We landed in Milan Friday morning on a mistake fare that a number of other people had booked, and the only thing I knew is that I didn’t want to actually stay in Milan. Since we had nowhere to be we took suggestions from some of the airport staff.
Now we did have some ideas. We wanted to go someplace new. I was keen on going either west towards Monaco and Andorra, or going east to the Balkans. Carrie leaned strongly towards the Balkans and I’m now super excited now that we’re almost there.
Here we are at the airport and everyone on our flight is probably on the train, bus, taxi or in their rental car on the way to somewhere exciting. And we took an extra while to… I would say come up with a plan, but it was more like just going somewhere. Starting to move the right direction.
Where should we go?
Actually, the way the conversation started was me asking the ticket sales lady at the airport, “where’s the cheapest ticket today?” and when she asked “to where,” I basically said “east of here”.
She must have seen my indecisiveness and decided to make a plan for me. The plan was to take the bus (because it’s €2 cheaper than the train, but both take us to the train station in Milan and then we start heading east. It’s also best to break up the trip. All sounded good to me.
But to break it up I threw out a few ideas of places I’d wanted to go (like the Dolomites) or Verona and Padua. She had tons of recommendations for her favorite spots in the Dolomites and of a number of places mentioned east of Milan, Verona was one she insisted we stop at. After all, we’d have to switch trains in Verona if we went to the Dolomites anyways.
Incredibly enough, we were in Verona after a one hour bus ride, and a one hour train ride. All in all it was probably 2.5 hours from the airport to Verona. And during our brief wait for the train, I booked a night at the Crowne Plaza on points.
Here we are in Verona and it is not disappointing. It’s all the best of so many European designs. A Roman arena, a river winding around the downtown similar to other old European cities (like Salzburg), and the main square has these old restored buildings that remind me of the old town in Warsaw. All that to say that it was beautiful. And while the hotel wasn’t downtown, they have a free shuttle.
Trying to switch from the Crowne Plaza to the Holiday Inn
We didn’t spend the entire time in the Crowne Plaza, as we switched to the Holiday Inn east of town to complete an Into The Nights promotion requirement. It turned out to be quite consistent with the spontaneous travel style of the trip so far. We got a late check out and as I said the Crowne Plaza held our bags until we came back. At 5:15 we caught the free shuttle back. We got our bags from the hotel and got right back on the shuttle to go back to the city center where our bus would be. (The driver volunteered to do an extra trip for us so we wouldn’t have to wait an hour for the next scheduled shuttle with availability, and then refused a tip. That’s the kind of hotel this is).
From the city center we walked to our bus stop. I took three important photos on my phone. Embarrassingly, they are photos with my phone of my computer… I’m just not used to phones. Anyways, I had a picture of the map where the bus stop was, what buses ran to the Holiday Inn, and then a picture of where the Holiday Inn was.
Turns out I didn’t need a picture of the buses that ran because the signs made it pretty clear, since I new “San Martino” was the name of our stop. But even with all the info of google maps, and the signs, when bus 121 came I got on and asked “San Martino?” and “Holiday Inn?” to verify. My pronunciation must be terrible because he didn’t get it, and the woman on the front row was the one who verified. I actually got out the picture of the map where the Holiday Inn is and showed it to her.
Not too sure what she said but her gestures indicated that she would show me. It was a “just follow me” kind of gesture. Although the word walking in Italian must be the same as Spanish because she said something like “caminar” and the continued game of charades indicated we’d be doing some walking.
When our stop came she got up and walked back to us and pushed the stop-request button. Turns out she wasn’t getting off but was just helping us out. Thanks lady!
It’s pitch black and we were walking away from the main road when I realized two things, it’s a further walk than it looks on the map, and therefore we could use a more zoomed in picture for a map. Then I say, “hey Carrie, did you ever download the “mapswithme” for Italy?” Yes, yes she did.
This is a travel hack if I ever heard one. See her phone is an old passed down sprint iPhone that’s no longer on a plan. But for whatever reason it still does GPS tracking. It just never gets turned off and is part of the actual phone. So she downloaded the “Maps With Me” app’s free map of Italy (as good as google maps (that I know of)) except it’s not really giving directions, but it’s just a map I can zoom in on and that shows exactly where we are. It’s genius.
If we didn’t have that, I would have been tracking down strangers for directions. It was a good 15 minute walk and it wasn’t straight. The lesson here is, always download the Mapswithme map for the country you’re about to go to. Even if you had a phone plan, sometimes service is weak but this thing always has a good map in it. Well, once you download it.
Another lesson to be learned is just how easy it is to get around when you don’t have a plan. People are sometimes surprised I don’t plan ahead. You know how many hours most people spend in planning a one week vacation? What if I spent that much time planning every trip? I’d never have time to do anything else. But honestly, there are two big reasons I sometimes do this.
