Italy Touristic things:

EVERYONE HAS THEIR TRAVEL EXPERIENCES , THESE ARE MINE.. NO CONNECTIONS TO ANYTHING... NO ONE FORCED U TO READ 

First international trip of any kind,  coming from India to USA can be called by some as the first one. Venturing out in the new country to see how things happen there. Italy was first travel company international trip of any kind. All those Santa movies, cards, picture books U saw while growing up do leave some mark on Ur memory for sure. Sometimes U get lost in the world of those pictures , like when u see kids faces when they watch disney cartoons or movies.U start imagining  how cute things are in that country and how life might be. As a child like  "Donald Duck when u saw first time on color television. I remember entire society kids would come Sunday mornings to our house for watching on color TV. " How things changed over time. That television was a surprise from my dad post our school results, as we both used to stand first in school. The letter used to come from school about our results and there used to be ceremony of opening it and mom was the lucky hand who would open it :) haha I have all cool things from that time. n'ways those things apart .... 

So this was first of ...like all tourists what they do ... visit famous places and eat and some do plenty shopping .... Just like when an individual leaves his  / her first impression ,same way a place or anything for that matter creates its own. Everyone will have their own.

Italy:

(some notes which were taken like always when visited)

It was planned tour by one travel company. Apart from the movie "Under the Tuscan Sun" & due to
"mount vasuvious" knew italy somewhat.Curiosity was around it. How the city,  what happened and
how it might look and might be etc??? Rest never had seen any Italy documentary on national geographic or discovery channel either.

Rome, Vatican, Milan ,Pisa, Florence, Pompii every region is different.

Majorly while travelling in Europe U realize most of the layout of the city is around the river. Numerous beautiful bridges across the river & old stone buildings on both the sides, which are still standing, roads still in good conditions. Tiber in Rome, Arno in florence.

Venice is altogether different, as if you are floating on the adriatic sea.... Not sure how long will it keep on floating on the water. ( lucky got to visit it again totally different way, now that have done plenty treks there.)
For high tides water comes quite a bit on the land. The lower floors of most of the homes, churches are already under water. The gondola riders are singing ( for some Vegas gives similar experience)
Painters are trying their luck to capture the beauty, real essence of the place. When it rains the sea is different blue color and transforms the atmosphere completely.

Huge piazzas, water fountains, beautiful architecture, paintings ... all of this can tell you quite a lot about the talent that time. But as said too many good things at once are really hard to get appreciated.... It takes generations later to get the real grasp of it and know how talented they were. So many years have passed and yet .. still everything is standing upright (for those who want to find flaws I know only huge earthquakes shake up and destroy regions now) maintained nicely for u to appreciate. ( even with so much tourism going around)

This would be my standard complaint ( my POV) always there is some restoration goes on.... like when I was in Milan during this visit. But its for maintainance of the place which is much needed. Sometimes when U visit such place getting lost in time is but obvious.One can imagine how horse carriages travelled on those streets, Imagining people with roman attire walking around, huge forums, gaming grounds. All in all extremely well planned & designed cities ( same I would say about indian hill stations, even Bombay when british left)

Well for foodies, Italian Pizza, olive oil, candies, coffee, gelato, cakes all worth trying .. In all countries
local stuff is worth trying. On such places one really feel entire place is on forever vacation. I mean they take time to enjoy and eat their food. It's kind of very uncommon thing.
Like a movie set , U can get lost in time. Wines from various regions are pretty famous, lemonchello drink was famous too. Sorrento region has most lemon products.

Commuting is good via Bus, train, boats, cycles were also seen. This was like most tourist kind trip so ... views later are different for treks which I did, stromboli, etna all volcanic mountians,TMB tour du mont blanc,  dolomites ..

In most of the buildings, bunglow people have oilve tree in the yard & lemon too (we too had guava and plenty other in around our society). Common site everywhere. The flower baskets of same sizes and shapes would hang from the balconies giving very uniform look making old buildings look more nice. The small alleys were very clean. It was again noticiable.

The furtta ( fruit) stalls, are like India with fruits arranged in what we call as " basket - topli" infront of the shops. Roads with cobble stones can make huge difference in the look of the city ( may be hard to maintain or not sure kirkland also has it too) Villas of famous people worth looking at. Wish we could have kept same feel in Pune to preserve streets from Peshva times at least small sector of old city they even have in colombia and many places ( now that I have seen them)

Like everywhere local regions have their own cultural shows, dances, songs with their authentic dressup. Even got to witness that on italian side of TMB. Sorrento stage show was also cool.

Impressions was the name given to my some pages of diary with these initial some things ....

Some Glimpses were there for years just added text on blog