Rome - Day 2 - free day

Day 2: 

Booking the underground tour was a pain....
We woke up late.  I called the Colosseum tour again and asked if they could put us in tonight, since the representative said I could only book over the phone and not in person.  After 5 minutes of waiting, an agent finally picked up and said the underground tour cannot be booked on the same day.....ACCCkkkkk I blew up.......I called long distance so many times before and they kept saying the schedule was not out (even the week before)?  After a bunch of crap, I finally was able to book an underground tour on Friday (Sept 21) at 12:40pm....

Our cheap little breakfast from vending machines:
We bought 3 sandwiches from the hotel's vending machines for breakfast (only 2,50 Euro each ~ Tuna salad, Egg salad and Shrimp...nothing too fancy...but quite good).  We also bought mocha and cappuccino from the vending machine too...

We didn't have much plans and we just decided to stroll around Rome.  Weather was quite bad, very cloudy and gloomy.  We walked on Via Nationale and checked out some of the leather shops.  We took some photos of some ruins, Altare della patria & Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio (Piazza Venezia).  That was like the centre of Rome, well for us it is.  Whenever we got lost, we just had to look for the Piazza Venezia.

We walked to the Spanish steps and the shopping district (high end fashion brands like....Prada, Chanel, Gucci......) We walked into this fast food place and had some pasta.  The bottle of white wine was only 3,70 Euro and it was quite good.  

Food court lunch - casual and cheap :)

After lunch, we went to do some shopping and suddenly it was pouring rain...so we went into the McDonald's and had some mcnuggets.  It was packed inside..many tourists went in and waited until the rain stopped, the server got quite rude to other tourists.  The McDonald's was quite trendy though.

Finally, the rain stopped.  The spanish steps....not as many tourists as I expected... It looked nicer at night time though (night shots at another pose) :)

Parking in Europe is quite impressive.....they leave so little space in between the vehicles.....it was quite amazing to see some of the parking jobs.  In Canada, we leave lots of space when we park.

Since our hotel had a very nice terrace, we decided to just relax and chill for the night.  We bought some freshly made sandwiches and opened the complimentary bottle of red wine we got from Florence.  The hotel's roof garden was quite nice.  It was still raining so bad, and it felt very peaceful just chilling at the covered patio :)

Day 1 - First Day in Rome

First day in Roma - part 1

Lasagna, Pizza, Beer and Italian orange soda

After checking in the hotel, we walked out and tried to look for food nearby.  We stopped by the Piazza della Repubblica.... and had our lunch there.... Nothing special, but the orange soda was quite refreshing.  So many birds will come to you when you eat at the outdoor terrace :)

After lunch, we basically just followed the map and walked to the Colosseum.  I researched on the underground tour for the colosseum online and talked to someone over the phone....I never got a proper reply back.  So we were heading there to see if we could book there.

Nope.  We couldn't book at the counter, we had to do it on the phone.  It was the most annoying thing ever to deal with that.  I wanted to book their official underground tour because they were the only tour that allowed their tourists to go to the "prohibited areas and the underground".  Apparently I had to call again to book.

It was about a 20 minutes walk....walking downhill?... We took a lot of photos there..just the outside of the colosseum.

When you thought the cobblestones were from ancient time...nope I just saw some were newly paved.. not sure about these ones

Tah dahhhh....finally arrived to the Colosseo ..... just going to take some photos from the outside for now

lots of ruins everywhere in Rome..

Just a day of exploring rome by following the tourist map :) we walked everywhere...

This auditorium looked like Colosseum

Some fountain in the middle of the road

Random Italian Restaurant in some back alley - Beef Carparcio 

Trevi Fountain finally :):) it looked bigger than I thought.  Night time wasn't crowded

Rome at night was quite peaceful :)

Rome - iQ Hotel Roma

iQ Hotel Roma:
via Firenza, 8 Roma

Termini station to iQ Hotel Roma:

After a comfortable first class ride from Florence to Rome's main train station (Termini), we looked at the map at the station.  It was approximate 10-15 minutes walk from termini to the hotel.  I googled map it the night before, so it wasn't too hard to find (must not repeat the "lost in Venice" incident again).

