Right now I'm just chilling at the internet booht (free) at Locanda daniel, my hostel and waiting until 7pm to go down and grab a bite then head to the train station. My stay at Florence was a total of 39 hours and yet i feel that i've done all that i could have done in the city. ( Well, if i had an extra day, iàd be taking that trip to the outlet mall called 'the Mall' where they sell the Florence brand like Gucci, Fendi, Prada, Ferragamo cheap, but no time, and also if another extra day, then i'd go to chianti area to taste some fine italian wine...actually if i wasnt travelling alone, id be less weary to try out the wines...since they are so cheap here)
anyways enough enough... i should begin with my travel journal from yesterday morning onward...
Friday June 22, 2007
I was extremely nervous about travelling to
Anyways, I was really prepared for my trip and didn’t carry a lot of cash in visible places. I had the bulk of my money in my money belt as well as my 2 travellers cheques, health card, ISIC card, passport, return train ticket and most importantly my credit card. I went and bought a bike lock for my backpack so that I can lock it to the overhead rail of the train cart.
The 20 minute walk from my place to the train station was a bit scary. (I’ve never walked out into the streets after dark yet, only really early in the morning, like 5). I chose the longer route just so that I can stay on the main streets and got to the station safe and sound.
Because there was reserved seating and I was only able to get a seat this time around for 40 euro each way >< (but a couchette and a sleeper next week for
Saturday June 23, 2007
So after a really hot and stuffy train ride, luckily people in my compartment did not smell.. and not knowing when my stop is (because Italian train conductors don’t check as much as the Austrian ones, so no one told me where we were), I had to guess at my arrival time to know when to get off, I finally arrived in Firenze, Italia (in Italian) safe and sound! I was on my guards at the train station (as they are known to be quite a bit of crime there), located the police station, and then started wandering to the postcard stands. Check in was at 9, so I had 3 hours to spare. After purchasing my post card I decided to locate my hostel, there was a big group of teenagers following a guide, looking like a school group who has also just gotten off the train, so I just walked with them for safety reasons.
Italian street numbers are weird, one street merges into another and they are randomly spaced with red and black letters that goes in ascending order meaning, you can see (red 100, red 102, black 20, red 104, black 22, black 24, red 106… ) etc.. you get the point. Red numbers are commercial numbers and black ones residential. So it’s almost like two streets combined into one… talk about it being confusing..
Anyways, I didn’t have much trouble finding where I needed to go, my hostel – Locanda Daniel, as the map was quite good. But it was still only 6:30am.. and ppl on the street are kinda scary looking, so I walked back to the train station and decided to hang out at the Mickey D’s across from it and write some postcard, and do some planning. I bought a really expensive piece of sweetened pineapple piece (I thought it was like a pineapple freezie type thing) but nope.. it was just a piece of pineapple.. and then sat there for about an hour writing postcards.
I then checked out the Market of San Lorenzo. Street vendors were still setting up their booths (this looked a lot like hong kong streets – “lady street” and “garden street”) mostly selling Florence souvenirs and leather goods, bags, shoes, belts.. and also went into the market building where it was a fresh meat market, also selling Italian wine and cheese, reminded me of the fresh meat market in
It was about 8 when I decided to walk back to find the recommended breakfast place, Bar gusto, to have breakfast there. I had a really really good cold coffee (because I was hot), it was served black and I had to ask in order to get milk. After I checked in and unloaded some of my more bulky stuff (clothes, bike lock, toiletries) into the room – pay attention here – on a shelf after the lady said I could do it. I quickly changed out of my train clothes, got my sunscreen on and set off to my appointment with David. (oh btw, the map they gave me really sucked, so I bought a
I located the Accademia gallery with no problems and there was already quite a line up going on. (gallery opens at 8:15.. people probably started lining up then). Because my hostel made my reservation for me, I managed to skip the line and go into a shorter reservation line to line up. It wasn’t so much as lining up as they let you in once your appointment time comes. We waited for about 15 minutes, I started chatting to the family group behind me who are from
So after about an hour to an hour and a half in the gallery (small but there was another side to it with instruments on display – I didn’t go in). I decided to make my way down to my next appointment and explore the city a bit.
Walking towards the famous landmark of Florence, the Duomo, it was actually quite scary, first you have watch out for weird people who might pose a threat to your belonging and safety, then you have to watch out for bikes, who speed through like theres no tomorrow, then there’s motor scooters, who make a lot of noises and travel at high speed, then cars who could care less if they run you over, and finally the busses and transits..
The Duomo was a very large structure and the marble façade was breathtaking in the sunlight. The amount of details and just the building as a whole, combined with the famous red dome top at the back of it is just a great piece of architecture. Continued to walk south, through a street of a lot of clothes/cafes/gelato stores, I arrived at Piazza di Signoria, where there was a palace of some sort standing with lots of statues in front of it. There was the replica of David standing on the same spot that the real one used to stand. This was where I took out my sandwich and decided to eat lunch before I head inside the Gallery of Ueffizi.
