A simple breakfast to start off our day!
My coffee tasted horrible because I accidentally added too much milk LOL
Walk by some pretty buildings on route to Piazza dei Miracoli!
We finally got there!
And there you have it! The Leaning Tower of Pisa. You cannot imagine how many photos I took of it. Every one of them just didnt seem right. From some angles it doesn't look that slanted so I was always thinking, does it look straight in this photo?!
The baptistery!
I just love the design of these buildings. It's all white and intricate. You almost never see white buildings in modern cities; everything is just black and grey.
the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo which unfortunately wasn't open to the public when we were there :(
The fallen angel
A closer shot of the baptistery!
The Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption
The bronze doors of the cathedral.
LOL People doing the taichi pose everywhere...
It was so hot so we quickly bought our tickets and headed into the Museo delle Sinópie
This museum was filled with preliminary sketches which used to be on the walls of the Camposanto.
The museum wasn't that big but we stayed in there even after we finished seeing everything just so we didn't need to go into the sun again
We then headed to the Cathedral!
The amazing gold ceiling!
A blurry close-up of the ceiling~
The pulpit with all the carvings showing scenes from the New Testament
The beautifully painted dome!
We then went into the baptistery!
In the baptistery, we got to climb to the upper tier and they was this small hole in one of its windows made specifically for people to take a perfect shot of the cathedral!
Next stop, the Camposanto!
There's a lot of history about this place. There was a huge fire that happened in 1595 and most of the frescos were destroyed. Some parts of the cathedral were damaged as well. So I think up until now, they're still restoring most of the paintings on the walls.
And this building also had to be rebuilt due to the fire.
Stories of ancient times told in these frescos...
orange/peachy roses!
After a few hours spent at the Piazza dei Miracoli, we carried on our tour elsewhere. We didnt pay to climb to the top of the tower because we did enough climbing in Florence and we didn't want to hurt ourselves again. Plus, we weren't sure whether the view was going to be worth the climb.
We then walked by the church of Santa Caterina.
Is it weird to be craving aubergines?
This was the cafe we went to. I think it's a restaurant chain because I saw a few more around the town centre.
We then just continued walking (aimlessly) along the roads of Pisa and explored the city a bit. We did that mainly because we didn't have a map and we had lots of time to kill before we had to go get our luggage from the hotel and leave for the airport, and lastly, Pisa didn't really have a lot of sights to see. If you check online (if you're planning to go there), most tourists go to Pisa on a one-day-trip. When we were taking the train from Florence to Pisa, that's what we saw a few people doing. We couldve done that too. Just head to Pisa early in the morning and go back to Florence so that we don't need to book another hotel but the air tickets from Pisa to London were cheaper, that's why we decided to depart from Pisa to London.
A random garden/square that we went to. It was nice but to be honest, because the weather was so hot, I just couldn't enjoy myself. I tried to think more positively and psyched myself to embrace the heat and soak all the sunshine in but I just couldn't stand it. At that moment, I needed someone full of energy to cheer me up and force me to be more energetic as well because the heat just sucked all the energy out of me.
Thankfully there was a water fountain at this place where we could refill our water bottles so that we could hydrate ourselves and cool our selves down.
A nice small fruit/vege stall that was tucked behind the main streets of Pisa where there were not many tourists.
There were just too many churches that we passed by that I can't rmb their names... I'm sorry >__<
More gelato anyone? We walked by a gelato shop the day before and noticed that it was really crowded so we decided to head back there to try it out. All the names of the flavours were in Italian so all I could understand was "ciaccolato" LOL
This is the name of the shop we visited! It wasn't as good as the one we had in Rome though.
This is the water fountain in front of the Pisa train station~
The Pisa Train Station - Stazione Pisa Centrale
Hotel Moderno - the hotel we stayed at for one night in Pisa.
It was a nice place but their wifi couldnt be connected from our room so we were really really bored.... and the tv was only showing Italian shows... but I understand, we were in Italy, of course there would be only Italian channels. I spent most of my time in the hotel room reading so I guess that's time well spent!
