Europe 2nd Trip - Florence, Italy (Day 8)

1st Nov 2013, Friday, Sunny

My Breakfast

Today is an important day for one of my friend, as we are going to The Mall for branded goods shopping. But first, for the 1st half of the day, we will be going Galleria dell'Accademia first to see the famous work by Michelangelo, David. And so, we woke up at around 6am, got ready to go for our adventure today. I went out first and told my friend to remember to take the key and so i closed the door behind me. After walking for a short distance, i heard commotion coming out from our room. So i turned back and opened the door again, i saw my friend like in shock, frozen at her spot. Then on the floor, there was a plank-like stick. Hahaha....then my friend started to scream at mi and asked mi what did i do to the door, the plank fell just a few centimeters away from my friend. And the other friend was standing behind her, saw the whole drama. Then we all broke into laughter.....So drama....the door wasn't even closed when i closed it, how the hell the plank will fall down?? (but later when i went to see in the next morning, blue stack was actually used to stick the plank.) After the shock, we went down to have our breakfast. It was a bit sad on the breakfast, nothing nice to eat (i still miss the breakfast in Naples hotel......kekeke)....After we had our breakfast, i went to ask the hotel owner on how to go to bus terminal so that we can take the bus down to The Mall.

David (Taken from Web)

And so, we headed out to the Galleria dell'Accademia first as i had made the reservation at 9.30 am slot. We were required to queue for a while as there was security check required and there were security guards to control the crowd. Then we made our way in and got the admission tickets. As usual, 1 went off on her own and mi and another friend walked together. In there, the main highlight was the super big statue of David by Michelangelo. It was really big and no photography is allowed in the gallery. But i can still see some people had secretly took photos of the amazing statue using their phones. There were some other sculptures (by Michelangelo) and a collection of Renaissance paintings.  Apparently, i got no collection of other sculptures or paintings, except the giant statue of David...hahaha......There was a room of music instruments collection too. For this gallery, it wasn't as big as Vatican Museum or Borghese Gallery, so we ended the tour quite early. After this, we walked towards Florence Cathedral. The whole cathedral was super big, and it was also crowded when we reached there. It was amazing, it was so big and tall that you feel small just by standing in front of it. It was very white and there was lights shinning on it during the night. When i first saw it, i can't help 'wow', it was breathtaking and Baptisterium San Giovanni was beside it......But it was considered a public holiday today in Italy, and so the cathedral was closed. We were unable to enter to see the inner of the Duomo, which was one of the top 10 UNESCO World Heritage in Italy (which is a pity).

Gucci Outlet @ The Mall

So had no choice, we headed down to The Mall instead. We went and took a bus to the main train station and i got lost in the direction, i wasn't able to find the next direction where we need to walk to the bus terminal. So my friends took over and tried to find the direction, well, they managed to find the way to walk to the bus terminal (they are more expert in using google maps..hohohoho). Just as we reached the terminal, the next bus was 10 something, which we needed to catch this bus. If not, we have to wait like an hour for the next bus. Luckily, we did managed to catch the bus and off we went (Ticket costs euro $5 single way, euro $10 return trip). It was an 40 mins or so journey to the outlet, i just napped on the bus (so tired after waking up for so many days). Finally we reached the mall, and we went to the canteen for lunch. It's a bit sad, cos it was like a food court except you need to order first before you can choose your choice of pizza or salads. Anyway, it was a sad lunch, don't like it....After lunch, we started our shopping. First stop, Prada, my friend wanted to go there see see. Haiyo, it was crowded and it was like marketplace. The place was big though and it was 2-storey high, lower level was with bags, wallets and shoes and the upper level was with clothes, jackets, etc. Next stop, Gucci, it was also big with 3 levels and it was not so crowded, quiet. Really can slowly shop and see slowly, and indeed i saw a key pouch that i like the feel of it. So i just bought it...kekeke...my friends were still looking out for theirs. I was the first one to start the ball rolling...hahhaa...Later one of my friend got 2 wallets and 1 got a bag and a coin pouch.

