What to see and where to go in Rome, Florence, Pisa, Naples and Pompeii, the best parts of Italy?

Some people don’t like going to Italy. But then some people don’t like washing their hands after going to the toilet and we don’t trust them either do we? What’s wrong with Italy? Yes it’s full of Italian rantiness, yes it is difficult to get something done quickly and yes they do make you pay twice for train tickets (compulsory seat reservations that are not included in the ticket price? That makes no sense guys, just FYI). But it is also full of great wine, Roman architecture, art and fashion that’s so fashionable that if you understand it then you can’t afford it.

But I love Italy. A lot. I love the food, the culture, the language, the wome… the food and pretty much everything else. So making a list of all the places we needed an excuse to see and all the things we wanted to do on the next leg of our #TwoMenEUTour wasn’t hard but fitting them all in to the few days we had was the tricky bit. But as you will see, we did our best! Unlike our previous trips to Brussels or Ireland, we took a bit more time in Italy traveling down on the overnight train from Vienna in Austria to Florence, then on to Pisa, down to Rome, over to Pompeii and then back to Rome to fly home.

Bose QuietComfort 20 Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones Review

Whether it’s crushed inside a packed commuter train or twiddling our thumbs onboard an airliner at 35,000ft, we do a lot of traveling here at TwoMenAboutTown; my favourite pastime when commuting is getting lost in the world of my Spotify library, whether it’s the latest album from Stereophonics or the spectacularly funky vibes of Wham and George Michael. Don’t judge.

The main drawback of any portable audio, particularly in-ear headphones however is unwanted background noise, taking away from the experience of your favourite album or drowning it out altogether; the constant drone of an aircraft’s engine or the clattering of the Virgin Pendalino provide an unwelcome distraction. Consequently, I’ve been hunting high and low for some noise cancelling headphones for some time, with their electronic wizardry to eliminate white and secondary noise; Rob has just reviewed the Pioneer Rayz Plus in-ear headphones with mixed conclusions, but I really wanted something that would knock my socks off.

Enter Bose, recognised globally as the pioneer (yes, pioneer) in audio. The QuietComort 20 Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones were calling out to me in the Apple store upon collection of my shiny new iPhone X, so I splurged and prepared to take them with me on my trip to Abu Dhabi.

Out Of Office Coffee House, on the search for the best coffee shop in Milton Keynes

Over the past few years, I’ve learned a few things on this blog; I’ve learned not to trust friends who have unplanned trips to Dubai, I’ve learned how to enjoy shaving again and I’ve also learned that to talk about tea, I had to talk about coffee. I know a few people who have ordered a salted caramel pumpkin latte with extra soya sprinkles in their time (I’m looking at you SuburbanGent) and that’s fine but are the McDonalds or Burger Kings of the coffee world really what you want every day? With their questionable sourcing policies, suspicious tax implications and deliberately average flavour all leaving you with a rather bitter aftertaste, I suspect not. But what else is there for one to do? If you work in London, it’s no problem as you have many better alternatives to choose from, but with so many people living in Milton Keynes and commuting in, sooner or later someone was going to open our very own proper coffee house and guess what? They just did.