona is really quite beautiful. Some pics:

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Right on our very first day of sight-seeing tour, we witnessed a very stereotypical Italian scene in the traffic, when two people stopped in the middle of the road, got out of the car and started shouting at each other emotionally in Italian. It was a woman and a man. She was even holding her hand in front of his face, as to indicate to hit him. It was like a scence out of a movie. :lol:

Before heading back to Vicenza, we enjoyed some nice drinks and Tiramisu over the roofs of Verona :sly:. Picy:
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Tuesday the 13.08.2019: We headed to the Lake Garda in the towns of Sirmione and Pischiera del Garda. Beautiful places. The water was warm, just very nice overall. The entrance into the lake was very stoney though, so much that it hurts. I would advice to search/google for places of the Lake (which is huge), where the entrance would be simply sand, if that exists. Pics:

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Before heading back to Vicenza, I had Melon with Parma ham (best ham in the world, I just love it). Pic:
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Wednesday the 14.08.2019: This day was supposed to be a special one. And it was! Our next destination was the town of Assisi. Long time Gran Turismo fans may know it. ;) The GT4 track "Cita di Aria" was running through this very town. I just could not not visit it. So we were planning to be there in about 4.5 hours, but needed six, because of all the construction work on the highways. I wonder what the Italians use the money of their highway toll system for, because the roads are at best ok and no one is working on the construction sites.

Also, there is the driving mentality of the Italians. Holy smokes. I was afraid for my life all the time. No one is respecting the speed limits, everyone is changing lanes on the highway without indicators at 100 miles per, driving 2-10 meters behind each other at 100 miles per and just being reckless and downright dangerous and life threatening in their traffic behaviour. I mean, the weather is always nice, the architecture is beautiful, the nature isn't too bad either, the food is the best in the world, the people seem nice, but oh boy when it comes to the driving...everyone's basically driving like a racing driver on the racing track but virtually no one is owning Ferraris or Lamborghinis (more about that later).

Before arriving in the town, we had to refuel, but I missed the last fuel station on the highway, before leaving it to head to the town. So it was really gambling to get to the town, because you have to drive many kilometers uphill and this, our tank would probably not survive. I had to stop on the middle of the road in the country side and tried to stop people and ask them for the nearest gas station. The first three didn't even react, but luckely a young guy came by in his car and not only stopped and told us where one was, but even "escorted" us to the next gas station (about half a mile away). Luckely we could just cruise, because we had to go down again, through the tightest roads through an Italian village, while dodging traffic. It was comical. I was SO thankfull for this guy helping us out. Such a great, nice guy. 👍

The town itself is in the famous Tuscanny region and sits more or less on the top of a big hill/mounain, and you can look down on the entire valley, in which many little villages are located. One very, VERY, beautiful place all around. The town is like the "Mecca of the Catholics". It is full of elevation changes and the tightest alleys between old, beautiful architecture. You know, almost all cities in Italy are beautiful, but only their centers mostly (like in many other cities worldwide I guess), but Assisi is just one beautiful place without any ugly corners, as far as I can tell.

When we arrived there, I obviously wanted to drive around the GT4 track, but unfortunalty, that was not possible. Biggest parts of the track were only allowed to be entered by the residents of the town or people, who booked there hotels. So we had to go around the track by foot and so we did. We didn't even have any time left for any sight-seeing really and barely finished the lap by foot. Here are the pics of Assisi, the nearby valley and the track obviously: :D

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EDIT: In the meantime I did a video comparison between the real Assisi and the GT4 one:

After the visit of Assisi, we planned something very special. We wanted to eat at the restaurant "Antica Macelleria Cecchini" of Darrio Cecchini, who was in one of the episodes of Netflixes' award winnig show "Chef's table". In my opinion, an amazing show. So basically this guy is a butcher, and his food in his restaurant is very "meaty" as you can imagine. I love steak, preferably medium or medium-rare. The meat they served was certainly more on the rare side, than on the medium side, but it was delicious nonetheless. They served Carpaccio and steaks from different parts of the cow. The last 30 kilometers of our trip from Assisi to the restaurant went through the Tuscanny landscape, through its serpentine roads. It was fun, thrilling and absoultely beautiful at the same time! Pics of the drive and the food:

