miau...

Sunday, February 01, 2009,8:38 AM

Honeymoon 2008 - Italy

Day 8

We woke up at 5am though we only had to catch our train ride to Venice, Italy at 7am. Just before we left the hotel, we looked out the windows and saw that it was snowing! I stretched out my hand to touch the falling snow. Amazing! It looked like falling rain but only thing was, it's snow! As we'd ran out of CHF so we could only afford biscuits, 2 cups of coffee and a huge bottle of mineral water for breakfast and our journey to the next destination. Venice, Italy, was a 7hour train ride away. Over the past few days, weather reports showed that Italy had seen unexpected amts of rainfall and possible flooding. So boy was I glad to see the skies cloudy! Yeah! After alighting from the train, we caught the water bus no.2 to Rialto, where our hotel was near. We're finally at Venice - the city on water! We ran into a bit of trouble trying to locate our hotel after alighting from the waterbus as Venice was full of confusing winding and almost identical looking paths. After finally locating the hotel, we set off to explore the town by foot. There were many boatmen offering to show us Venice on their beautiful gondolas, but as the cost was exorbitant, we decided to explore on our own. The gondolas and water taxis looked romantic under the setting evening sun. As we walked along the streets, we saw a Chinese restaurant in one of the alleys. It looked kinda spooky from the outside looking in, but as we were both craving for rice and chinese food, we decided to enter the restaurant. It was quite dark inside and the owner played old chinese songs. It kinda reminded us of those chinese ghost scenes. The tea which was served was diluted, the spinach was too salty for our liking and the gong-bao chicken tasted nothing like what it was to be. Only the fried rice with shrimps the size of hei-bi tasted relatively ok. Haha.. I guess we can't complain much since we're in foreign land.

Day 9

We woke up early and enjoyed a nice breakfast at our hotel. Though we'd been buying oranges and apples at local supermarts, we were still desperately in need of fibre, so we took a few of their oranges during breakfast. These foreigners din seem to eat many veg and fruits. And their diet seemed to be mostly bread, meat, wine and desserts. Unhealthy. We followed the map and found our way to St Mark's square and the Doge's Palace. We bought tix for a secret itinerary and there, the guide brought us into authorised personnel only places inside the palace. Very interesting. Learnt more about Venice and its tales. We also discovered how defiant Italian pigeons are. Their commando styled flying and landing skills amazed us. Their never fear and heck-care humans attitude puts SG pigeons to shame haha.. Aft.er walking around a while more, it started drizzling. We decided to hide from the rain by going for lunch - Mcdonalds. There were many little shops in Venice, selling almost the same items. I went shopping and vain Jane got herself a necklace n a pair of earrings. Had things not been so expensive, i'd prob have gone mad by buying a leather bag too. Dinner was settled at a small pizza pasta place that charged us an exorbitant price of €40 (sgd $80) for a piece of pork chop with a leaf of lettuce and seafood spaghetti n 2 bottles of coke which cost €4 (sgd $8) EACH! Pure madness! 500% more! We felt totally fleeced but what to do.. Sigh.. As I helped to verify our train tix for tmw, i discovered that we had booked the train from Mestre to Florence but din book the tix from Venezia to Mestre! Luckily Mestre is only 1 stop away and so we'll catch the train the next morning.

Day 10

We set off to Florence early in the morning. Bought tix from Venezia st. Lucia to mestre before catching another train from Mestre to Florence. After checking into the hotel, we went up to the room and was glad to see that this hotel recommended by sw's frd was quite gd. But still, no sign of any hot water flask into the room. Sigh. Our tummies started growling and we decided to yield to the temptation of ordering Chinese food again at the Chinese restaurant we walked past on our way to the hotel. As we were the only customer there when we went in, I felt like we were under scrutiny and constant supervision. I felt uncomfortable eating under their watchful eyes. Their food was so-so. After lunch, we ventured around Fienze (Florence) area and went to several museums and churches. There we saw the famous statue David by Michaelangelo. Craving for ice cream after that, we walked into a gelato shop and there, we were fleeced once again. Thinking that since the sign stated €3, we ordered an ice cream cone. But the lady charged us a whopping €10 for it! Darn! A good Sgd 20 for an ice cream! That woman dare ask if we wanted 1 more cone! Argh.. We decided that that was enough fleecing for a day and we went back to the hotel. Dinner was at another Chinese eatery nearby and gosh! I ordered fishball noodles and sw ordered seafood fried rice. It tasted quite yummy and it was much cheaper! Haha.. We slept ultra early that night - 8pm and we were knocked out.

Day 11

Woke up feeling happy after sleeping for 11 hours. Hee.. Had breakfast at the hotel and when we were almost done eating, sw told me that one of his frds, Jaron, told him that there is a place in Florence called The Mall, that sold branded items which were slightly out of season but at a huge discount of up to 70% off! That man had actually hid this info from me all this while! Almost immediately, we searched online for its location and how to get there. We could get there by bus at the bus interchange or train-taxi. We searched for the elusive bus interchange. It was quite hidden from plain sight and had sw not by chance turned around and kinda saw the word SITA and tried to read the word interchange on italian, we'd prob have not found the place! Anyway, by the time we reached the interchange, we'd already missed the bus and the next available trip was at either 11 or 3pm. So we decided to make our way to the Leaning Tower of Pisa first before coming back to catch the last bus at 3pm to The Mall. We made our way by train then bus to the Tower, what the locals called it. There, tourists were busy snapping pictures, posing in many creative ways with the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was funny looking at what they tried to pose and we of course, joined in. The tower is seriously slanting to a side and it is truly a wonder that it can remain standing until this day. The cathedral next to it appeared somewhat slanting too - or maybe it is just us being confused. We left the place around noon and made our way back to the train station. We ordered the pizza there and though pizza originated from Italy, not all their pizzas tasted fantastic. Their portions were big but not that yummy though. We caught the train and headed back to Fienze to catch the 3pm bus. We made it just in time and there, with us, were many other tourists, with only 1 thing in mind - SHOPPING! After a 1 hour drive, we reached the village and we were off! We caught the last bus back to town at 7pm and during the 3hours there, time flew by as we ended up with dear buying a Burberry and an Armani Jeans top, a Ferragamo wallet and I bought an Armani Jeans skirt and a Ferragamo wallet too! Happy! We went back to the hotel feeling hungry but happy. Decided to have dinner at the Chinese restaurant again before heading back to our room to start our packing again as we'll be leaving for Rome the next day.

Day 12

We left our luggage at the reception desk to do 1 last round of shopping at the bazaar street just round the corner near our hotel. Sw wanted to get a belt and i wanted to see if i could find a nice pouch for daddy for his bdae. After just barely 20min of shopping, we both found what we were looking for! Yeah! After that, we bade farewell to Florence as we caught the next train to Rome.