Italy: Day 4 – Tour of Tuscany

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Apr 122011
 

As I mentioned before, Mondays are generally the day major museums are closed. We had heard that it’s a good idea to also explore outside of Florence if we could. Since we could, we booked The Best of Tuscany Tour with WalkAbout through our hotel.

Unfortunately, out of the entire week, this was the ONLY day that it rained. When I say rain, I mean poured! Luckily, I had prepared with my rain jacket and even an umbrella. So, though we were slightly dampened, the tour was still a good one.

We started in Siena, which is apparently the biggest rival city to Florence. It is divided into 10 neighborhoods that have their own symbols and seals. This is mostly important for the annual horse races – Palio di Siena – that are held in the main square. It’s an interesting story to learn. The city of Siena seemed pretty with lots of red brick, though very small. After getting the walking tour, visiting the main church, and feeling tired – it was time for a stop at Illy’s for a coffee.

(By the way, Starbucks has no stores in all of Italy…SHOCKING!)

From Siena, we stopped for our lunch at an organic farm to taste the Chianti wines famous in the area and some Italian dishes. It was quite tasty and the weather started to clear up, which was nice.

Vin Santo with Biscotti

After lunch, we headed to the town nicknamed the “Manhattan of Italy”, San Gimignano. The bus was a bit perkier from our lunch beverages. πŸ˜€ The town is a UNESCO site for Architectural Heritage due to the number of towers that were built by families feuding over power in the town. There wasn’t much to do in our free time here, but we walked around and considered getting gelato from the World’s Best Ice Cream at Gelateria di Piazza, but it somehow felt too cliche to do it despite the other tourists lining up for it.

From San Gimignano, we continued on our way to Pisa. One really can’t be in Tuscany and not see the Leaning Tower of Pisa! We took our cheesy photos and enjoyed the cultural square there, but by this point we were pretty tired. We did get a train ride tour of the town of Pisa, which is mostly a university town, they say. It’s not somewhere I’d like to go to school, but it could be worse. πŸ˜‰

Thus ended our tour and after finding some grub, we collapsed back at the hotel. The museums are coming up next!

-T

Italy: Day 3 – Florence

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Apr 112011
 

We planned a late morning train and left our Roman accommodations with plenty of time to reach the main train station – Termini, supposedly just 15 minutes away. We were told that the tram would take us there and so we hopped on board feeling good about our timing. The worst and perhaps best part of Rome is the complete lack of signage on public transportation as to their route or any information that might help a tourist figure out where s/he is heading. Thus, we found ourselves thinking we should have reached the station by now and in unfamiliar territory.

After alighting from the misleading tram, we attempted to ask a bus driver how to get to the station. He was not helpful preferring not to speak any English. Thus, we contemplated our map and realized we were in the university area of town. So, we took the next tram back, to a metro station and finally made it with plenty of time to our train. Good thing we left early! πŸ˜€

Now, having been spoiled from years of Shinkansen and Japanese trains, I’m a bit snoody about trains that are called “first class”. We purchased our tickets the night before from very easy-to-use machines for Italy’s train system – Trenitalia. You can book tickets online and pick them up at the machines as well, but it was just as easy to get them the day of or before.

According to Rick Steve’s book, it is recommended to pay the extra Euros for the first class tickets. To keep costs down, we bought tickets for the slower train (2.5 hrs vs 1.5 hrs) so that we could do just that. As we passed the six passenger cabin seats in second-class, I was more than relieved to be in the comforts of first-class seats with plenty of space and leg-room to take a snooze.

The countryside to Florence was pretty, though the vineyards are not yet in bloom.

Upon arriving in Florence, Mom was alert enough to realize that we needed to get off at the second Firenze stop because the train did not stop in the main S.M.N station – who would have known that? We taxied to our hotel – Residenza Betta – and were very joyfully greeted by Adriana who offered to book our museum tickets (this should normally be done way before you go on your trip…off-season is ok, though), and we decided to do a tour of Tuscany the next day since the main museums are closed on Mondays.

With all that settled, we prepared to explore Florence. Everyone had told me it’s a beautiful city and amazing. So, I may have had rather high expectations for the place. It was definitely nice to be in a smaller town than Rome. We hardly got lost and it was a much more relaxed atmosphere. The streets were quaint and the buildings lovely. However, perhaps the grey skies and pending rain made it less amazing than expected.

