We left La Spezia around noon on Day 13 and arrived at Pisa in approximately 1 hour.
Oh, I loved the Italy sun and skies so so much
At this point we just exited the Pisa main station, heading towards the Pisa Tower - supposedly a 15 minutes distance straight down in that direction. However, we were lugging our luggages and I felt that the journey took us 30 minutes (plus it was actually pretty hot that afternoon, *sweats*) Thankfully my dearest R helped me with my hand carry bag - but the poor boy ended up with a massive luggage of his, a backpack, and my handcarry tote. While I just focus on rolling my red medium sized luggage.
We had to walk down this shopping street of Pisa, and I really quite liked the vibe of it there even though we didn't get to shop at all (due to the burden of our luggages and lack of time). In the picture, you can see most people just strolling in the middle of the wide road shared with some vehicles, feels quite cool. But most of the time we kept to the shoulders of the road because only at those parts of the roads there was some smooth pavements for us to minimize noise from our rolling luggage wheels. :b
And after a pretty long while (to me) haha, we finally see the Leaning Tower! (9^-^)9
Check out those skies. MY FAVOURITE KIND OF SKIES, which I call, the movenpick sky ^^
And then, some mandatory poking and pushing of the tower teehee we took millions of shots :3 Can't get over how beautiful those clouds are!
HEHE PUSH.
The skies look great don't they!
Time for some couple shots :D
I really like how the kid behind seem to be pushing me, cute!
He complains that the way I snapped the photo makes the leaning tower look straight, OOPSIE. D: I kind of only understood that after comparing with the previous shots he took for me above.
How's this? At least the tower looks a little more tilted now right haha!
More camwhoring shots, and that's it - goodbye Pisa!!
Made our way back to the Pisa station and on the way, we stopped for some gelato treat! Especially good for the warm weather that afternoon and to compensate all the sweat from the lugging of our luggages.
It was really popular so we knew we got ourselves some good deals. & my poor boy looking tired over there :(
Cheap and delicious gelato up for grabs! 3 scoops each.
Then it was time to head to Florence!
And I made the most terrible decision to take an earlier train just coz we reached the station before our original planned timing. We just saw a train that was heading towards Florence and hopped onto it without much thoughts. Not knowing that it takes a different route which takes more than double the amount of time to reach...
Instead of a straight Red Line from Pisa Centrale station to Firenze SMN, we hopped onto a train which goes up to the Yellow Line and back down to Firenze SMN. *Faints*
What's worse - the train broke down/had some problems with the track/problems with the previous train and it delayed for a good 30 minutes. SMRT in Singapore will never have the luxury of breaking down for 30 minutes without facing thousands of complaints :x I guess, it's common in Italy. I was really exhausted from all that worrying. Imagine spending 3 hours in a poor ventilated train (it was an open ticket train) when we could have just taken 1 hour if we stuck to our original plan. I COULDN'T FORGIVE MYSELF.
I honestly felt like fainting from all that wait. And when we finally reached Firenze SMN we took a pretty long while before we found the right bus stop area for us to take our bus and it made me all the more moody. Truly exhausted. It was only R who could bear my whines and moodiness and helped me with everything that he could possibly carry with his two arms, teehee poor boy. :p I was also so worried because we were more than an hour late from the time we arranged to meet our host at the apartment, I simply hate being late and it really bothered me quite a bit. R kept on reassuring me that these are inevitable and unforeseen circumstances that we couldn't control, thankfully the host was really forgiving and warmly welcomed us ^^ Gave us some guides and tips to go around Florence and soon after we settled our luggages my mood became much better.
It was pretty late by the time we reached and so we hurriedly left the apartment to look for some food to fill our stomachs!
Went on the search for some of the restaurants recommended by the host, however we were really unlucky that night because they were all closed. D: Ended up going to this garden themed restaurant lololol, literally the entire restaurant is covered by vines and twines HAHA, and when we reached we were almost certain that it was a 'hei dian' hahaha dubious restaurant with zero customer until we arrived, hmm.. (trauma from the Venice restaurant incident)
But we couldn't care much and just ordered some food to fill our tummy. Our pastas! EXTREMELY SALTY, because of the cheese they added. We just concluded that Italians like stronger taste :x we finished our pasta and felt like we just ate a year's worth of salt all in one night.
Haha, headed back to our b&b and just wanted to have a good rest that night ~.~
The next morning we woke up and had great breakfast prepared by our hosts! :D Then off we go for a full day out exploring florence!
Sunnies on because of the bright bright sunny sun! :D The main transport method for our entire Europe trip was mainly on foot, within a city! :D We can just walk and walk forever. Decided it was a better way to explore each city without being constrained in a vehicle. Same for Florence, we walked our way through the Florentine culture!
We loved Florence so much, the place, the people :))
And the old bridge :) Ponte Vecchio!
R reading maps and finding directions to Piazza Michelangelo :)
Enter through this and steep hill climbing let's go!
Many many steps.
But it was all worth it when we get up to Piazza Michelangelo, to see the beautiful panoramic view of Florence :') Ahh, gorgeous city.
Here's Michelangelo,
our friend!
After leaving Piazza Michelangelo, we proceeded to our destination for lunch :) Trattoria Mario - a restaurant well-loved by locals and serves traditional tuscan food.
It was a standard wait for everyone who dines at this restaurant, and we waited for approximately 40 minutes to get a table! Somehow I also got a new name, Via, on the waiting list. HAHA. Meanwhile, we walked around the leather market nearby the restaurant!
This was what we had! Tuscan meal ^^ SUPER YUMMY, highly recommended if you visit Florence! Only opens from 12 noon to 3pm. And that's a mezzo wine which got me a little dizzy unknowingly. Couldn't stand up and walk properly, ended up bumping into a few people woops paiseh much.
After a satisfying lunch, time for shopping! :D
Pretty carousel!
We were really fortunate because we happen to attend their Gelato Festival they have at Florence! Woohoo, gelato FTW. We bought the card, which comes with a free goodie bag which I still keep for souvenir now! So we managed to try 5 scoops of gelato and 1 cup of gelato cocktail. Ultimate fav is green tea gelato!!! I LOVE GREEN TEA ANYTHING :D
The Cathedral!
After shopping and all the sightseeing, it was time for dinner :) was craving for pizza that day, and went to Gusta Pizza, recommended by our host! It's not in the main area that tourists usually stay around, and lucky for us, it was on the side where our b&b was at - so most of the restaurants and shops are catered for locals, which we love! Eat as locals do!
We reached early and the shop was not opened yet, so we walked around for a bit and when we went back a queue has already started to form! So excited for our pizzas! ^^
Here's our waiting stub, and a glass table with a lot of messages and praises about their pizzas - really good!
We ordered one of their specialty pizza (gusta pizza!) and a magherita pizza! They were SO SO good. I've never had pizza this good before *melts* was so thankful that we tried it!! *three thumbs up* And for the whole time we were there, there was endless flow of people entering the shop, only shows how good those pizzas are!
So glad we ended our dinner on such good note teehee, then back to our b&b for a good night's rest! Last night in Florence! :(
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