Pizza Pisa: Day 7- 07/09/06
Okay, after a long hiatus from slacking and recharging my ba gua (not octagonal) antenna, I've decided to update my travel blog so that I can move on and blog about more recent stuff. Also, I dun wanna let all my memories fade into oblivion.
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And so our journey continues...
We took a 10.15am train from Florence to Pisa, since the lousy hotel at Florence required us to check out at 9.30am and Florence has got nothing much to detain us I think. Upon arriving at Pisa, we headed to the tourist information only to be greeted by a not- so- heartening piece of news- Most hotels have been fully booked and they can't do any more booking for us. So we luged our baggage across several streets and enquired with several 2 star hotels or so. All were either fully booked or turned out to be too expensive for 2 star hotels. As such, we made a difficult decision to deposit our luggage at the train station and book an evening train to Rome. I insisted on taking the 7pm train even though it was more expensive, as the 5.45pm train would likely have no toilets. Both trains are scheduled to arrive around 10pm in Rome. It turned out to be a right decision after all... read on to find out why.
After we got our tickets, we headed out to find internet cafes coz tourist offices at Rome will be closed when we arrive at 10.05pm and there's no way we can find accomodation then. Spent an hour at the internet cafe to search for the cheapest hotel that closest to the Rome Train Station and we ended up booking a hotel that costs us about 33EUROS per person per night- Hotel Caravel. It stated that it's a 5 minute walk from the train station....Urrgh. Turned out that Rome has 3 train stations and it's closest to the Odiense Train Station than the Rome Termini (Sentral) train station.
When we were done, it was about 2.15pm already. Having not much time to waste, we decided to grab some kebabs and head for the "Field of Miracles", where the ever famous Leaning Tower of Pisa is. Haha... Not surprisingly, the 1st thing that caught our sight when we arrived at the "Field of Miracles" is the Leaning Tower itself. Haha... We took tons of photos there- when we arrived, when we were waiting to climb the tower, before we left. Took lots of photos in all the stupid poses that U can think off too- the conventional "pushing against the tower" pose, me being squashed by the tower, me trying to tilt to follow the tower and lose balance. Haha... U can see the full range of photos on webshots.
Anyway, when we arrived at the foot of the tower, we were quite suprised to see few ppl at the top of the tower. I remember that the tower wasn't so safe for climbing or sth coz it has a steady rate of tilt. Can't remember the angle of tilt also. It wasn't mentioned on a plaque or sth. I guess it's around 7 degrees if I remember correctly from my Statics and Mechanics Tutorial 1 Question 5 or 6. Hahaha... Anyway, juz to make sure that we din make a wasted trip, we decided to ask if we can ascend the tower lah. Haha... The security guard at the foot told us to buy the tickets at a building about 100m away. Sianz... when we went to the counter, we found out that they only allow 45 ppl or so to acend the tower every half an hour or sth. The next available slot was at 4.20pm. Of course we took it even though it costed us 15 EUROS each lah. Heng we din take the 5.10pm train. LOLz!
I decided to buy tickets to enter the Baptistery and the Monumental Cemetery (think total of 11 Euros) at the field of miracles since I had about an hour plus to kill before our turn to ascend the tower. The Baptistery is this dome shaped building with some altar in the middle and consists of 2 storeys. Nothing very special about it except for the window that allows vistors to snap a postcard perfect picture of the Cathedral next to it. It detained me for about 15 minutes only. Haha....The monumental cemetery on the other hand, was much more interesting than I expected. Well... I thought that it was juz the place where Jesus Christ was once burried, and the whole place will be about him. But I was so wrong. The whole place was like a museum showcasoing sarcophaguses and tombstones and statues from the medieval ages all the way to 1900s I think. Wad caught my eye most is the statue of Fibonnacci ( Haha... Remember the Fibonnaci sequence? Yeah. He's the guy behind it.) and the graden in the middle of the cemetery. It had a rusted steel cross in the middle or sth. I think it's the place where Jesus was once burried. Not mentioned anywhere in the cemetery though. Too bad I had to rush to meet SWand Melvin who are waiting for me at the ticket counter at 4pm, else I would have taken more pictures of the exhibits. They're really really well crafted.
4.15pm... Finally, it was time to ascend the tower. We expected it to be a very tiring climb since oit was like twice or thrice the height of the Winged Victory in Berlin, but it turned out to be less exhaustive at the end of the climb coz the steps were less steep. Haha... The view at the top was simply too awesome lah. Haha... Mel was like calling his gf to tell her that he's a the top of the tower. So farnie.... Haha. We really wanted to stay at the top of the tower longer, snap photos with all sorts of backgrounds and poses, etc and had to be chased to leave the tower, else the next batch of visitors can't ascend the tower.
After we left the tower, we shopped around for souvenirs. I bought 2 leaning mugs of Pisa and a small plaster carving of the tower for wall decoration. Geeez... Think it's prob the best souvenir I bought in my whole trip. Once we were done shopping, we headed to the nearby fountain to drink some "miracle water" before heading to grab dinner and go to the train station to wait for our train to Rome. Hehe... The good thing about Italy is that there's a lot of water fountains everywhere. Can save on mineral water. LOL.