Yummy Gelato

After shopping in Gucci, we went to see other shops. Actually, the place was quite small with not many brands. I was expecting the place would be big and there were a lot of branded shops around, it was smaller than the one i went in Japan. So if you are to visit The Mall in Florence, go only if you want to get stuffs from Prada and Gucci. If not, don't bother making the trip there. There were also branded shops around the streets of Florence, you just need to go the correct place. After all the shopping there, we went to the tax refund office located at the bus stop. As we were not going back from Italy, the officer told us that we need to go to 2 train stations (Chiasso & Domodossola) and get the custom stamps for the tax refund forms before we leave Italy and mail them back. Later on, i went back to check, the train frequency for this 2 stations were not so frequent and we were having a late train to take from Venice to Milan on the last day for Italy. Anyway, we went back to the hotel to put our stuffs first and then we headed to have dinner. Before dinner, we headed to a gelato shop instead, called Gelateria Carab. I got myself a plum gelato...ooohhh....it was so damn nice!! My another friend wanted to try something special and new, so she got a granita. The other friend doesn't want to have it at first, till both of us kept telling it was sooooo nice and i let her try one mouth from my gelato. She dashed back in to the shop and got herself 1 cup. I was the last one to finish it, as usual...the 2 of them had finished their first cup and they went back to have a 2nd cup..hahhaa...The shop owner was friendly too and think he was surprised why we kept going back to his shop.....kekeke....this was the last gelato i ate in Italy....If you are going to Florence, don't miss this small gelato shop. Best!

Inside of the Restaurant

After the nice and yummy gelato, we walked to our dinner place, named Ristorante Paoli. It definitely looked classy, and the interior was very beautiful. Too bad, it was fully booked when we reached there but we still had a bit of luck. We were allowed to take the table outside, so we went with it (cos i think there was one family after us wanted to take the outside table too, if we didn't sit in first). Then we ordered the food and had a nice dinner there. The tomato soup is quite thick and really tasted with tomato (not like those mixed with water and with no taste). The whole dinner costs us euro $60. After the dinner, we made our way to Piazzale Michelangelo. We walked quite a distance before we made it to a bus stop that we could take a bus up to the place. As we were walking, think i saw Ponte Vecchio afar but not sure...could be...hahaha....Oh well, and so we waited the bus for like half an hour or so before it finally came.....After 6 or 7 stops, we reached the piazzale (along the way, the 3 of us were in sleepy mode on the bus ride...hahhaa).

Overview of Florence City (Night View)

At the piazzale, there was a copy of David statue, smaller version and it looked kind of dirty. But when you turn away from the statue, is a good nice overview of Florence city with all the lights shining. There were 3 buildings that stood out from all other buildings, one confirmed was the Duomo (which was in the center), Palazzo Vecchio (i think it is, which was on the left side), and 1 more building on the right side (which i don't know what it was). After spending some time up there taking photos and looking at the view, we made our way to the bus stop. Gosh, the bus required an hour to come and it was the last bus. So we just sat there, stood there to wait for the bus to come. It came at 12.05 pm, my eyes almost wanted to close. We just napped on the bus when we boarded, after we alighted, we still need to walk a short distance back to the hotel. I never got used to the streets in Italy, as in i can't get familiarize with the roads we walked, from the hotel and back to the hotel. It was kind of confusion walking in Italy...hahahaa...but still we managed to walk back to our hotel safe and sound.

There's really much to see in Florence, too bad we had planned our stay too short here. Target myself to come again next time. ^_^

Note: For the tax refund thingy, if you are not leaving from Italy, then be prepare to give up refunding it. The VAT is 8% for minimum euro $150 in a single receipt and as i mentioned earlier, you will need to travel down to Chiasso or Domodossola (it may be different stations depending on where is your last destination, for mi, my last destination was Zurich) to get their customs stamp. If you are ok without the refund, then my advice is just forget it unless the train frequency to the particular station is very often (like every 1 hour), then you can go ahead with it. If not, don't bother about it. It may waste your 1 day just by doing this, so why waste it? Enjoy your holidays!

Hotel Stayed:
Hotel Europa

Places Visited:
Galleria dell'Accademia
Florence Cathedral
The Mall
Piazzle Michalengo

Europe 2nd Trip - Vatican City, Italy (Day 5)

29th Oct 2013, Tuesday, Sunny

Our breakfast

Today we are going to visit Vatican City and Vatican Museum. We woke up at around 5 or 6 plus, and our breakfast was delivered to our room at around 7 am. It was a set for 3 persons, we had breads, butter, juices, coffee, hot and cold milk and fruits. There was only 1 table and 1 chair in the room, so 2 of us had to stand around or sit on the bed to eat the breakfast (Anyway, this will be our breakfast again the next day..hahaa...). Then we wrote our postcards and pasted the stamps so that we can send them out from Vatican city.