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Thursday the 15.08.2019: This day was supposed to be a special day also, but was a bit disapointing. My favourite car manufacturers are 1. Lamborghini and 2. Ferrari and their "homes" being Maranello/Modenna and Sant'Agata respectively and being "only" 2 hours a drive away from Vicenza, it was a no brainer to visit the museums of each. First we headed to Lamborghini in Sant'Agata. Their museum was closed on that day, as it was supposedly some special holiday in Italy. So we headed straight to Ferrari in Maranello, which was about 30 minutes away. What surprised me about the county side of Maranello/Modenna and Sant'Agata is, that it was very rural. I expected Ferraris and Lamboghinis left and right, fighting it out on the streets, like the Bull vs. the Horse you know :lol: ? But...there wasn't a single Ferrari or Lamborghini to be seen. Infact, the whole area seemed very plain and dead. Supposedly it was because of the holidays.

After eating at Burger King (some fast food for a change), we wanted to refuel on our way to Maranello. You must know that in Italy basically all gas stations are self-service. It means you stick an amount of money into the machine, pick the fuel you want and refuel. No one is really working at those gas stations. We stuck 30 Euros into the machine and I then clicked on "abort", because we wanted to put an other amount of money in it (we didn't want to put too much in it, as we didn't know what would happen to the change). As it is, our "fears" should be "confirmed", because instead of giving us our money back, the machine just gave us back a receipt, with which we could get back our money at the little house of the gas station itself. It said someone would be working there from 3pm to 7pm from monday to friday. It was 2.45pm. We decided to wait. I knew no one would come, and so it was. We then decided to eat and come back. At 4pm there was still no one around, so we said ....it and headed straight to Maranello.

There, we visited the museum and I tried the F1 simulator (made a thread about it in the rumble section). Before we entered the museum, there were guys offering 10-15 minute drives for 70-250 Euros in the most exotic Ferraris and Lambos, the likes of California, 458, 488, Huracan Performante and so on. I was so close to do it, but then decided not to. Trashing such a car, being abroad...not a pleasent experience I believe. And considering my gf gifted me a 20 minute drive in a Huracan in Germany (which I still have to do), the decision was even easier. So here are the pics:

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After that we headed to Parma, where the world famous Parma ham and Parmesan cheese come from. The city itself was really very bautiful. As in tradition, we did eat before heading back "home" to Vicenza. You can certainly guess what we ate: Parma ham, Parmesan cheese and a chicken broth with Gnochi filled with...meat and Parmesan cheese...:lol: One of the best meals I ever had...pics:

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Friday the 16.08.2019: This was our big Tuscanny tour. We visited Florence, then Vinci, and then Pisa. Florence is pure sight-seeing galore. It has crazily impressive architecture! I don't know if I am allowed to post pics from the inside of the cathedrals, so I'll just rather not do it, but they are SO impressive looking with all their marble etc. In Florence we ate true Italian gelatto, and it is great ice indeed! Pics:

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Vinci is the home town of you guessed it...Da Vinci. We explored his birth place and house and it was kinda cool to imagine what it was for hime like, living there. From his house you could look down into a typicall Tuscanny valley and today it basically looks all the same, as it did back then. So that was a cool experience. Driving up to his house through the tightest serpentine roads imagenable was also an experience, so much I can tell! :scared::lol:
Before heading to Pisa we went to a restaurant near the centre of Vinci. It was run by the grand-parents of a family it seemed. The grand father was cooking, the small kids helped and the grand mother was playing Solitair on her laptop next to the counter, and later the teacher from the kids came to the restaurant and helped them with homework on one table next to us :lol:. It was a true Italian family run restaurant and was just super cute! We ate steaks, Risotto di Mare and I had a carpaccio and Tortellini with Gorgonzola cheese, so delicious! Then we had different desserts, but by far the best is called "profiteroles". Pics:

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Before going to Pisa, we spontaniously stopped at a small, private winery and bought 3 bottles super cheap but still good wine. It was just a nice, very "Italian-like" thing to do, if you get what I mean.

