Italy

Visiting San Marino From Bologna Step by Step Guide – Easy as Pie Day Trip to One of the World’s Smallest Countries

July 26, 2019 by Bino Leave a Comment

After my trip around the Balkans, I decided to make a detour to Italy as I wanted to tick one new country off my bucket list. That country was San Marino and to get there, I had to find myself a city interesting enough to serve as my base. Given Italy’s many fast trains, it is entirely possible to base yourself anywhere in Central Italy and be able to do San Marino as a day trip. However, the most practical cities to make that trip with the least possible connections would be Rimini and Bologna. Rimini gets you there the quickest due to a direct bus, but it’s more of a resort town and I wanted a place with some history and good food. I then looked a bit farther at the map and found Bologna, which only required an additional 1 to 1.5 hours from Rimini. So Bologna it was. Bologna is one of Italy’s great cities and is perhaps most well known for its food. Tagliatelle al ragu immediately springs to mind!

…

Lake Garda – Why You Should Visit This Underrated Slice of Northern Italy (With Itinerary)

June 26, 2017 by Bino 4 Comments

Midway during my trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg in May this year, I received an invitation to visit a place called Lake Garda in Italy. Having been to this Southern European country a few times, the name piqued my curiosity. I have heard of Lake Como – that body of water just north of Milan filled with mansions owned by celebrities. Then there’s also Carezza, the baby blue lake in Italy’s alpine region. But I have to say I had not known about Lake Garda before.

…

Impossibly Scenic Landscapes in Italy’s South Tyrol

October 31, 2015 by Bino 12 Comments

In the northern part of Italy close to the border with Austria lies a group of mountain ranges called the Dolomites. Although it’s been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, this portion of Italy remains relatively unknown to people from outside the region. It is just around 200 kilometers from Venice but the autonomous province of South Tyrol or Alto Adige seems like a world apart from the Latin heritage of Italy. German is the lingua franca rather than Italian while the alpine landscape makes the area look like a scene from neighboring Austria or even Switzerland. Sometimes, the sight of a single picture is all it takes to inspire me to go somewhere. This was exactly the case with South Tyrol. I had encountered a picture of some unreal scenery some months back and I knew instantly I had to go there no matter what it took. When I next had a chance to visit Europe, I made sure I allotted some time to venture to South Tyrol.

…