Mummy Coffin

After the breakfast, we made our way our to Vatican Museum. It was tiring to take the metro, as it really was like taking forever for the train to come and we had to miss 3 trains as they were always packed and nobody was willing to move to let you come in. (Really need to appreciate our SMRT trains...compared to Italy metro). We pushed our way into the next train that come after that, so squeezy...and everyone would just push you out if you are just standing in the way (Noticed that the Italians don't really say 'excuse me' if they want to move past you, they just push their way to get past you). There were a lot of people when we reached the museum (luckily we made reservations online and it was faster) and there was security check too. After we passed through the security check, then we went to get our tickets. Funny thing, there wasn't much sign to indicate how to enter the museum. We saw a sign that indicate it was at the upper level, so we went up and saw some directional signs...and so we parted in 2 ways again (1 friend went on her own with the audio guide, and mi and another friend walked on our own in the other direction). There were so many people walking around the museum (a bit hard to move around too). The first room (Museo Gregoriano Egizio) we went into was an exhibition on Egyptian stuffs. It was soooo big and so many things to see, there even have a real mummy and the coffins displayed there. The whole museum was so big and we kept following the directional signs so that we can make our way up to the Sistine chapel, which was the highlight. The ceilings was also so beautiful with the beautiful color paintings. There was even a room (Galleria degli Arazzi) on tapestries which were woven on textiles, they were so real too. In the next room (Galleria Delle Carte Geografiche) is the gallery of maps, where it displayed all types of maps by paintings. There was also very big walkways with beautiful arts on the ceilings (you really have to go see it yourself, it can blow you away...we don't see them in Singapore...but they are really really beautiful...it will made you wonder how on earth the people can do the arts up in the ceiling...). And so, we kept walking towards Sistine Chapel...it was a long way to there (there were 2 ways to get to the chapel, 1 is the long way and the other is a shorter way...and mi and my friend went on the long way).

A Glass Art

Finally, we reached a room and it was stopped by a long queue. Gosh, the queue wasn't moving much and the room was so hot...we were getting impatient waiting there...and we had no idea why the people in front wasn't moving...After like 15 mins of waiting, we finally able to get our way up to the Sistine Chapel. It was a great hall with a lot of paintings on both sides of the walls and the ceiling. And a lot of people were inside, security guards were also there to control the crowd and to prevent people from taking photos. The Sistine Chapel is the personal chapel for the Pope and the place to select new Pope. The Pope Julius II had approached and even tried to bribe and threaten Michelangelo to help repaint the ceilings of the chapel. Michelangelo had agreed only with the condition that he had the freedom to do it his own way. The whole work was completed from between 1508 and 2 November 1512 (the whole work was on Christianity). All the paintings were so nice to see and looked very like 3D, all by famous painters, like The Creation of Adam (by Michelangelo), The Last Judgement (by Michelangelo), The Last Supper (by Cosimo Rosselli) (it was with a semi-round table instead of a long table and i always thought that it was with a long table, and so when my friend asked mi whether is the painting The Last Supper, i told her no lah...hahaa....then later we realised it was really The Last Supper when we saw all the names of the paintings inside the Sistine Chapel in the garden), etc. After staying in the chapel for 5 to 10 mins, we made our way out, and we still need to walk some more rooms before we can reach the exit. Finally, we made it out to the exit (which was the starting point), but our other friend wasn't done yet. So we rested for awhile and had some snacks, cos it was past 12 or 1 pm in the afternoon (seriously, it really took us a few hours just to cover the museum and not sure whether we covered the whole museum). Then later,we went down to the garden to walk around, there was boards showing all the paintings from the Sistine Chapel. Then we walked around to another exhibition room, which were showing Asian stuffs and then explored to another exhibition showing all the stamps of Vatican City throughout the years while waiting for my other friend.