Still, we meandered through the market since leather is the big product in the area. Though we were more interested in discovering the wine – Chianti – which comes from Tuscany. πŸ˜‰

The piazza did have a fine showing of their Duomo, which was beautifully carved and adorned with all the religious icons and images. It was something to stand nearby as the church bells rang (video on the Picasa site) and look in awe at the building. Sometimes, it’s just too overwhelming to take in all the amazing artistry in one place.

With a few stops for a cappuccino and snacks, we called it a day as we were already feeling weary from walking and our Roman wanderings.

More to come…

-T

Italy: Day 2 – Vatican City & Rome

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Apr 092011
 

Our second day started off relaxingly with a long breakfast and chatting as we planned out our day. It was our only real full day to see the rest of what was to be seen in Rome. Thus, there was no time to waste!

We managed the bus 810 straight to Vatican City, where we joined the throngs of tourists in St. Peter’s Square to take pictures and follow the smoothly moving line to get into the Basilica. While I have only an intellectual interest in Catholicism, my mama grew up in the religion, so I was curiously asking her questions. It’s quite an impressive sight to see.

As we neared the Basilica, I was somehow convinced to climb the 551 steps to the top of the Cupola (and back down!) to see the grand views of Rome and the Square below. Despite the sore legs and knees in the following days, it was worth the climb (though one might be willing to fork over the extra 10Euros to skip the first 236 steps).

Back on the ground, we toured St Peter’s Basilica, which was quite amazing.

Then, we headed towards the Vatican museum, which lets you in to see the Sistine Chapel and garden area. Words cannot describe the art to be seen. It makes one wonder where did all that talent go or is it still out there, but hidden?


Though already a full day, we still had a few more spots to see before we could say our visit to Rome was complete. So, after a pizza stop, we headed off to see the Pantheon. Though we got a little turned around, which was quite easy to do in this city, we managed to find it. The inside was closed, unfortunately, for mass, but the outside was impressive in itself.

 

After that, we made our final stop to see the Trevi Fountain. I often wish that I could just live the life of an artist and create such beauty as the marble carvings or paintings, but alas I would never make it! Instead, I must blog in hopes of someday making my millions with my words. ;D

Thus, ended our very brief tour of Rome. One could really spend a few days here and still have plenty to see, but there’s so much more of Italy to be seen and we were booked for our train to Florence in the morning.

*The following post will be a link to ALL of the photos taken in Rome and the Vatican City* πŸ˜€

Next up – Florence and Tuscany….

-T

Italy: Day 1 – Rome

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Apr 092011
 

Originally, my mama and I had planned to do this Italy trip as her 60th birthday adventure. However, my university decided to change the vacation dates to two weeks earlier and though we couldn’t celebrate her 60th there, we were still able to enjoy our Italian adventure!

Coming from opposite sides of the world, we met up in Rome with Giorgio there to take us to our B&B-style accommodations at Abitazione Pigneto. It was a cute apartment with the rooms rented out and a common area for breakfast, the Internet or a chat with whomever was there. The location was a bit outside of the center and catchingΒ  bus 81 or 810 to return at night was infrequent at times causing one to question the benefits of cost over convenience. Ultimately, though it was a nice place to stay and always interesting to see different parts of a city.

As for Rome…where does one begin?

First, it is a good idea to purchase a Roma Pass before starting your visit to sites. You can purchase them at train stations or information centers if you want to wait until you arrive. For 25Euros, you get free entry into two museums or archaeological sites and reduced prices for others over three days. You may also take public transportation freely. The booklet includes a map and information about places to visit. Considering that just to get into the Colosseum costs about that, it’s definitely worth the purchase.

As we had only about two days to see the sights, we wasted no time after settling in to hit the streets and see what we could see. The first stop was a small church of San Giovanni. The inside of these churches are amazing!


Then, we continued along to catch the Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill where there were ruins of buildings with amazing architecture. All were very breath-taking and for me, put Egypt to shame despite my awe of the size of the temples there.

From jet lag, traveling and such, we were pretty wiped out after trying to take in all of this. So, we headed back to the hotel to rest up before taking in a late dinner (sadly no pictures of the first meal in Italy!).

Vatican City coming up….

-T

P.S. All pics of the various cities will be posted after all the trip information. πŸ™‚ (There are a lot….)

 

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