Very Grouchy Person Hitting Venice

The last stretch of my Italy trip ~ Honestly, now that I'm reflecting back and trying to write down the details. I find myself forgetting what I actually did in Venice. It came to the point in which i was thinking, "was that me?", "was it that day?"

Day 1: -

We took the night train over to Venice, but due to the changing of trains in the middle of the night and the waiting, we did not manage to get much sleep at all. Therefore, two every grouchy and sleep deprived people hit Venice. Me, being my usual brilliant, Pollyanna self, embraced Venice and its unusually freezing cold. My other friend was grouchy, tired and irritable. Naturally, if you don't sleep for 8 hours, keep waking up in the middle of the night, depart from a nice, warm seaside village to a place that feels like it is 8 degrees lower. Oh, did I mention that we haven't showered for like 20 hours.


We dropped off our stuff at the hostel, tried to freshen up in the toilets and decided to get lost in Venice. After breakfast and coffee, I felt abit more like an actual person. Spotted some street markets..

Venetian Masks

The Rialto Bridge

Gondolas

and arrived at St Mark's Basilica. The most famous of Venice’s churches, an example of Byzantine architecture. It used to be the chapel for Venice's rulers but now it is the seat for the archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Venice. I might be all-churched out from my earlier travels, St Mark's still made an incredible impression on me. Due to the queue, I went past this place rather quickly and came back later to visit the interiors. The ceilings are mosaic, but again, photos are not allowed inside, so I can only say, it was amazing. I know, I have used this word, One too many times. Please google-image search this. It's worth it.


My next stop was actually the Galleria dell’Accademia di Venezia, but when I was there, it was closed for the day. Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to go back there again.

Headed for the Peggy Guggenheim Museum round the corner. A museum for modern art, I really liked Max Ernst's works inside. There were also Picasso, Dali and Pollock. This was my first modern art museum inside Italy and it was truly different from the rest of the museums that I had visited in Italy. But after going there, I was abit closer to understanding what the modern art movement was about and after Paris, I had a fresh respect for these artists and what they were trying to achieve.



My friend revitalized in the evening and had a friend at the Venice Film Festival. Yes, I WENT TO THE VENICE FILM FESTIVAL at Lido(an island off Venice)!!!

Spotted Natalie Portman. AHHHHHHHH. We bought tickets for a movie to the Venice Film Festival for the next day.

Took the night boat back ..


Day 2:

Took the boat back to Lido to watch Below Sea Level (Italy / USA, Director Gianfranco ROSI)

The director was inside the auditorium but the introduction was in Italian. -l- So i couldn't understand what was happening. Anyway, the movie/documentary was so-so. But I watched a movie at the Venice Film Festival. WOAH ! We came out, explored the island a bit and went Island-hopping.


Next on our island hopping tour, we went to Murano. The island where the famed Murano glass came from, the shopping urge called out to me and I got Murano glass earrings and a big-ass glass ring.


I vaguely remember ending the day at a cafe by the canal reading a book and having dessert. It was meringue pie and strawberry tart. The book that I was reading came from our hostel which kindly had a bookshelf for its customers. But the book was Twilight, the new teen flick that is showing right now.

Day 3:
Our last day in Italy and the end of our trip, as much as I liked Italy, I was looking forward to having a warm meal, good bed and clean showers.


Started the day at a coffee shop, we couldn't miss it. The moment you stepped in, the strong scent of coffee would have grabbed you by the neck and shook you from your slumber.



Walked around more markets and tried the local Berlini cocktail in a bottle.


Flew back to London afterwards...

Shall write about London next !

Cinque Terre brought me to my knees

If you have been following my last few posts, you would have realized that I had spent more than just a few days on the road in Italy. By the time I arrived in Cinque Terre, a good part of my Italian tour would have ended and I was quite relieved. For one, I was totally burnt out from traveling, for two, dirty + crowded + shared toilets, for three, living off supermarket food like bread and frozen ham, I can only survive on these factors for only so long.

We only stayed the night in Pisa and decided not to do the Tower of Pisa again in the morning. Once morning came, we took the train and took off to Cinque Terre. This place was recommended by one of our Spanish classmates and upon researching it, I was initially quite against coming to this place. Hey, I come from Singapore ! Surrounded by some of the best beaches in the world in Malaysia & Thailand. Why come to Italy to go to a beach ?

Boy was I wrong...


Once we arrived, Cinque Terre brought me to my knees. Cinque Terre is actually a coastal area made up for five seaside villages linked together by train. We headed to our hostel first at Manarola.

I made a mistake with the booking and we had no rooms when we arrived. We headed to the only hostel in Cinque Terre to find that it will only open 3 hours later.


Anyway, the hostel was full, a fact that we found out after WAITING FOR 3 DAMN Hours. Luckily, during the 3 hours period, me and my friend were taking turns to look after our bags and explore the village. I found this agency that managed to help us locate a private room in Manarola at hostel prices. At that point of time, it was close to 4-5pm, the sun was setting, we had no place to go to, we were DESPERATE. When they managed to pull off that tiny miracle, I really hugged and thanked them from the bottom of my heart. Loving Cinque Terre already..