Old Bridge Gelateria

After some time, my friend was done with her museum tour. Then we walked out to the museum to look for lunch. While walking out, we saw a small gelato shop which was having a long queue. My friend recongised it as a famous gelato shop (Old Bridge Gelateria) which was recommended in her Rick Steve's book. So we headed over to get some gelato (since we were already there, and we didn't regret it...heheee). There was one lady who was trying to ask us whether we were in the queue but she was speaking in Italian, so i didn't answered her. So basically she just went and stood in front of us to queue for her gelato. Anyway, we each got a cone with single scoop each (it costs euro $1.50 each and it was a big scoop)...and i got the mango flavor. It was super nice, i love it when i had the first lick on it (don't think can find the same taste in Singapore). So we were licking the gelato happily, at least for me...until we finished, we decided on our lunch place (I was the last one to finish it, as usual...ahh...so nice..). Later, we went to a restaurant just round the corner for lunch. The restaurant name is called L'Insalata Ricca Ristorante and it was famous for salads and pizzas. But we had ordered spaghetti & pasta instead and it was a mistake. It was plain and had no taste, it was not nice (both my friends ate until very sad for their lunch there....i ordered maltagliati pasta which was slightly better than the spaghetti, at least can taste the tomato flavor in it (but it was too much, can't finish it too). Other than our main course, we ordered the clams & mussels platter as our appetizer. It was nicer than our main course though, but not the best (later, we had much better in other places). When i called for the check, the staff (don't know is it the owner) somehow purposely gave the bill to my friend instead to me...so funny..seems like he was playing with us in a friendly way. Anyway, the lunch costs us euro $36 without the tip and guessed both my friends had a very sad lunch there.....

St. Peter Square

After the sad lunch, we headed down to Vatican City itself. It was a short distance walk to there, but there were chairs placed at the St. Peter Square (for some event the next day), which we can't walk to the center of the square. And there were a ceremony going on too in St. Peter's Basilica, which later blocked out some of the places inside (which we found out later when we were exploring the Basilica). We went into the Basilica, it was very big place, which was built by Michelangelo too. It was packed with people too.Wasn't able to go see the St. Peter tomb as it was blocked out due to the ceremony going on, we were unable to walk near the main altar (which was directly under the dome and St Peter's tomb was under the alter) too. Mi and my another friend walked until we ended up at the museum-treasury but we didn't went in to see cos it needed to buy tickets. So we went out again and looked around the basilica, we saw Michelangelo's work - Pietà which he had created when he was only 20 plus year old (main highlight). There was a lot of statues built around the whole basilica and there were some baby angels around on the walls and pillars. There was a holy door at the right side of the atrium, which was only opened on Holy year (occur every 25 years).  There was even a bronze statue of St. Peter too, somewhere near to the main altar. The body of Pope John XXIII (who was known as "Good Pope John") was also displayed there, in a glass case. He was wearing a red cloak and white grown. After which, we left and spent some time at St. Peter Square for some night view photo-taking. We saw 2 Swiss guards standing outside on the left side of the basilica. Then we sat down to think of our dinner place, it was so dark even though it was like only 5 or 6 pm plus. So we decided to go back to our hotel restaurant to try their food as it was also being recommended in TripAdvisor (and they had a sad lunch, wanted something nice for dinner).

Our dessert

We walked back to the metro station, halfway, we saw a provision-like shop (but it looked like a supermarket but smaller). We got some chocolate powder as there were so many different flavors to choose. We even bought a tiramisu, aragoste clocclato and cannolo back for our next day breakfast. Then we went back to the hotel room first and then went for dinner downstairs at the restaurant, it was named Target Restaurant. We ordered a clams & mussels platter as the appetizer, and i ordered seafood risotto (as i was craving for some rice...hohoho...). The clams & mussels was nice, better than the one we had during our lunch and the risotto was full with seafood (every spoon was with seafood meat). The place was with a good ambiance too, quiet and did i mentioned? The waiting for the food was very long...basically can wait until sleep and Italian people always eat like 3 or 4 courses per meal (Appetizer, 1st dish, 2nd dish and dessert). How can they eat so much per meal and stay skinny? I can't even finish 1 dish...hahhaa......but their food are really healthy, not oily type. This dinner costs a bit more expensive...around euro $84. Ohh..we ordered a dessert too...it was with 3 different desserts.  After the dinner, we were finally going back to the hotel to rest....conscuss right after my bath.

Hotel Stayed:
Target Inn

Places Visited:
Vatican Museum
St Peter's Square
St Peter's Basilica