1) Planning costs more time in the long run, but can save time on the trip
Yes sometimes I mess up and we end up getting the wrong visa, not having a visa, not having an exit ticket, not having a vaccine, etc… But the time we didn’t have the vaccine didn’t actually cost us a loss of time, just some stress, and in that case $50 (according to Carrie). The time we didn’t have an exit flight I just quick booked a ticket out of Indonesia on Expedia, and they have free cancelations within 24 hours, so I just canceled when I landed.
Again, I can’t imagine the amount of time it would take if I actually planned things.
2) I can’t plan better than a local
By asking two people in the airport, I got one to write me a list of their favorite places in northern Italy.
Not saying a US blogger, google, or tripadvisor can’t do well, but it seems like I’ve seen less of Italy than this lady. Plus she didn’t recommend touristy junk (like Milan), she recommended a lot of places I’d never heard of. Yes, Venice is nice (I do recommend it highly), but I also want to see places that are authentic or important to locals. There’s no better way of doing this than locals.
Maybe Italians are especially eager but a lot of people love it when you take interest in their culture/home. But the ticket lady at the airport wasn’t the only one so far in our two days here. The lady at the front desk at the Crowne Plaza highlighted a little tour for us. Literally, she gave us a map and highlighted every street we should walk and sight we should see, complete with lunch recommendations.
Also, she was incredibly helpful in general, she saw that we were about to drag our bags around because the bus to the Holiday Inn was from downtown, and she insisted on holding our bags and arranging for us to take the free shuttle back at 5:15 and then take it right back. So shout out to the Crowne Plaza for its incredible staff. My expectations are always low for CPs but the hotel and service was 5 star. Sincerely great staff.
Carpooling saves the day
Despite loving Italy and so badly wanting to see the Dolomites, we’re more anxious to see a few new countries. The route I’m hoping to do for the next couple of weeks is:
- Villach, Austria
- Bled, Slovenia
- Ljubljana, Slovenia
- Zagreb, Croatia
And then who knows…
Not only are these all new places I’m excited to see, and Rapid Travel Chai (who has been everywhere) highly recommended Ljubljana, but there is a category 2 points hotel in Villach (IHG), Ljubljana (SPG), and Zagreb (SPG). So I’ll be seeing cool places and saving money/points, which is good seeing as we’re planning more time in Austria.
However, getting to Villach would be a little bit of a pain and an expense. The train can be a little expensive for longish rides. And sometimes super slow when it has to go around mountains. So I decided to look on a carpooling website and happened to have found someone going from Verona to Villach tomorrow. Not only do we save probably $60+ a person, we save a bit of time. Plus, we don’t have to back track to the train station, as the guy is meeting us at the hotel. It’s hard to get better than that.
To sum it all up
We landed in MXP without a darn clue what to do next or how to get over to Slovenia. But we were convinced to take a visit to Verona, which was well worth it. It took a good game of charades, but we made it to the Holiday Inn (and we’ll complete a Big Win… rather Into The Nights), until tomorrow morning where we head to Austria via the carpooling website Blablacar.com.
I’m still jetlagged and it’s only been a day, but so far I’m loving this style of travel. Hopefully I can huncker down in some category twos and crank out some work and in between visit christmas markets.
here is a must – in Bled go to hotel park and have a melt your brain Krempita (Kremschnitte – custard pie). Ljubljana – beautiful city and lovely. Zagreb, blah. Head either to the coast or go to Bosnia or Serbia for more exotic tourism. Mind you, this is a very rough time of year weather wise in Balkans – windy, rainy, miserable and greyish. And Dalmatia is not much better.
Highly recommend Split on the Croatian coast in Dalmatia. I love Diocletian’s palace and walking on the Riva. Take a ferry to one of the islands, perhaps Brach. Much nicer in the summer though.
Hi all, I can recommend Croatia and Montenegro.. This 2 country have lots of culture and history.. almost on every steps.. !!
We cruised in Dubrovnik last summer with Mirya Yachting ( http://www.croatiaguletcruises.com ).
We want do Croatia charter this summer one more time if we can but do you recommend another region ?
How far airport to Split harbor ?
Anyone help me …thank you
Drew,
You are going to love Slovenia and Croatia!! My boyfriend and I spent a few weeks there this past May. Bled was absolutely gorgeous and we drove through the Virsic pass afterwards. One of General Tito’s old palaces in on lake Bled and it’s now a really nice spot to have some coffee and cake and watch the pletna boats. Enjoy!!
Oh and of course Ljubljana and Zagreb are also awesome. A highlight in Zagreb was the Museum of Broken Relationships.
