David Grajal

Innsbruck is the capital of Tyrol in Austria. Streets and buildings look very similar to Bolzano, but in Innsbruck nobody speaks Italian anymore, all signs are written in German and the menu in restaurants was full of potatoes and meat. I was in the German world again!

Jumping @ Innsbruck (With Agnes)

Innsbruck is not a touristic city at all. There isn’t to see. The city attracts people that love sports, mountains and snow. Like Carlos and Agnes, the beautiful couple that hosted me in Innsbruck. Carlos is an Argentinian guy with a strong passion for the mountains and the snow. He lives for skiing! It was a very good experience, they showed me around and we cook dinner together.

Surfing @ Innsbruck

I loved my train ride between Austria and Germany. It was a sunny, clear day and the views from the train while crossing the alps were amazing. Definitively Tirol is a natural paradise, and they have great music also! Check this out!

Trento is the capital of Trentino, the northern Italian region that has two different names: Trentino-Alto Adige and Südtirol. The region has a complex history. Sometimes it has been an independent kingdom but most of the time it has been controlled by the Austrians, France or other Italian kingdoms. In was at the end of WWII, when they did a referendum and they agreed on an annexation with their neighbors at the south of the Alps under specially favorable conditions.

The consequence is that there is a massive difference between Trentino and the rest of Italy. The capital, Trento is surrounded by mountains, and looks cleaner, better organized and wealthier that other northern Italan cities. Here the Council of Trento was held and there is one of the best Italian universities.

Jumping @ Trento - This is the cathedral where the Council of Trento was held

Bolzano (Italian) also known as Bozen (German) is the capital city of Süd Tyrol, an Italian region where most of the people speak German. This city is very interesting because the streets and the buildings look German and all the signs are written in Italian and German. I went to a a traditional Tyrol restaurant and the menu was 50% Italian (Different kinds of Pasta and cheese) and 50% German (Knödel, spatzle, lots of dry meats and beer). The main attraction of Bolzano is the museum where you can see the Iceman Ötzi but unfortunately it was closed.

Jumping @ Bolzano - Amazing views from here!

In Verona I was back again in the popular Italian-touristic-traps-circuit. Verona is known as the city of love because in this city where setting of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Julieta is. The city was full of tourists taking pictures everywhere, specially on Julietta’s balcony. The city was really crawled because an international marathon was held during the weekend I was in the city.

Verona city of love

What I most like about the city was Julietta’s house where people use chewing gum to stick love notes on a wall. I found this absolutely fascinating because the people write very profound feelings they are normally not able to express publicly. Most of them are simple, but there are amazing notes like a guy that use the note to break up with his girlfriend because he has discover his true love living with another guy, the man of his dreams. My favorite love note is this note dedicated to Bruce Willis.

Bruce Willis lover

In Verona I met some people in the hostel I will never forget, for example the scary Moldavian guy that was unable to speak anything but Moldavian. I don’t understand how can somebody like him reach Verona traveling alone!

Beautiful Verona

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I visited Genoa on a rainy, cloudy day but I was pleasantly surprised by this city. The part of the city that embraces the sea has narrow alleys they called caruggi and the part of the city that looks to the mountains have wide boulevards as Torino. Looking at the huge number of palaces and churches built with expensive materials, it is clear that this city was really, really wealthier some centuries ago. In Genoa I visited the house where Columbus was supposed to live before going to Spain.

Colombus home

Even if there were just some ruins, I was pleasantly surprised. This must be the only relevant place in Italy you can visit for free!

I visited the city with Paulina and Gabriela, a couple of Mexican exchange students I met on the train. Together we walked over the city, explored the port an jumped all over the city.

Jumping @ Genoa

Torino is completely different to everything I’ve seen in the rest of Italy. This city is to Italy what Barcelona is to Spain. The city is not part of the typical Italian touristic tour so there are no tourists around, at least not now in rainy February. In Torino there are not red houses, small streets or Renaissance. This is a neo-classical city, with huge boulevards with porticoes and art-nouveau buildings. As Elisabetta says, the best adjective to describe this city is Imperial. And it makes sense; Torino was created from nothing during the kingdom of Savoy. Moreover Torino was the first capital of the Italian state when the reunification process started and the place where the royal family lived. The people that lived in this city got used to greatness!

I love Gremlins (Cinema museum)

Nowadays Torino is an important city of technology and industry. FIAT headquarters are here. I visited the Egyptian museum, which is supposed to be the biggest museum dedicated to Egyptian culture after Cairo’s Museum. I also visited the national museum of cinema, which is located on the Mole Antoniana, the most emblematic building in Turin. This museum is absolutely gorgeous and it’s really worth to visit. Other museum I wanted to go is FIAT museum, but its currently closed. It will open its doors again in 2011. The original Holy Shrud is also located here but its only shown in very special occasions. Apparently the next time will be in April and the cathedral is already getting ready for that event so it was closed. I couldn’t even see the copy!

In Torino I was hosted by two hosts, first by Maria Amor, a courageous Spanish 19 year old woman with 2 beautiful daughters, a lot of energy and a incredible positive spirit. She introduced me to her friends and together we had a Milanese aperitivo with lots of snacks. I was also emergency hosted by Massimiliano, Paula and Mimo.

Maria's couch

Surfing Paola & Massimiliano couch