Lots of drinks to pick from...cheap too :)

General comments about hotel:
- hotel room was quite small

- the two beds were movable

- bathroom was very clean

- very nice terrace upstairs, must spend a night there chilling with snack and wine, play some fuse balls

- vending machines upstairs

- very good location, easy/moderate walk from hotel to Colosseum, Pantheon and Trevi fountain

- we pretty much walked to everywhere from hotel...even to spanish steps...etc....  

  - easy walk to metro

  - highly recommended ! :)

Florence -> Rome & Updates

Some really good pastry from the cafe right next to our hotel in Florence :)

First class train ride to Rome:

We took first class train to Rome.  It worth every penny to upgrade to first class.  Super comfortable ride to Rome.....We'll talk about our Rome hotel later. ...

Cobblestone steps near the Colloseum 

Some updates about myself:

I haven't been updating lately and I'm trying to get myself writing again.....please don't mind me :)  I would like to update that ever since this Euro trip 2012..... I hadn't stopped travelling....I would love to share all my thoughts in this blog..... 

After this Euro trip 2012, I had also travelled to :

Hong Kong 2012

Thailand 2013 - Bangkok

Germany 2013 - Frankfurt, Berlin, Rothenburg, Munich

Poland 2013 - Warsaw, Krakow

Hungary 2013 - Budapest

Austria 2013 - Vienna

Czech Republic 2013 - Prague

Hong Kong 2014

Los Angeles 2014

China 2014 - Shanghai

Australia 2014 - Melbourne, Phillip Island, Halls Gap, Adelaide, Kangaroo Island

Florence - Pisa & The mall outlet

Day trip to Pisa:

We first walked to the train station, and there was this big board displaying the train schedules, yet the ticket machine was confusing.  There were several stations in Pisa and we weren't sure which station to get off at.  We finally got someone to ask about it.  So we took the regional train from firenze to Pisa Central.  There was no need to pre-book the tickets, you could just buy it at the train station.  The trains came quite frequently; it was about 7 Euro per person, one way.  The regional train sucks, there was no AC and it stunk.  The ride was LONG cuz the train was quite slow.  It was more than 1 hour (you can almost reach Rome within 2 hours with the high speed train).  There was no one checking the validity of our tickets on our way to Pisa Centrale.

very small station…half an hour walk to the leaning tower... 

We weren't sure where to get off, once we saw the sign "Pisa", we basically just followed the crowd.  We walked to the map and figured our way to the leaning tower.  The map looked simple and the tower didn't look that far away; so we just walked.  It was kinda too hot and sunny to walk there, it was a nice and quiet walk.  It took us approximately half an hour to walk there.

So I would recommend you to walk to the leaning tower and then bus back…bus ride was only 10 minutes.. The fare was only 1,50 - 2 Euro.

We saw some abandoned ruins on our way there

Duomo 

Famous Leaning tower…..I guess it doesn't look that leaning in this photo

 ok..One check off the checklist, I don't think I would come back again……

So after our lunch at mcdonald, we took a bus (10 minutes ride) back to the train station.  We didn't check the schedule this time, and we just hopped on to the earliest train that could get us back to Florence.  As the train came, yes, we just hopped on and we forgot to buy tickets……oh on….so this time, there was someone who came to check tickets, and we didn't have tickets.  She asked us to buy the train tickets from her.  Alright.  24 Euro for two people, not bad!!! Then later I looked at the receipt, she charged us 10 Euro for penalty (5 Euro per person).  Honestly, that was quite cheap for penalizing someone who didn't pay for the train fare, (not that I encouraged it), but i rather pay the extra fee than missing the train.

Anyway, this time the train took even LONGER to get back to Florence.  Different trains stop at different stations, though the longer it took.  It was almost 1.5 hour….

