Thanks to Ryanair, plane tickets were only £20 return. Of course the outgoing flight was at 6.45am, and the closest National Express coach to Stansted left at 2.20am, getting to the airport at 4.00. *yay* Surprisingly a lot of duty-free shops were open, namely HMV where I kind of impulse bought an iPod classic, at last. I have actually toyed with the idea often, never really giving in but it was about £25 cheaper so what the hell. Unfortunately I didn’t have my laptop so was unable to use it during the trip which kind of made me impatient… At the airport, the earliest flight that day was at 6.05 so everyone there was just waiting for at least 2 hours til their flight. Yay discount airlines. I was kind of horrified to find that Ryanair didn’t give you free food on the flight and everything was so crap but hey, you get what you pay for. After a 2 hour flight, some amazing views of the English countryside, the French alps and the Mediterranean sea, we touched down at Pisa Galileo Galilei International Airport (Retarded name I know). We hitched a bus to Florence for €10 (only later did we find out train was actually cheaper, silly Terravision for ripping us off!). Florence is a small city. We did not really know exactly how small til about an hour or so later, we had already walked (and gotten lost) in most of the labyrinth that is the town centre. The streets are mostly pedestrianised, and all of them look like little back alleys, giving Florence wonderful character. The maze of streets is so abundant that if you took a wrong turning you could probably find your way to your destination anyway just be going in the general direction. Shuttered, window-boxed buildings line all the narrow passages, in a truly traditional Italian style. Most of the shops sell Italian leather goods, gelato or pizza/pasta. What impressed me a lot about Florence as well as Pisa is the lack of commercialisation. No Starbucks. No chain restaurants. Probably saw 3 McDonalds in total on the trip, but that was the most branded thing that we saw. Of course designer shops line the main streets in Florence, United Colors of Benetton featuring a surprising amount. So despite being purely tourist cities, Florence and Pisa have actually maintained a very domestic economy which is encouraging in these times of globalisation. Anyways. In the day that we were in Florence, we managed to go to most (and if not all) the important attractions in the city, such as the Uffizi Gallery, Duomo, Santa Maria Novella, Battistero, many Piazzas, Ponte Vecchio, Palazzo Pitti and Piazzale Michelangelo. Fortunately, we had booked tickets in advance for the Uffizi Gallery as the queue looked literally hours long, so we managed to skip that. :) I think I would have appreciated more of the stuff in the gallery if I were an art or art history student but nonetheless some of the paintings were really fantastic. Ponte Vecchio is the only other bridge in the world, apart from Pulteney Bridge in Bath(..!) that has shops on both sides, so I am somewhat proud that I have been on both :) All the shops on the bridge were jeweller’s, selling arrays of gold and sparkling jewels. Mopeds are also highly featured in this city, if you’re not going to get run over by a car it’s going to most likely be someone on a moped mowing you down.. There is a high level of diversity too in Florence, in terms of the locals, as of course there are many tourists from all over the world. The weather on the first day was fabulous, couldn’t have asked for better to be honest. The last stop we made was Piazzale Michelangelo, a high point of the city, overlooking the whole of Florence. The view is absolutely breathtaking, postcard perfect. After all the sightseeing, we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant… (lols). It is now official. All Chinese restaurants run by Chinese people = bad service, and hate it when you order tap water. The food was pretty tasty but we were there for wayyy too long. The translations on the menu into italian were pretty impressive as it’s kind of hard to describe what things like dumplings are in italian, so they were just on there as ravioli.. Haha. One of my favourite places was Festival del Gelato. The most wonderful ice cream shop I have ever been in. About 20 flavours, if not more, behind a neon shop sign and beautifully presented tubs. Italian ice cream is just so much better than the stuff we have here. Creamier texture and wonderful flavourings, I’d say well worth the price. Whilst we were in Florence I think we went to this place about 4 times.. So amazing. Like all cities, you get the beggars trying to get money off tourists whilst dressed as weird white-faced nuns…? Kind of scary but we were not harassed. Once you are out of the main city centre area, Florence is rather quiet, full of small cafés, bars and shops, all kind of hidden away. Really quite magical. There is also a lack of big supermarkets in the area, just little ones which are hidden away, much like everything else in this city. Oh, and everyone speaks English to some degree, so no need to be multilingual :)
The next day, we left Florence at around 10.30am for a train back to Pisa. BBC Weather had said today would be “heavy rain”. Yeah, screw that, the sun was as bright as anything. Pisa, much smaller than Florence also has its culture reflected in its old buildings and hidden shops and cafés. Most of the streets are very bare in terms of people, everyone is mostly concentrated around the Piazza del Duomo where the tourist attractions are and the main high street. With no map, we kind of just walked towards the vague direction of the Piazza, and arrived at the west entrance. The area is kind of a new place in the city, the buildings a grander and white, with loads of small touristy stalls lining the road leading up to the tower. The first thing we saw was the Duomo – the baptistery. A single huge domed building. The cathedral is then behind it, then the tower in it’s not-as-tall-as-I-thought-it-would-be glory. Everything was just so white! And with the bright Mediterranean sunshine, everything seemed to kind of glow. Tickets were bought for the tower, duomo and cathedral (museums and cemeteries may be omitted). We had to hang around a bit to climb the tower as earlier slots were already booked up. First we went inside the Duomo. Pretty impressive, especially the acoustics as an assistant demonstrated. The cathedral was even more grand. The interior was decorated with huge paintings, wonderful sculptures and awesome architecture. Definitely spent too long taking pictures in here..! The stained glass windows were also really beautiful. The leaning tower of Pisa has 300 or so steps. At first it’s kind of disorientating as you are climbing slanted stairs upwards and it makes you lean this way and that. From the top of the tower, the view is breathtaking, I tried taking some photos to make a 360 degree panoramic which I have to attempt later.. There are also mountains in north Tuscany which can be seen from the tower, they provided a lovely backdrop to the city view. Dinner today was more traditional, some delicious seafood risotto. Yummy. More random city trips please.
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