Travel Adventures 2011/12

Although we write off the prvious two days as unbearably painful, we wake up with a grin on our faces (well I know I did) realising, after emerge from our sleepy haze, we are in Milan!!! We head out around 11am, ready for a full day of new experiences. After trawling through the city streets, amazing old buildings, in and out of shops (me admiring all the amazing Italian made shoes), for around an hour or so, we hear our taste buds pleading for us to try some delicious Italian food. We luckily stumble upon a nice street side cafe and sit down for some traditional (and extremely yummy pizza).

After filling our bellies we stroll along the city streets where we stumble upon a nice, open, relaxing park where we sit under the trees for 15 minutes to cool down. After our much needed rest in the shade, we head to a known 'fashion street' where all the high fashion shops are. Typically Italian. Everything I imagined Italy's fashion district would be like. Stunning cobbled streets, immaculate stone buildings with striking window displays completing it. Shoes to DIE FOR. My shopping dream, Prada, D&G, Miu Miu, Armarni and the list goes on. Of course we could only window shop but nevertheless it was still amazing.

Next we head for the Golden Quad which is also home to many designer stores, surrounded with cafes filled with Italians sitting at tables covered with crisp white table cloths, sipping on their thimble sized esspresso's. Oh so Italian! We also come across what has to be, two of the tallest policemen we have ever layed eyes on (I must also note, Milan definitely has its standard of fashion - even the policemen are dressed immaculately!)

As we walk out of the Golden Quad we soon entre Piazza del Duomo ("Cathedral Square") the main Piazza which is home to the Milan Cathedral. We take a few snaps of the whole building and head to the front door to have a look inside. As we walk up the front steps we notice that there are amazing front doors made of bronze which has many biblical scene carved out of it. At the bottom there is a classic scene with Jesus. One of the man's legs in the sculpture has turned a gold colour as it is said to be good luck (or something like that) to touch certain parts of the carving. As we entre the are a wall of lit candles that beam their light all the way down to the front of the church.

After our big day exploring we head into Maccas, just to 'see what its like'. Of course we both insist on trying the Italian style Big Mac and pistachio flavoured Mc Flurry (Maccas is completely different in Italy, just like everything else, its sooooo much more classier). So we sit for an earlier dinner in the Maccas lounge and enjoy our Big Mac. Then its off home to bed for an early night!

Waking up early, with only a few hours of sleep (travelling/carrying heavy bags/limited sleep = not a good combo for Princess Isabella. And for King Marcus might I add hahaha!) we check out and head for the bus stop to catch the bus that takes us ALLLLLL the way back to the ferry terminal. Finally reaching the ferry terminal we are, yet again, sent on another trek around the world (still with our 10 million bags in tow) to find the bus stop for the bus to the airport. After loosing what felt like every drop of moisture in our bodies (it was the middle of the day) and both, I'm sure, smelling like roses (ha!) we finally found the airport bus. We arrive at the airport 6 hours early (yes, we didnt want a repeat of the day before so we were both adamant 6 hours would be JUST enough for us to fix any unknown problems that may arise!).

Finally our 9pm Easyjet flight is ready to board so 100+ crazy Italians and us, rush on the plane like seagulls fighting over hot chips, trying to secure a good seat (if one at all knowing Easyjet). We luckily get seats right up the front. We arrive in Milan at 12am, collect our bags and again try and figure out where to catch the bus to 'Centrale Statione'. The next bus arrives at a convenient time (not) of 1:30am. We finally arrive in central at around 2am and not wanting to relive our previous nights experiences we hop straight into a cab and head to our hotel where there is 24 hour reception (thank god). Classicly, the awesomely awesome travel agent Marcus Davidson, has booked us in to arrive THE FOLLOWING NIGHT (you could only imagine my reaction to this at 2:30am in the morning haha). Fortunately (and luckily for Marcus, ha) they had a spare/more expensive room available. So of course, we took that one and dozed off at an ungodly hour of 3am.

Having to re-rent another ATV (since someone accidently returned our original one a tad too early), we head off to Thira yet again. Chugging along, now at a grand speed of 30km/h (yes, they make ones that go EVEN slower) we reach Thira 15 minutes later than planned and meet up with Julie and Kim, who are in town for the next few days. Its close to 2pm and the sun is blazing so we decide to take shelter under a cafes umbrella while scoffing some pizza and downing a few sneaky wines (yes, anything goes when you're on holiday, even if it is only 2pm!). After filling our bellies we head for the shops, yet again (much to Marcus' horror haha). After wandering the streets, getting lost for a good 15 minutes (all the while in the sweltering sun, not fun!) we finally find the main shops and a gelato shop. While inhailing our gelatos we attempt to take a few 'nice' photos with the town of Santorini in the background.