Mall Outlet: Prada, Miu miu, other high end Italian brands outlet:

So Pisa and the outlet are very far from each other.  Once we got off the train from pisa, we needed to take this shuttle bus to the Outlet.  It took us a long time to locate this bus station around the train station area.  It was quite hidden, and nobody was able to give you the direction.

The shuttle comes every hour, we were running back and forth to look for the station because we didn't want to miss it.  The outlet closes at 7, while we were trying to catch the 4pm bus.  After half an hour of searching, we could finally find it.  The round trip costed 10 Euro per person.  The ride was approximately one hour, it was seriously out of no where.

But it worth the trip if you love brand names products, their Prada stuff were quite cheap compared to retail prices  A regular Prada wallet (Long one), retail price is 350 Euro, it was 220 Euro.  Purse that was 1200 Euro in retail price, it was 450 Euro there.  So if you love shopping, you might not want to miss it.  Again, this is an outlet, so you might not get the popular stuff that you see at the retail stores.

Tax return:
You can file the tax return there, please do it because you get almost 11% back.  There's a tax return office there.  Line up and DO IT.

Last bus back to the city:
one bus leaves at 7, one bus leaves at 7:30pm.  Make sure you don't miss the last bus, cabbing back would be very $$$.

Note:
It took us a whole day to go to Pisa and the outlet.  So much commute, it was worth it though :)  Do some research if you want to go to the outlet, because there are more other outlets as well.

Florence - Piazzale Michelangelo

Piazzale Michelangelo:
When you come to Florence, you must come here for the panoramic view of Florence..especially come right before the sunset...

We walked to the main train station and took bus #12 to Piazzale Michelangelo…  We bought the bus tickets from the bus driver.  It was a nice ride; it took about 30 minutes to drive up the hill (some people suggested to take a hike up there)…

It was a magnificent view of Florence.  We were waiting for the sunset..I made a reservation at the restaurant up there at around 7 (just about the sunset time).  I thought we could sit at the terrace to enjoy the sunset, but unfortunately the terrace was closed.  I was a little disappointed, there was nobody inside as it was still a little early.

La Loggia del Piazzale Michelangelo 

We picked the table that was closest to the door…it was quite nice inside.  We ordered some wine and enjoyed a little of sunset :)

some salad to start with

Rabbit meat ….. it was quite moist… 

It was my first time tasting rabbit meat…….it was quite good..but it kinda tasted like chicken…..

Sea bass

The ambience of the restaurant was quite good.  The food was not bad and it wasn't very expensive.  I would recommend to try this when you want to have a comfortable meal at Piazzale Michelangelo.

After a nice dinner, we walked around and took some very nice night shots with tripod.

Bus ride back to town:
We thought we could take the same bus back to town, but the bus driver turned us away saying this was the last stop….We actually needed to take bus #13 which was across the road.  We waited for a while and when bus #13 finally came, we went up to the bus driver to buy the tickets…and he said he only had 1 ticket to sell…and he couldn't accept cash.  I asked him so what do i do? He told me to get off the bus to buy the bus tickets…he was pointing at the parking lot.  In the end we were running back and forth, trying to figure out what he was talking about….it took a good ten minutes before we could take the bus back to town.  Good that it was probably his break time, or else we would have to wait for another 30 minutes for the next bus to come.

Florence - Uffizi Gallery

View from Uffizi Gallery's patio

We pre-booked tickets for the Uffizi Gallery at 12:15pm online.  We arrived early and we went to the ticket office to get tickets with our reservation number, and we got in quickly.

View from window

Uffizi was huge; there were a lot of Roman sculptures and awesome paintings....But it was a little overwhelming (maybe after so many museums)....so eventually we lost interest....

After the Uffizi, we walked around the Duomo and we bought some Belgium waffle with ice cream.  It was so chill...such an awesome day :)

We went back to the hotel to chill and got some free drinks from the Hotel's roof terrace....pretty nice view :)

Very nice weather...can't ask for more... :) We chilled for a while before we go to the Piazzale Michelangelo