It was a windy day and I almost got blown away. Again the piazza was full of tour groups (lots of Disney cruise ones with mickey mouse signs), souvenir vendors, street (fake stuff) vendors, artists, and even fake statues. I went to pick up my tickets from the reservation queue (which was empty), and then headed to the ticket entrance and got in within 10 minutes. Security screening was a bit tight and they had to check large backpacks inside the gallery. I listened to the advice from a friend and bought a guide book as supposed to the audio guide. So following along the guidebook and occasionally standing close to random English tour groups, I wandered through the 45 odd rooms of the Gallery. There were quite a collection, with the famous Bottecelli’s Birth of Venus, the Primervera (they were both under glass cases, which mean very important), collection of Michaelangelo’s works, Da vinci’s works. It was interesting that there were so many stories from the Bible, I only know a bit.. wished I’d paid more attention in RE (religious studies) classes back in
After about the 20th room, I got a bit cold, it was very temperature controlled to preserve the arts, alarms everywhere and ladies that yell at you when you talk too loudly.. (strict security), and all the arts started to look the same. Then I just decided to go for the ones behind glass, because they are obviously more famous and only skim through the rest.
I got out of the gallery within 2.5 hours.. thinking that is there something wrong with my appreciation towards fine arts?
Anyways, after the Ueffizi, I headed west into the city and went to check out the
After visiting the Santa Croce, I went to the famous gelato store Vivoli to find a huge line up. I had a raspberry and tiramisu combo and it was absolutely delicious. I tried to walk back to the Duomo to locate the shopping streets and make my way back to the hostel but somehow managed to get lost. Luckily I was able to find a church looking thing in the distance and ended up at the Santa Croce again.
When I got back to the hostel to rest up and decide if I wanted to head to the Piazza di Michaelangelo and check out
Anyways I was able to talk to Amber and also met a bunch of graduates from HKU who are on a grad trip. They went to do laundry and when they came back I decided to join them for the evening to head to Piazza Di Michaelangelo (coz safer, otherwise wouldn’t know how to get back after dark without getting mugged). So we headed out and took the bus across the river up the hill. The busses took forever to come and forever to move and cost 2 euros each for a validity of 70 minute. The view up there was breathtaking but because the wait was so long, the sun was quickly disappearing. There were street vendors everywhere selling fake purses again and even tripods. We took lots of pictures and also checked out the little café where the TVB series about airplanes had a scene in it. Heh We then waited for the night view of the Duomo and wanted the Ponte Vecchio to also be lit up (but it didn’t). After waiting for about 2 hours and wasting a lot of memory on our digital cameras, we decided to head home.
I didn’t have a chance to eat dinner, so we went out and grabbed an panini (only thing that was opened at like 2200)
The day concluded with us using the free internet at the hostel to add each other on facebook. Me attempting to turn on the broken A/C in my room (theirs was working), then giving up and borrowed their fan (lucily) and falling asleep to the hustle and bustle of Florence night life beside the window with the fan on and 4 empty beds (mixed dorm people were out and about partying – good thing).
Sunday, June 24, 2007
So I decided that I’ve done most of what I could in Florence and the only thing that was left was the Duomo, the Santa Maria Nouvella Church, and the Ponte Vecchio (didn’t have enough time, or else I would’ve gone to Pisa with the HK students or gone shopping at the Mall which is a bus ride and a train ride away for 30 an hour and quite a bit of walking –but you get prada etc… there; the HK students also went to Milan where they had a great time shopping >< style=""> Anyways, waking up at 9 which was nice, the room was again empty (these ppl don’t sleep do they?) I packed up and checked out, leaving my backpack in the luggage area.
Headed down to the Ueffizi (to look for legendary prada stamps- which I did not find) since the Duomo doesn’t open till the afternoon because of the mass on Sundays. Chilled there for a bit waiting for the post office to open at 11, saw the HK students again :D and then headed down to the Ponte Vecchio to check out the “
At about noon-ish I went back to the Duomo to line up to go for my visit since I had nothing else planned for the afternoon. Surprisingly there was a line and the line began to move just after noon. By the time I got to the entrance, I realized it was because ill prepared tourist realized that it was not opened yet and decide to give up. Since I really have nothing better to do, I just stayed and secured my first spot in the line. There were an elder American couple and a younger couple behind me. We then began to chat to help the time goes by faster. The elder couple are from
Nearby, there’s a self service restaurant where I had a really yummy real Italian Lasagna. Even better was they took credit card and the prices was fair.
After lunch, I decided to wander a bit more and do a bit of shopping. I was able to discovered some famous brand names of high end fashion stores. (I really liked this pair of sunglasses from miss sixty), stores like Gucci, diesel.. All kinds of brands. I was so tempted to buy shoes (in all its glitters) but they were a bit pricey. I found a really cute dress from this store called “the end” who sells fashion made in france/Paris and
It was about 5pm when I got back to the hostel and I thought that I could rest my feet for about 2 hours prior to heading out to dinner and then to the train station. I took a shower and started using free internet to chat. Dinner was good, as it was another recommended restaurant by the hostel – 13 euro, ½ liter of water, pasta course, main course – juicy pork steak, salad, and bread. The people were really nice, and I managed to waste a bit of time and headed to the train station to catch my train at 9pm.
I made a reservation for the train and apparently this train was much more empty than the one I took to get here. I got a window seat so that was really nice and shared a compartment with 2 couples (younger ones and older ones, older ones won’t shut up again) . They all got off at
Arriving at
This trip will be repeated next week, only with a 3 hour train ride extra to and from
Hopefully I will have just as much luck in
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