Red-eye to Milan, fell asleep on the tram on the way to the castle, crashed out in some guys airbnb loft with a lot of cats, caught the northern Italy free happy hour prosciutto, cheese, seafood, vegetable, awesomeness buffet at a bar, overnight train to Vienna—which is beautiful—saw a lot of palaces, drank a lot of beer, tried a couple schnitzels, partied w/ the Austrians in front of city hall at noon in the middle of the week where everyone got loaded on weissreisling for no reason, saw Mozart’s Requiem in a twelfth century cathedral performed by some choir from Kentucky (WTF?), caught the train to Budapest, which is vast, pretty and kind of depressing, saw some friends’ movie in the Titanic Film Fest and caught the new Vincent Gallo flick, walked by a lot of soviet-era bullet holes, went to a museum where the first room’s exhibit is titled “Hitler then Stalin,” easyJet-ed to Geneva from decrepit and gloomy Hungarian airport and mood into total aesthetic and financial shock where they insisted on serving me a hamburger of all things and everyone seems to own a Maserati, crossed the border into Italy—sipping a $25 glass of their cheapest wine—through some of the most amazing scenery anywhere in the Alps, almost missed the connecting train in Milan to shady, windy street port town of Genova, ordered delicious room service, smoked a Cuban cigar, found out the ferry isn’t running, hit the (rocky) beach in Cinque Terre anyway, made a beeline for the standard-issue 3-hour view of the leaning tower in Pisa—forgot to get the stupid tourist photo propping up the tower—and settled in to Bologna’s University quarter, where the students party all over the streets pretty much every single night, for a few days of ridiculously, ridiculously good food, wine and views. [ Photos ]