so after we were done with the last few sights of Rome in the first half of the day, we finally made our way to Florence (Firenze). it was about 2 hours by train away.

retarded shots in the train.

we reached the central station and walked quite a bit of distance before we finally reached our hostel. it was quite far from the central station... but the hostel's really small and cosy. the people there were nice too. it just felt like a big family kinda thing with alot of rooms.


though unfortunately, we had 2 pretty unfriendly and i would say, racist roommates. shall not elaborate further but it's just some of the stuff you get to learn when travelling. it was kinda late when we reached and it just sorta ended the first day.

Day 2
we decided to go see the leaning tower of Pisa! the place is slightly out of Florence city so we had to take a short train ride there.

shots in the train again.

the area we passed by when walking from the station to the Pisa.

it's green day!

and finally... the leaning tower of PISA!!!!!!!!!!!
holding it to make sure it doesn't fall... yeah right...
me with pisa!
us!
the view from the other side... doesn't look so leaning right.
jojo and i!
some building near the pisa.
another one.


the video we took at Pisa!


Day 3
we decided to go to this factory outlet mall at tuscany which was near Florence city. it was called The Mall. they sell really high end brand stuff like gucci, YSL, fendi, etc etc.

we had to take a bus from there... we bought the tickets and was waiting for it when.. it never came and we were told that it was cancelled... so we had to refund our tickets. angry!!

picture at the bus station... we were trying to take the background where the queue of the bus was mostly made up of.... ASIANS!! haha. as usual. they looked like mostly rich koreans and china people..
anyway, we took a train instead and changed to a taxi to get there. at the train station of tuscany... the view's pretty nice there. like a small area outside of the city. quiet and pretty.


gucci!
we spent like almost the whole day there... us with our shopping!
haha. the place was pretty good i must say... but not my level of purchasing power. haha. i still prefer the outlets in US!!! i just LOVE shopping at the factory outlets in US.

Day 4
this must be one of the most tiring days! due to some err... hiccups, we were accomodation-less for one night. hence, we decided to stay at Florence for an additional night. however, the hostel that we were at was full, so we had to move to another one. moving is something that is not really very fun. so in the morning, we packed our stuff to move over to the other hostel. it looked okay on the map ya know, but we ended our walking for one hour in the morning from the first hostel to the other... all with our more than 10 kg of bags each. it was.... very very tiring. good morning exercise. haha.

anyhow, the day was dedicated to the ufizzi and academia. it was known that both had super long queues. so we queued for one and paid like 3 euros for the other one to get a queue.

the 4 hour queue at ufizzi...
qiqi, this chinese girl we met at the hostel! she's been travelling alone for like a month when we saw her. very brave i must say!
anyhow.. not much pictures at ufizzi and academia because all i can say it was just disappointing disappointing and disappointing. photos weren't allowed inside... and well, they were basically almost the same stuff. pictures, sculptures... all those arty farty stuff which... i would say we don't appreciate. it was such a waste of time (and money of course) queuing up and all!

we walked past the duomo and decided to take some pictures outside...




the building is really magnificent and nice.. i can't imagine how they built it in the past!!
so after an extremely tiring day, we decided to... treat ourselves to a good meal! this restaurant had this picture of like pasta, wine and fruits for 9 euros! we were thrilled! and so we sat down and decided, this was gonna be... THE meal of the day!

posing with our wine...


the view from where we sat.

our food.


so anyway.. here it came. after we finished our pasta, i was gonna ask for the fruits from the waiter. and to our very very huge surprise, the fruits was NOT part of the 9 euros. it was an extra cost! meaning... the picture that was present in the menu... the 9 euros only meant the tiny small serving of pasta! and guess what, our wine that we though was inside... was freaking 9 euros each!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i could have sued them for misrepresentation??!!

so we were very angry.. but what could we do??!! we made sure we finished every drop of our wine! and ended up... errr... a little bit rather dizzy after that. haha.
our 18 euro, 36sgd dinner. VERY EXPENSIVE.
after dinner, we collected our bags and finally moved to our other hostel. it was an apartment style for five of us... just exactly like a house! it was nice... though we didn't manage to take any pictures. it was a really short stay there. but it was just beside the duomo... so near! we could see the duomo from the window!!!

Day 5
last day in florence and we decided to enter the duomo since it was so near. but little did we expect... the long climb up... all the way to the top of the duomo.

the interior of the top part of the duomo.. just amazing. i wonder how did the people manage to climb all the way to the top to paint these!
finally reached the top! i figured the climb was like more than 10 storeys high. it was very tiring! here's the bird's eye view of.. FLORENCE!


3 of us. :)

on our way down... more pictures of paintings inside the duomo.

the chapel downstairs...
this ended our 5 day 4 night florence trip... and venice, the city of water was next!
overall, i would say i quite like florence even though it was mostly the arty farty stuff. there were stuff that was nice i must say... but as usual, everything is expensive in italy and all the museums were freaking expensive. no discount for students at all... which really really sucks. but still, travelling... despite tiring, was still fun with my 2 darlings. :)