Arriving at Vernazza

3-Nov-2013 (Sunday) - Vernazza, Cinque Terre

2nd day morning in Italy and we took the train to Cinque Terre. The plan was to stop at Monterosso and walk to Vernazza. Unfortunately for us, we weren't familiar with the train, so instead of stopping at Monterosso, we missed a few station and ended up in La Spezia instead. We got a Cinque Terre Park card for 2 days with free unlimited travel on the train, and hop on to get to Vernazza. 

After checking in, we went to explore the town. There was only one main road, that leads straight to the sea.
There's a church at the town which I'll write about in another post. And there are charming alley all over the place. The food there was surprisingly good as well, but that again, will be in another post.

The ocean that greeted us was amazing! I have never seen a sea so rough with tides so huge before! (Of course that was only my first day there, apparently the tides can get frightening higher during stormy days!). They have a system of warning using flags telling you how rough the sea was going to be. There are also lines drawn on the coast and you can see how far in the tides can reach. It was amazing, and I think I could have just stand there whole day watching the waves without ever getting bored.

Watch out for more post on Vernazza as I continue my exploration of it the next morning, as well as the church and food there.

 Ref:
Vernazza
Cinque Terre Park Card

Milan Duomo

2-Nov-2013 (Saturday) - Milan.

It was our first day in Italy, and I was paranoid as hell over pickpockets as my kind colleagues and helpful guide book has warned me so much about. I avoided crowd, and held my belonging close. I was uptight and on alert at all time. And I can tell you, it is damn tiring, and totally unnecessary. We did not get mugged, scammed or our pockets picked through out our whole trip. When I get paranoid over petty crimes of a country I'm traveling to, I always remind myself that I'm from a country far worst then whatever they have to offer :) And since pick pocket was the main concern in Italy, I did deploy a few tactics like distributing my cash at different location, but mainly, I carried my documents and cash in a A4 size plastic file placed in my fabric bag. It's kinda hard to pick an A4 size file without anyone noticing. I thought that was rather cleaver of me. The file is pretty visible, with only papers at sight, and so big that it couldn't really be taken out of the bag anyway.

Anyway, the one thing you need to see when in Milan is the Duomo (Cathedral). So upon reaching Milan and after checking in to our hotel, we walked to the Duomo. The building itself was magnificent! And I'm a mega fan of Gothic churches! We walked around it, and try our luck to go in, hoping that it was free. It was! And the inside was just as amazing. It was huge! 

  

One of the thing that shocked me was the mummified priest that were plainly on displayed through out the church. I always associate mummies with Egyptians, and was not expecting to see any dead bodies here. It was a rather fascinating discovery!

 

Although the sign says no photography, we saw a lot of people just snapping away. So we did the same. Eventually a guard came over to inform us that we can only take photos if we purchased a 2Euro tag that permits the wearer to take photos inside the Duomo. Oh! We apologized and stopped taking photograph. I had the intention to come back on my last day, purchase the tag and go wild, but that never did happen due to strikes that kept us from going anywhere near the Duomo. But we managed a night view shot while we were walking back from the Last Supper.

Ref:
Duomo Official Site
Milan Duomo/Cathedral
Gothic Architecture

Trenitalia

Train was the main transportation we relied on to travel around Italy. And although I was quite concern at the efficiency of the train system there, my worries were put to a rest when I discovered the Trenitalia website.You can actually plan all your connection via the website. I would suggest you register before booking your tickets. From the website you can view destination, time, and cost of your tickets, select seats and pay for your tickets. The cost of the train depends on type of train, duration, and class. Me being the budget traveler always pick the cheapest alternative cause I don't have a problem taking long train rides. IN fact, I take it as a luxury to stare out from the train window and waste time away. And so I booked a total of 5 connecting trains for our trip:

• 20131103_Milan2Monterosso - 38Euro for 2 adults - 3 hours
• 20131105_Monterosso2Milan - 18Euro for 2 adults - 3 hours
• 20131105_Milan2Venice - 38Euro for 2 adults - 2.5 hours
• 20131109_Venice2Rom - 64Euro for 2 adults - overnight 6.5 hours
• 20131114_Rome2Milan - 18Euro for 2 adults - 7 hours.

 

Milano Centrale Station was beautiful! Lots of shops and food if you're waiting for your train. It can get crowded during peak traveling hours, but on the whole, it was fine. The Dolce & Gabbana poster all around it make it feel kinda high fashion and classy. I spend many hours looking at very stylish people walking pass when my train to Venice was delayed by almost 2 hours! Milan has got the most well dressed people in Italy!

That was the only delay we encountered during our experience with Trenitalia. They gave us a bag of cookies, bread, juice and water as compensation though, which I thought was a nice touch. And get this, you don't really need to print out your tickets to board the train. All you have to do is have a copy on your mobile phone, and show it to the conductor when they come checking.

What do I do when I'm on a long train ride? I write my journal, listen to music, stare out at the lovely scenarios, day dream and contemplate on life.

Some warning when taking the train in Italy. Always know when  your stop is coming up as you have only a few minutes to get on or off. If you miss that window, you're pretty much screwed. For local train, sometimes the announcement is only in Italian. If you're traveling to Cinque Terre, make sure you're at the middle of the train when you're about to alight. We found out with much frustration that the train doors don't open on the front or back at those stations due to shorter platforms. We missed a total of two stops and panic like hell. Luckily Cinque Terre is a national park, and at the main station, you can alight and get a day pass (which you need to stay in Cinque Terre anyway), and back track back to where you want to.