I can’t recommend the Croatian Coast enough! My wife and I did a one way Explorer Cruise with Sail Croatia (http://www.sail-croatia.com/croatia-cruises/explorer-cruises) and couldn’t have been more pleased with the trip. It’s a small boat cruise and they do an excellent job of getting you to several of the more difficult to reach Croatian Islands.
Also it’s fairly easily to connect from the Italian rail network to Lake Bled (the station is called Bled Jezero). It’s just a matter of taking a 5 minute taxi from Gorizia Centrale in Italy to Nova Gorica in Slovenia. I did this when traveling from Lake Bled to Venice. It was a wonderfully scenic 4.5 hour trip.
Train schedules are available here: http://www.slo-zeleznice.si/en/passengers/slovenia/timetable
and
http://www.trenitalia.com/
It is my understanding that the GPS is actually bouncing off any WI-FI signal that is out there – not actually requiring you to connect to WI-FI. I routinely open Google Maps while at the hotel, and zoom in to our destination. The GPS still works and I am on an iPhone5 on ATT.
Lady knew what she was talking about. While not Italian, Madonna di Campiglio in the Dolomites is a great skiing town with tons of locals and few tourists. I’d imagine not a lot of great points hotels though… I assume you showed Carrie Juliet’s balcony in Verona? Also an amazing place to hear live Opera in their ancient amphitheater.
Most smartphones have a GPS sensor that gets location from GPS satellites. You don’t need service for this. Most also use triangulation from “known” WiFi hotspots to also locate you (with less battery). So none if this needs service. I never have service when I’m overseas but features like these make having the phone still very useful!
Drew (and Carrie)-
How does Maps with Me compare to NavFree? We used NavFree in the UK and Scotland last spring and it worked well. However, we don’t generally use a GPS (only) for walking in urban areas as we’ve found that they update too slowly.
You two are incredible! Thanks for sharing all of you great tips and tricks, your content is travel gold! I’m a blogger myself and just wrote a blog post featuring your sites to share with my readers. Happy travels!
http://www.typeatrips.com/blog/2014travel-miles-and-credit-card-points-for-beginners
Just east of Verona is the town of Vincenza, with some great Palladian buildings. (The theatre is a must see) It is worth a half day or so side trip.
you will love ljubljana and zagreb not so much -i agree with 1st comment go to split or the coast line and monternegro is the best kept secret in europe
i have a friend who maybe could show you around ljunljana –let me know
you can go to Split from Zagreb and stop by the Plitvice Lakes en route for a day or two. These are some of the most beautiful lakes/falls I have ever seen. In fact, I would say do this over Split. Split itself is tiny and can be done in a day but is a great jumping point for the other islands (ferries and boat tours). Though as people mentioned, Croatia is prettier in summer than winter.
Drew a little unfair to say junk tourist stuff in MXP. Have you been to the Duomo – one of the most beautiful churches in whole Italy? Saint Ambrose Basilica, The Certosa di Garegnano, Santa Maria alle Grazie basilica, San Satiro’s, San Lorenzo Maggiore, San Simpliciano, Castello Sforzesco, Palazzo Clerici are all but junk. Those are very beautiful landmarks and churches and a lot of people come in to enjoy and see them.
Also I am from Croatia and live in Milan and to be honest you will waste time in Zagreb. Better head to the coast, and be careful with taxis. They can smell your american accent from miles away and will charge you 5-6x don’t even try to fake it as I have seen americans get charged 25EUR for something that a local would otherwise pay 4EUR. Its commonplace. The city is very dirty, ladden with corruption, pickpokets all over the place, and won’t be surprised if you get robbed given that you love to use public transportation. Getting beat up is also not out of the question, this is the Balkans and everything can happen – just watch the Pink Panther episode of Vice to get a glimpse.
While I haven’t been to the Croatian coast yet, I have been to the Dolomites, and it’s simply unbelievable! Distinct mountain shapes, beautiful valleys, fantastic hiking! If you don’t make it there this trip, try to get there another time. I was there in early September a few years ago, not sure what the weather would be like now. For me summer is preferable, and we tried for the shoulder season to be there when the weather was still nice but the prices were lower.
Croatian cost in late November??? It is romantic, sure…in rain and wind. Return in June, July, then enjoy the islands. Truly spectacular.
While I love Croatia I probably wouldn’t go at this time of the year. What about Sarajevo? I’m sure it’s cold. But, it’s one of the best places I’ve traveled too. Can’t really explain why. Other than the people. There was just something about that place.
That’s why the approach is to see ’em all!
Definitely drop by Split, Croatia and charter a yacht. My favorite route is Split, Vis, Hvar, Brac. There are many charter companies in Croatia, but we always use Globe Yacht Charter (http://www.globeyachtcharter.com/yacht-charter-croatia). Just ask for advice, and they will make perfect cruise according to your needs.