That evening. It was time to end our Italian holiday. Here we were, at the Galilei International Airport.
We met a really sweet old lady who kindly wished us buona fortuna~ Which means good luck!
And so coincidentally when I was back in London and Beast announced their new album, I was immediately reminded of the old lady we met at the airport.
One last pizza before left Italy. LOL I took a bite before I rmb-ed to take a photo. I obviously was too hungry.
Our flight was slightly delayed that night.
And the queue for the immigration counters at Heathrow was so long that we almost missed our coach to Stratford. I really thought we were going to miss it. Joontian really wanted to go to the toilet but I had to tell her not to LOL. Sorry~~~ I wasn't being mean. We had to catch that coach because we already paid for it and couldnt get a refund. There obviously were other coaches we could take but I just didn't want to spend any more money and waste that ticket. Fortunately, we made it on to the coach! We were the last two!
When we got back to Stratford, we couldn't find a toilet so we just had to quickly find a way back to my place. And my phone was out of battery and we couldn't find the bus stop. And that was at 2.30am.
But, we got through all those hurdles and got back safely to my place at 3am. We were too tired to even take a shower when we got back. I just ptfo for the next 6 hours and was woken up by the grass cutter in the morning.
Here are a few photos I forgot to post in the earlier posts~
A photo of Joontian's gelato at Giolitti's! And spy me in the background! kekeke
Me with the memorial thing in Rome!
The postcards and calender that I bought throughout the trip! There weren't many nice ones sold at the stalls on the streets or maybe I was just really picky.
All in all, this trip was a success! It was an enjoyable trip and Joontian has been a really good friend and a good travel companion. But once again, like last year when I went with Yong Xuan to HK, the both of us weren't very good in making decisions. LOL But we managed to work things out nicely~
Just in case any of you reading are thinking of going to Italy and are curious about how much money you need for a 7 or 8 day trip...... I was thankful I brought enough cash and didn't need to use my debit card. I brought a bit more than 300 euros worth of cash. And our hotels on average cost around 65 per night (which we paid online when we booked the hotels). I think we spent our money well and I managed to stay within my budget.
Thoughts on the trip:
Rome was amazing! I wished we had at least one more day to spend there because there was just so much to see~ I wish I brought a hat though because I was burning my face off in the sun throughout the trip and I refused to buy one from those street stalls.
Florence was so beautiful. As I mentioned in my Florence post, I really wish to go back and visit more of Tuscany. It really would have been so much better of a trip if the weather wasn't as hot. And although I took quite a lot of photos, I wish I took more!
Pisa.... was a bit disappointing. Like I mentioned before, a lot of people go to Pisa for a one-day trip and I personally think that that would have been better for us. It might have been my fault as well because I planned to visit a lot of places in Rome and Florence, but when it came to Pisa, I didn't really plan a lot so we were left with a very empty itinerary and a lot of time to kill. So tbh, we found it a bit boring in Pisa (compared to Rome and Florence of course).
And in general, I wish I slept more throughout the trip but because Joontian got up so early every morning, I didn't feel nice making her wait for me to wake up all the time so we always started our day early. We could've gone back to our hotel earlier and spend more time resting but it would've been a waste not making the most out of our time there. In the end, that just made us really tired. But it was all worth it!
I know some people just plan as they go when they go on trips. All they need is a map and they'll decide on the day where to go and what to do but I can never do that. I always need to plan ahead and when there's no plan to follow, I freak. And because I can be so indecisive at times, it's really annoying when I can't decide on what to do. So, next time around, I will plan better!
I feel like I still have a lot of say but I'm too tired right now....
It took me soooo long to type up all these 8 posts of my Italian holiday... It has been a rough month. But everything is going well now and I'm already typing up another post all about that.
I hope you enjoyed all my photos and I hope they have inspired you to visit Italy as well~
x
It was a nice place but their wifi couldnt be connected from our room so we were really really bored.... and the tv was only showing Italian shows... but I understand, we were in Italy, of course there would be only Italian channels. I spent most of my time in the hotel room reading so I guess that's time well spent!
