Friday, 29 June 2007
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Florence : Part 1 of The Graduation Trip 2007
Sorry, been away for too long..but its not as if i have a lot on my plate.
far from it.
but anyway i think its time i put up pictures of the Italy trip complete with commentary. but given the sheer volume of pictures, i shall do this in 3 sittings; Florence, Rome and Tuscany...
THE ITINERARY - Florence 3 days, Rome 5 days, Tuscany region 1 week.
Our journey began with a 3.50am coach ride to Stansted airport on the 29th of May. Queued at the airport to get into departure gate as per usual, dawdled around buying essentials from Boots, and strolled to our flight gate before hearing an announcement for the last call for the Ryanair flight to Pisa Airport. As luck would have it, our gate was at the furthermost part of the airport.
So we ran.
And made it.
Approximately 4-5 hours later, we arrived at the Pisa airport, and decided to take a train to Florence. Queued up, bought the tickets and eventually found our way to the railway platforms outside the airport and got on what we hoped was the right train...
In our carriage, there was a hen party who were consuming copious amounts of champagne and acting the part. For the entire duration of the journey (about 2 hours) there were no signs of them slowing down on the yelling.
Didn't affect these two though
So. we got to florence okay (except for being fined 5 euros each just because we didn't get our ticket stamped at a machine before boarding the train. but seriously how could we have known, since the guy who sold us the tickets didn't mention anything and everything else was in italiano? stupid.)
Found our way to the hostel, which wasn't too far from the train station, and of quite a good size actually..
It had 3 single beds, and shared toilets which were situated outside our room.
All the alleys pretty much looked like this, and they were all pretty. And looked quite similar.
After lunch (some seafood pasta), we headed off for our first gelato fix of the trip! Thank God for the lonely planet guidebook, recommending all the good gelato joints
Did i mention that the gelato was good? (N.B. my gelato only appears smaller than the rest not cos i chose single scoop, but i was the quickest in deciding what flavour i wanted and in finishing it)
random graffiti on wall. couldn't resist. plus they were busy trying to get Muse concert tickets after finding out that they were performing in Florence the next day.
while mag was still trying to enquire about Muse tickets....
Finally, we stopped for pictures at the Duomo (Cathedral). this is the tower of the Duomo. Might i add that the day was rather overcast, and even rather chilly, which wasn't good because I had anticipated ridiculously good weather and hadn't packed more than 1 pair of long trousers and 1 jumper, both of which i was already wearing...
the left side of the Duomo. building was too big, so had to take it in segments. i tried piece-ing the shots together using PhotoStitch, but unfortunately it just turned out really odd.
the right side of the Duomo
sorry if the picture might seem a little distorted because i basically pieced together the entire scene from different pictures...quite a few pictures are going to appear like this later in the entries so be warned
So yes, the above is the view of the Piazza Duomo from outside the Cathedral.
tired of taking pictures of the Duomo, the attention shifted to themselves....
This is the inside of the Cathedral, obviously...and what you see is the ceiling - or rather, arches...
the interior of the Cathedral
the main dome of the Cathedral, pretty isn't it? Many more cathedrals to come for the duration of this trip...
After that, i couldn't take it anymore and vetoed to return to the hostel to get some shuteye. the rest agreed, but we took awhile to go back because the girls were constantly distracted on the short walk back (read: Miu Miu, Massimo Dutti...)
We concussed for several hours, heading out again at 7-ish pm in search of a good Florentine meal. Eventually came to this place which actually looked like a tourist trap (but it was recommended by the lonely planet guidebook) - though to be fair, the whole of Florence is a tourist trap...
Ravioli with olive oil and broccoli and some shrimps. Mediocre.
Lobster pasta. Surprisingly mediocre.
But this, this! Fiorentina Chianina Bistecca - Florentine T-Bone steak from a special breed of cow native to the Tuscan region, Chianina steak. i can't say it out loud because it reminds me too much of that swear word i always hear Singaporeans use. Anyway, there's no fixed price for this because they charge by weight, usually about 5 euros per 100 grams. A joint can weigh up to 2 kg. This one that you see here weighed 1.3 kg.
You can tell that this restaurant is used to catering to tourists - the waiter was quite willing to snap pictures for us.
He also cut up the steak.
The steak chunks were quite rare on the inside (nestled in between red cabbage leaves) - chloe refused to touch it, only daring to try the parts that looked cooked. mag ate a fair bit, but gave up after awhile
no complaints from me, heh heh
...absolutely no complaints at all.
After dinner, we pulled out the map again and tracked down another highly recommended gelato joint.
I had the chocolate and chocolate hazelnut flavours.
it was very very good.
Gluttony reigned the day.
And that was our first day in Italy.
Woke up bright and early the next morning to go to a tour agency to pick up coach tickets to Montevarchi, where the Prada outlet and the Mall (Ferragamo, YSL, Gucci...) were situated. This day trip would take up an entire day, but it was an absolute must, mainly because we were all girls and...erm...we just really really wanted to go, hee hee.
Another cathedral, the Santa Maria...something something. it was just the cathedral nearest to the railway station.
View of the Tuscan countryside from the coach on the way to Montevarchi
We were first dropped at the Prada outlet and given only an hour 45 minutes to shop around. the outlet is really a warehouse in the middle of nowhere. Turned out that this was enough for me, didn't really buy anything except for some gifts.
The coach came again and ferried us to the Mall, about 15 minutes away. this time we were given 3 hours 15 minutes (or thereabouts) to peruse the different shops - Pucci, YSL, Gucci, Ferragamo, Valentino, Sergio Rossi, Balenciaga, Tods....just off the top of my head)
It was more than enough for me, and proceeded to wait out the rest of the time in the cafe with..
...you guessed it
mag waited with me too. it was pretty disappointing, this day trip.
but not for some
Arrived back in Florence in the evening and headed straight for dinner (after dropping off purchases in the hostel)
There wasn't much we could do on the third day, as our train to Rome was at 8am.
Onwards to Part 2!!!!
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