By 4pm it's time for Marcus and I to rush off and catch a 5:50pm Ferry to Crete (rush being the key word). We speed home (at 50km/h yeee-haa!), swiftly pack our bags and head off to the ferry port. Flustered (and by flustered I mean Marcus almost having a meltdown ha), we decide to bite the bullet and pay for a cab to the ferry terminal. Finally on the ferry we travel for a good 3 hours before reaching Crete at 9pm, where the nightmare begins....

Dragging ourselves off the ferry we wander around trying to figure our where the bus stop is to catch the bus to the town where our hotel is (by this time we have realised that in Europe there are not many signs in English giving you instructions). So finally finding out where to catch the bus we buy our tickets and hop on, completely buggered from the days events. Thinking it's a relitivly speedy 1 hour bus trip, soon is proven wrong as it turned out to be a painful 3 hour bus ride to the middle of Hicksville! We finally are told by the female bus assistant that our stop is next and both with smiles from ear to ear we bounce off the bus. The smile soon disappears as we realise we have been dropped at another bus station and are told we now have to catch another bus to get to the street which our hotel is on. Its now 12am and Marcus and I, with know clue of where to go, what bus to catch, if they were even still running are slowing accepting defeat.

Eventually figuring out the next bus to catch we hop on and again are told after around 10 minutes of being on boared, "OK, this your stop". With no other instructions, we climb off, our 10 million bags in tow. We STILL have no idea where we are and cant see our hotel anywhere (since its now around 1245am nothing is open). Eventually we go into a shmick looking hotel (definitely not ours haha) and ask for directions. We are finally showed to our hotel (or as it was written on the door "Studio/Apartments") and (of course) the reception has closed at 9pm, leaving us with nowhere to stay for the night (fabulous). Marcus quickly races around the ajoining streets to find another place to stay and we end up finding another hotel (twice the price mind you) where we finally get some rest for the night (or should I say morning as the time is now 145am). Ready for another exciting (yeah right) day tomorrow.

Following on from our lazy Saturday, we continue the pattern with two more lazy days. Waking up late, lazing by the pool and to mix it up just a bit, on Monday, we hop back on our thundering (ha, yeah right) ATV and head to Thira for a traditional (and one of Marcus' new found favourites) Gyros. While I work away on my lap top Marcus goes for a much need exploration of a few places around our hotel.

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Rather than leaving at our planned time of around 9am with our pre-prepared mind set of having a 'full-day' ahead of us, we leisurely strolled out of our hotel room at around 1pm. Perched yet again on our ATV, the sun blazing, we head for the beach. Red Beach in particular. Situated almost half way between Thira (the main town) and where we are staying (Perissa) is the famous (as we soon find out after arriving) Red Beach. After a tedious 15 minutes of trawling up and down the car park, we finally find a park.

To our surprise, there is no cement pathway constructed to get to the beach (which strikes us as bizarre as it obviously seems like a known tourist attraction) rather a path cluttered with volcanic rubble and dirt. Nevertheless, as we climb up the small incline of rubble and around a small corner to the right out emerges a magnificent wall of red rock leading onto the red sanded beach. As we stand on a rock, taking a few touristy shots (yet again), we notice people who are making their way back to the car park with pieces of grey bits all over there body. We then discover they are actually pieces of wood chips (apparently they mix wood chips into the sand of this beach, for some odd reason completely unknown to the both of us). After discovering this, we both decide we'd rather not be covered in wood chips for the rest of the day and head back down the rubble path, back to our ATV.

After much contemplation from the two of us (which takes all of about 2 minutes - haha), the sun heating us like a sauna, we decide we would both rather a lazy day back at the hotel accompanied by a platter of cheese, a baguette, dessert wine and beer. So after a quick stop off at the supermarket on our way back, that's exactly what we do! In style - of course. Plastic cups and all!

As it turns out, (lazy being the key word in the last paragraph), we end up going to bed at 8:30pm!!! (Ahhhhhh. What a life!)