The next 2 days, we spent in Cinque Terre chilling out and exploring the five villages. Each village was pretty small and can be covered within 30 mins. We could hike from one village to another. The prices and the food in Cinque Terre were so much cheaper than the other places in Italy I was at. The atmosphere was relaxing. I really left my heart at Cinque Terre. Each night, me and my friend will buy a bottle of wine, drink and chill out under the night sky. We had dinner as well, with fresh mussels, fish and ingredients like pesto locally grown in the region.

Leaving Florence.. Tuscany Day Tour

We had a very laid back and relaxing time in Florence, but after spending five days in Florence, we were more than ready to move on. In the free Florence map that was provided by our hostel, there was a very value-for-money day covering most of the sights that we wanted to go. So off with our bags to the next location.. we started the tour with

Siena

Piazza del Campo, shaped like a hollow shell, this piazza holds the famed Siena horserace annually. It is known as one of the most beautiful squares in the world. If I weren't on the tour, I would drop everything and gladly stay there to have a cup of coffee and soak in the sun at the square.


The color Siena, is supposed to have come from this city due to the color of its rooftops under the summer sun. Didn't really see it, but hey, it sure makes a good story.



Cathedral of Siena - The facade looks grand, but what I loved more was the marble sculpturing on the ground. Due to the wear and tear, it was open only for a few months in a year and mainly under restoration. Thank goodness, this time round my timing was good, and the floor was completely restored when I was there.



The tour stopped for an hour at this vineyard for lunch. Lunch was some salad with grated cheese, tomato fusili, desert was port with amaretto biscottis (almond flavored cookies) and free flow of white & red wine. The food was very home-made and rustic. I kept hitting the baskets of amaretto biscottis. They were so good !!



Next stop was San Gimignano, where my agenda was just to hit one of the best gelato in Italy. Now, practically most of the gelato i had in Italy was good. Not to say that the ones in Singapore like Island Creamery is bad, in fact, proud to say that those are comparable to the ones that I had in Italy. It's just the sheer variety of flavors that I could find in Italy was mind boggling.

Then, I had the gelato from this place. I was stuffed.. really STUFFED from lunch & those biscottis. But I had two ice creams from this place because it was just that good. If I remember correctly, I had grapefruit, amaretto, rum and Vernaccia(the local wine). I could get 2 flavors in a scope. The difference, the true difference, was that it was so light and creamy, I couldn't taste the ice in ice cream at all. It just felt like solidified cream without the heavy or rich feeling. It was not like Hagen Diaz, rich, thick and creamy. It just felt lighter, and not because someone whipped in alot of air or added alot of water. (If that description makes any sense at all, my power of description is truly appalling)


San Gimignano was not just all about the ice cream. (But for me, it pretty much was!)This town used to serve as an important relay point for pilgrims travelling to or from Rome. The powerful families who controlled the town built around 72 tower-houses as symbols of their wealth and power. But only 14 have remained.

Again, the bad point of the day-tour or any tour is that you only get the highlights. The churches and the art within Siena, there was simply no time to check them out and we were on our way to Pisa.



We reached Pisa a good 1-2 hours before sunset. After Rome, Florence, Assisi, Perugia, I have never felt that Italy was a touristy country until I reached Pisa. In fact, Pisa did not give me a good feeling at all. It was dirty, didn't feel very safe, illegal vendors were all around the place hawking wares on the streets. Even our tour guide was warning us about pickpockets. Talk about making a bad impression.

Both me and my friend declined to head back to Florence and stayed in Pisa for the night. Unfortunately, because the hostel rates in Pisa were really expensive and limited, the cheapest hostel that we found, we did not realise how far it was until we started to make our way there. We took close to 2 hours of frantic walking to get to our hostel, which was actually a home, with a room rented out. We missed the opportunity to climb the tower of Pisa at sunset.



The hostel made it up the next day with a free breakfast inclusive of our room.

It definitely made up for the 2 hour trek, we had a good breakfast of milk, coffee, tea, bread, cheese, cereal. There was a whole load of food to start a good day.

The Italian Countryside

In between my various days in Florence, we took a break and headed out to Perugia & Assisi. Actually, it was more like we bought train tickets to Assisi and stopped by Perugia to grab a quick look because it was briefly mentioned in my Lonely Planet.

Dear all, this is Perugia. We did not try to make our way to anything, we just hung out and enjoyed this little Italian village on a hilltop with these amazing views.




Around 1-2pm, we made our way to Assisi. Assisi was known as the birthplace of St Francis.


We made our way to the Basilica of San Francesco d’Assisi. Built in 1228 and completed in 1253, the church is decorated in frescoes by Giotto. We were not allowed to take photos within the church. So no photos to show here, but i did go down to the lower levels where the tomb of St Francis was located. The church was okay, but maybe because I did not want to spring for the audio guide, so I had quite a neutral feeling towards this World Heritage site.


Despite being in a holy city, it did not stop me from bitching. The town of Assisi is on a hill top, everything was uphill, at a very tiring steep angle. I was remarking to my friend that i would never be fat if i stayed in Assisi for more than a month. Took a train back to Florence.