________________________________________________________________
And so our journey continues...
We took a 10.15am train from Florence to Pisa, since the lousy hotel at Florence required us to check out at 9.30am and Florence has got nothing much to detain us I think. Upon arriving at Pisa, we headed to the tourist information only to be greeted by a not- so- heartening piece of news- Most hotels have been fully booked and they can't do any more booking for us. So we luged our baggage across several streets and enquired with several 2 star hotels or so. All were either fully booked or turned out to be too expensive for 2 star hotels. As such, we made a difficult decision to deposit our luggage at the train station and book an evening train to Rome. I insisted on taking the 7pm train even though it was more expensive, as the 5.45pm train would likely have no toilets. Both trains are scheduled to arrive around 10pm in Rome. It turned out to be a right decision after all... read on to find out why.
After we got our tickets, we headed out to find internet cafes coz tourist offices at Rome will be closed when we arrive at 10.05pm and there's no way we can find accomodation then. Spent an hour at the internet cafe to search for the cheapest hotel that closest to the Rome Train Station and we ended up booking a hotel that costs us about 33EUROS per person per night- Hotel Caravel. It stated that it's a 5 minute walk from the train station....Urrgh. Turned out that Rome has 3 train stations and it's closest to the Odiense Train Station than the Rome Termini (Sentral) train station.
When we were done, it was about 2.15pm already. Having not much time to waste, we decided to grab some kebabs and head for the "Field of Miracles", where the ever famous Leaning Tower of Pisa is. Haha... Not surprisingly, the 1st thing that caught our sight when we arrived at the "Field of Miracles" is the Leaning Tower itself. Haha... We took tons of photos there- when we arrived, when we were waiting to climb the tower, before we left. Took lots of photos in all the stupid poses that U can think off too- the conventional "pushing against the tower" pose, me being squashed by the tower, me trying to tilt to follow the tower and lose balance. Haha... U can see the full range of photos on webshots.
Anyway, when we arrived at the foot of the tower, we were quite suprised to see few ppl at the top of the tower. I remember that the tower wasn't so safe for climbing or sth coz it has a steady rate of tilt. Can't remember the angle of tilt also. It wasn't mentioned on a plaque or sth. I guess it's around 7 degrees if I remember correctly from my Statics and Mechanics Tutorial 1 Question 5 or 6. Hahaha... Anyway, juz to make sure that we din make a wasted trip, we decided to ask if we can ascend the tower lah. Haha... The security guard at the foot told us to buy the tickets at a building about 100m away. Sianz... when we went to the counter, we found out that they only allow 45 ppl or so to acend the tower every half an hour or sth. The next available slot was at 4.20pm. Of course we took it even though it costed us 15 EUROS each lah. Heng we din take the 5.10pm train. LOLz!
I decided to buy tickets to enter the Baptistery and the Monumental Cemetery (think total of 11 Euros) at the field of miracles since I had about an hour plus to kill before our turn to ascend the tower. The Baptistery is this dome shaped building with some altar in the middle and consists of 2 storeys. Nothing very special about it except for the window that allows vistors to snap a postcard perfect picture of the Cathedral next to it. It detained me for about 15 minutes only. Haha....The monumental cemetery on the other hand, was much more interesting than I expected. Well... I thought that it was juz the place where Jesus Christ was once burried, and the whole place will be about him. But I was so wrong. The whole place was like a museum showcasoing sarcophaguses and tombstones and statues from the medieval ages all the way to 1900s I think. Wad caught my eye most is the statue of Fibonnacci ( Haha... Remember the Fibonnaci sequence? Yeah. He's the guy behind it.) and the graden in the middle of the cemetery. It had a rusted steel cross in the middle or sth. I think it's the place where Jesus was once burried. Not mentioned anywhere in the cemetery though. Too bad I had to rush to meet SWand Melvin who are waiting for me at the ticket counter at 4pm, else I would have taken more pictures of the exhibits. They're really really well crafted.
4.15pm... Finally, it was time to ascend the tower. We expected it to be a very tiring climb since oit was like twice or thrice the height of the Winged Victory in Berlin, but it turned out to be less exhaustive at the end of the climb coz the steps were less steep. Haha... The view at the top was simply too awesome lah. Haha... Mel was like calling his gf to tell her that he's a the top of the tower. So farnie.... Haha. We really wanted to stay at the top of the tower longer, snap photos with all sorts of backgrounds and poses, etc and had to be chased to leave the tower, else the next batch of visitors can't ascend the tower.
After we left the tower, we shopped around for souvenirs. I bought 2 leaning mugs of Pisa and a small plaster carving of the tower for wall decoration. Geeez... Think it's prob the best souvenir I bought in my whole trip. Once we were done shopping, we headed to the nearby fountain to drink some "miracle water" before heading to grab dinner and go to the train station to wait for our train to Rome. Hehe... The good thing about Italy is that there's a lot of water fountains everywhere. Can save on mineral water. LOL.
posted by Iceman JQ at
9:48 PM
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