Worst experience on the train? I have two. One is when we can't get the train doors to open (yes you have to open them yourself in smaller stations) and have to miss two stations. We panicked, but there's nothing much you can do really. Second is on our overnight train ride from Venice to Rome, we shared a small cabin which can sit 6 people with 1 italian and 3 very big size Indian. They snored through out the night, and when the train stopped at the station and the ventilation went off, the smell was pretty unbearable.

Best experience I also have two. One was on our ride back from Rome to Milan. Although you can book your seat, there really isn't a seat plan to show you where the number correspond to which seat. So our seats were apart. But each time a passenger who was sitting next to me show up and saw my husband there, they always let us sit together. A total of 3 passenger did that automatically without us ever asking them to. I thought that was rather understanding of them. Second is at Venice Santa Lucia station where we arrived at 8pm and had to wait 4 hours for our midnight train. This Italian guy took one look at my husband and ask if we were from Singapore. That started a 4 hour conversation via Google Translator for us and him with his dad. Apparently they just came back from a contract work in Singapore during carpentry work on a ship. They couldn't speak English well, and we can't speak Italian that great either. So out comes the mobile phone, and massive typing to converse with each other.

So for me, I would say train in Italy is a thumbs up! It's not as punctual as what you might find in Japan, but rather, it is more easy going and relax.

 Ref:
Trenitalia
Dolce & Gabbana
Cinque Terre Card
Google Translator
Milano Centrale Website
Milano Centrale Station

My Meal Planning Method

In case you haven't figure out by now, I love to cook. Actually to be more precise, I love to eat, and I'm cheap. So cooking is the next best thing! Thought I'll share with you some of my meal planning method. Usually I only do my marketing on the weekends. I'm kinda particular about the food I eat. I don't eat frozen meat at all, so during weekends, I go to the market on both Saturday and Sunday. Yes, I am pretty anal when it comes to my meat :P  But luckily for me, I love vegetables, so I'll stock up on vegetables either on Friday after work, and also during the weekends. I usually just buy whatever is the cheapest vegetable available (usually SGD1 per packet), and that will keep me happy. But there are a few things that is always in my kitchen: tomatoes, onions, and garlic. I am addicted to all three. I find that i am also especially fond of carrots, and can eat a whole pack in a few days. And eggs, there are always eggs at home :)

 

Anyway, to plan what to cook, I usually scan through what is available at home, and write out a meal plan. If I'm cooking only for the weekend, the meal plan would look something like the above picture. That is a meal plan for one fine Sunday. Yes, it's written apple spaghetti. I love apple spaghetti ever since I tried it once in a fusion vegetarian restaurant. I cook them quite often actually. I kinda like fruits with my main dishes. Baby tangerine with salad during Christmas time, lychee with roast duck during Chinese New Year, mango prawn spring rolls, French toast with bananas. I love fruity dishes although I hardly eat fruit on it's own.

So once a plan is hatched, off to the market I go to gather my ingredient. That usually just takes half an hour and I'm home. I usually don't spend more than SGD20 each trip. Compare that to a SGD40 meal in a restaurant, I pretty much indulge in raw ingredient without much guilt. The only pity I have is I'm not allowed to cook steak at home due to religious reason (even though I myself am not religious. Preparation usually takes another 30 minutes, and after that it's the cooking that usually don't last more than an hour. My husband always comments that I make cooking seems so easy. But seriously, it is easy if you have a plan, and you love fresh and simple food.

 

I would love to be able to cook home-cooked meal everyday, but sadly I have to work to make a living. I used to per-packed lunch to work, but somehow the nutrient is lost in overnight food and microwave heated food just isn't the same. Now I just try to cook for weekday dinner, and weekend meals. Above it a weekday sample meal plan. I'll try to write everything out by Sunday so that I can stock up, and I can go auto pilot mood during the weekdays. I usually get home by 7:30pm in non-peak project period, and can eat my dinner between 8 to 830pm (depending on how complex the meal is).

So there! My retirement plan is to live within walking distance to a market/supermarket so that I can always buy fresh ingredient to cook daily! I have self-made recipe scrapbooks in which I collect recipe I'm interested in. Hopefully one day I'll be able to cook them all!

Grilled Salmon

So I have this pack of Hollandaise Sauce that has expired like 3 months ago the other day, and it was during the weekday, so I can't egg Benedict out of it. So the other most logical way to get rid of the sauce is of course to cook it with fish. So during one of the weekday lunch, I went to NTUC and bought a salmon fillet for SGD 5.95, which to me was bloody expensive meat! But it was on my blackboard of food to try and cook, so I had to give it a try. When I got home, I just grilled the salmon fillet in my Happy Call pan, and pare it with some vegetables (1 carrot, 1 potato, and 1 tomato. I cooked the salmon 15 minutes one side (skin facing down do the meat won't over cooked), and 3 minutes the other side, followed by 1 minute high heat just to charred the skin.

Here is the end result. Hollandaise Sauce goes over the fish, and a bit of garnish and there you have yourself a gourmet meal! For cost price of around SGD8, I think it's pretty worth it considering how much restaurant meals cost these days.

Now here is the part that totally blew me away. When I cut into the salmon and ate it, it was moist and creamy with fish oil! It was not dry one bit as it was normally the case when I pan fry fish. I credit this to my Happy Call for retaining the moisture of the fish. Incidentally, the Happy Call pan is also great for grilling vegetables as it always come out perfect, soft inside, and charred to perfection outside! Would definitely give this try again in future!

Ref:

Hollandaise Sauce

Happy Call Pan