Italy

Actually, there is no problem to enter the catedral of Saint Peter in Vatican. Except to go up to the cupola, everything is free. You can go inside easily, just wait for queueing. But not during the holy days, like Easter (Pasqua). I have a very priceless experience to enter the catedral in that occusion. It was March 22, 2008 when we (I and 4 other indonesians) wanted to join Easter-eve mass. From the news it was mentioned that the mass will be started at 21.00 and the gate will be open at 19.30. As this is a special, the people already prepare, wait, in front of the gate from 17.30. Why people do lie that? it is because when you are able to enter first, you can chose the best seat which usually: (1) near to the altar and (2) near to the main coridor where the pope will walk enter the church or giving his bless.
During 2 hours wait for the gate open, it was like disaster. People push each other (but not hard push). Bu suddently you will forget about this, because the situation actually very nice. People shouting to great pope, or singing catholic songs, or natiaonal songs of country origin. Interesting, very interesting.
And when gate was open? You can imagine, people rush .. run as fast as possible to enter. Bust for sure, after the gate, you have still an inspection to check your properties free from dangerous things, such as knive, bom and so on. Woow, I have to run too as if you walk, people behind you will crush you, ha ha .. Don't pretend to be cool :-P by slow walking.

Anyway, remember that you have an ticket which allow you to join the mass but also there is a chance for you who don't have the ticket to enter as again many people rushing, running. In this case hopefully, they did not see you, just run!!

City on the small hill; it is very common in the area of Italy. One of the most famous and also beautiful is Siena in the region of Tuscany. From Perugia you can reach this city by bus or train. Not so expensive. Siena is also famous for the horse race which located in the Piazza del Campo.

The building is very special, different from the other parts of Italy. It is also a reason that this city actually was built by an advance tribe Etruscans, who also built another city like Luca. You can find the similarity between those two cities. Anyway, in the city, beside the piazza del Campo, you can find a beatiful big church called as Duomo di Siena. Instead of using as the place for praying, they also used it sometimes for concert.
In the back of the castle in Piazza del Campo, you can find a small river where you can see other parts of the city. The structure is nice, almost similar to the Genova seeing from the beach. Just to remind you, spending 20 minutes by sitting or more than 20 minutes is not bad idea. Feel the beauty fresh of Siena and imagine that it will become a place for horce racing!!

The capital of Umbria region that has a very nice symbol of the city, griffit. I spent a night here, in this city arriving from Assisi using bus on January 20, 2008. This city has very nice youth hostel which open all days, different from the hostel in Assisi which sometimes they have a period of vacancy.
This is one of the oldest city that Italy has. It was built before the born of Jesus Christ (c.a. 210 BC). As this city is very important (in the middle of Italy), it suffers from any wars as well as a natural disaster, the eruption of mountains. Anyway, some parts are still there and show how old this city is. Perugia is located in the small hill. Don't be surprise that until noon time, you will find that the city covers by fox.

.. mist, fox, smoke and whatever the name are could change your day totally different. Those things can be very beautiful but also can be dangerous and make you into a problem. This situation was happened to me when I visited Assisi January 19, 2008 using train. I arrived exactly in the middle of the afternoon. The first place that I visited in the churct Saint Mary of Angels (Santa Maria degli Angeli). It is because the direction to this church is different from the others churches where locate on the hills. Inside the church you can find a small capela, believed as the place where Fransiscan starts. Asisi it self is welknown as the original place of Fransiscan, a group (ordo) in Catholic. This group is famous all over the world as they 'promise' to live in the poverty.
By bus (only one line exsist), you can go to the other churchs located on the hill. At the top, there is catedral Saint Rufino (Santo Rufinus) and Rocca Magiore, a old castle. From this castle, you can create a magic picture of Assisi. Very beautiful with fox covers the below parts of the city.

The problem comes when we went down to have a Mc Donald near the station. We finished our lunch around 5 o'clock and at that time we would like to find the youth hosted which located in the middle part of the hill. Using the bus, we tried to go there. Unfortunatelly, we made a mistake when we got off the bus. We should reached the next bus stop which near to the hostel. The problem is we could not see anything, everything is white, covered by the fox. To wait another bus would take long time and very cold. We decided to walk try to reach the next bust stop. We got confuse when we found a junction. We could not decide which way is the correct one. Again, totally we could not see anything more that 2 meters. Finally, we found the bus stop and we decided to just wait the bus.
I will never forget this experience where I have to be concern more on the weather and time. I never have experience visiting the mountainous area. So, this one could be the best teacher for me.
back to the city, this city actualy very nice. In the pedestrian, they put the name (also the city, sometimes) on the brick probably the name of the people who join to build the street. As this city is a herritage city by UNESCO, it is really worthwhile to come here to find the adventure of Assisi.

This is the second largest lake in Italy after Garda lake. I have a chance to visit this lake exactly in december 25th, 2007. At that time, this lake is very silent probably due to christmas day. However, this lake is quite big and becoming the border between Piemonte and Lombardi region of Italy.

To go to this lake, it is not difficult. The best point to go is the city of Stressa which near to the islands in the middle of the lake. There are three islands 'flood' above this lake: Madre, Bella, and Brissago. In these islands, you can see the garden which also consist of many houses and building. Actually, nearby the maggiore lake, there are other beautiful lakes, smaller than maggiore.