We met a really sweet old lady who kindly wished us buona fortuna~ Which means good luck!
And so coincidentally when I was back in London and Beast announced their new album, I was immediately reminded of the old lady we met at the airport.
At the airport, I had to change into another t-shirt and freshen up a bit at the airport because I didn't want to spend the whole flight feeling yucky. And had my denim jacket ready for the London weather when we got back but it was not cold at all. I was so disappointed.
Our flight was slightly delayed that night.
And the queue for the immigration counters at Heathrow was so long that we almost missed our coach to Stratford. I really thought we were going to miss it. Joontian really wanted to go to the toilet but I had to tell her not to LOL. Sorry~~~ I wasn't being mean. We had to catch that coach because we already paid for it and couldnt get a refund. There obviously were other coaches we could take but I just didn't want to spend any more money and waste that ticket. Fortunately, we made it on to the coach! We were the last two!
When we got back to Stratford, we couldn't find a toilet so we just had to quickly find a way back to my place. And my phone was out of battery and we couldn't find the bus stop. And that was at 2.30am.
But, we got through all those hurdles and got back safely to my place at 3am. We were too tired to even take a shower when we got back. I just ptfo for the next 6 hours and was woken up by the grass cutter in the morning.
Here are a few photos I forgot to post in the earlier posts~
This was how tanned I got when I got back to London!
The tan-lines I got from wearing my watch LOL
And some snacks I bought back to share with my friends~
Those pistacchio stuff don't taste that good.
All in all, this trip was a success! It was an enjoyable trip and Joontian has been a really good friend and a good travel companion. But once again, like last year when I went with Yong Xuan to HK, the both of us weren't very good in making decisions. LOL But we managed to work things out nicely~
Just in case any of you reading are thinking of going to Italy and are curious about how much money you need for a 7 or 8 day trip...... I was thankful I brought enough cash and didn't need to use my debit card. I brought a bit more than 300 euros worth of cash. And our hotels on average cost around 65 per night (which we paid online when we booked the hotels). I think we spent our money well and I managed to stay within my budget.
Thoughts on the trip:
Rome was amazing! I wished we had at least one more day to spend there because there was just so much to see~ I wish I brought a hat though because I was burning my face off in the sun throughout the trip and I refused to buy one from those street stalls.
Florence was so beautiful. As I mentioned in my Florence post, I really wish to go back and visit more of Tuscany. It really would have been so much better of a trip if the weather wasn't as hot. And although I took quite a lot of photos, I wish I took more!
Pisa.... was a bit disappointing. Like I mentioned before, a lot of people go to Pisa for a one-day trip and I personally think that that would have been better for us. It might have been my fault as well because I planned to visit a lot of places in Rome and Florence, but when it came to Pisa, I didn't really plan a lot so we were left with a very empty itinerary and a lot of time to kill. So tbh, we found it a bit boring in Pisa (compared to Rome and Florence of course).
And in general, I wish I slept more throughout the trip but because Joontian got up so early every morning, I didn't feel nice making her wait for me to wake up all the time so we always started our day early. We could've gone back to our hotel earlier and spend more time resting but it would've been a waste not making the most out of our time there. In the end, that just made us really tired. But it was all worth it!
I know some people just plan as they go when they go on trips. All they need is a map and they'll decide on the day where to go and what to do but I can never do that. I always need to plan ahead and when there's no plan to follow, I freak. And because I can be so indecisive at times, it's really annoying when I can't decide on what to do. So, next time around, I will plan better!
I feel like I still have a lot of say but I'm too tired right now....
It took me soooo long to type up all these 8 posts of my Italian holiday... It has been a rough month. But everything is going well now and I'm already typing up another post all about that.
I hope you enjoyed all my photos and I hope they have inspired you to visit Italy as well~
"Two lone females in an unknown city, now that's what I call an adventure. We will simply drift."
- A Room With A View
x
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