So in Pisa we only did sight seeing in the centre, as it is quite the small town. Yes we also did the cliche "I'm interacting with the crooked tower" images. :P Was it worth it? I guess yes, but it would have been better going up the tower, unfortunatly it was already closed though. Pics:

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Apparently, it was very cold in Pisa though: :P

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Saturday the 17.08.2019: After the Thursday disapintment, we decided to still visit the Lamborghini museum. I was again disapointed though, because although they had more models to show, than Ferrai, most were very new. I would have loved seeing the Countach (1988) model and many more Diablo models, as these are my favourite models from Lamborghini. They only had the Diablo GT '00 (also in GTS), but I saw this one in the "Autostadt" from VW in Wolfsburg, Germany, and in a very cool orange paint at that already. It was still nice I guess. Pics:

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After that we decided to finally check out the city, in which we stayed: Vicenza. I must say I was very surprised by its beauty. At least by its centre, which is very big. There is one "central place=piazza" in the centre, being surrounded by beautiful architecture and in the middle are many chairs and tables, where people have drinks, talk and chill, which we did also. It was just a very chilled and pleasant way to close the day. Before we went to the centre, we drove to a small nearby town, where there is a bigger, more professional winery, where there were big containers filled with the different white and red wines. You could try and taste all the wines directly from these huge containers, which was kinda cool and which we obviously did. I was rather tipsy after that. :dopey: And we also bought a few bottles of course. :embarrassed: Pics:

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Sunday the 18.08.2019: And as the best for last, we visited Venice by train from Vicenza, which is only a 40 minute drive away and costs only 12 Euros to there and back. This was a pure sight-seeing tour and although I expected a lot from the city, I was still surprised just how beautiful it really was. Hundreds of canals connected by cute bridges, extremely tight paths between the houses and an unbelievably beautful main place, the Piazza San Marco, which is also featured as a scape in GTS. Pics:

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I also discovered a different scape from GTS:
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For comparison here is a scape photo from mine out of GTS I did in this location:
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Before going back to Vicenza for the last time, we had a final awesome meal: my gf had nice Tagliatelle and I had the best fish soup of my life, with a nice cake and Tiramisu as desserts:

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Monday 19.08.2019: On our back trip to Germany I wanted to visit the town "Poppenhausen" in Bavaria, because my name is Popp and in German it is rather funny. "Poppen" means basically, well...you know...like...:embarrassed:...you get it? Also you have familiar words like pop music, pop corn, etc. Yes, school was tough...Here's the pic:

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Well, this is it. This was my trip through Italy. Beside the hardship of driving so much, I absolutely enjoyed it and was very impressed by the architecture, by the food and pleasently surprised by the nature and the people. I made many interesting, fascinating, funny and simply awesome experiences, and I will certainly repeat that: next stops are: Neaples, San Marino, Turin, Rom, Capri, Lucca, and some more I hope.

I hope you enjoyed the read and the pics! Leave a comment if you like! :)
 
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Very nice !!! Thanks for sharing... Travelling the world is something everyone must do... It's the only way to truly appreciate your home, understand others and open your mind up...

You and your girlfriend are doing it right !
 
Very nice !!! Thanks for sharing... Travelling the world is something everyone must do... It's the only way to truly appreciate your home, understand others and open your mind up...

You and your girlfriend are doing it right !

Thanks :) The thing is, I more or less started "recently" travelling, so I have a lot to catch up to. I would love to visit a lot of places worldwide. Let's see what the future holds... :)

I certainly made quite a few interesting and pleasant experiences concerning interacting with others from other cultures and sort of "absorb" other cultures, at least for the time being there.
 
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Go back. Take pics, post them here and tell us all about it.

BTW, Xanten is a very nice Roman city in Northern Germany. I've been there.
Not me. As long as I have my computer, internet, TV and a comfortable couch, I'm pleased. :P

Never heared of it. Must be right around the corner so to say.
 

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