Hoho...It's Christmas again! And this time round, we had decided to spend it in charming Tuscany! Pisa, Siena and Florence and let's go!
PISA
Our first stop was Pisa, via a 2 hour flight with Ryanair from Stansted airport. Upon arrival, there was ample sunshine, sun rays extending unencumbered and straight through the clear blue skies to warm us. It almost felt like summer again! With our backpacks on our shoulders, we headed straight to Piazza de Miracoli, where the iconic leaning tower stood. Despite having heard and seen an umpteen number of times the aforementioned tower, it's mighty presence still made me gasp in awe! Us aside, it was quite amusing that tourists from all over the world took their attempts at funny pictures involving effortlessly toppling the magnificent tower or pushing hard to support the colossal tower. And I'm pretty sure some of these photos were posted in Facebook as we spoke.
We went to Tavern di Emma, a restaurant a short walk from the leaning tower for lunch. This place served the most wonderful bread ever - it was crusty and crunchy outside with a soft interior, just made you want to eat them continuously. To top it off, the cheese ravioli was superb, a total contrast to the one I had at Strada just before I made this trip. At this point, my view of Italian food took a 180 degrees turn and I started to develop a soft spot for delicious Italian food.
After lunch, we crossed River Arno and strolled along it to get to our Hotel. The houses, in various shades of orange and yellow stretched lazily across River Arno, and the afternoon sun warm on our cheeks, casted a long line of silhouette on the peaceful waters, painting a romantic picture. And I couldn't help myself from taking a couple of photos to capture this idyllic moment.
We reached our Hotel, Hotel Bologna and were greeted by friendly staff and clean spacious rooms. Though reluctantly, we were glad to fall into a deep afternoon slumber to relieve ourselves of our total exhaustion built up from the last couple of days. We woke up in the evening feeling rejuvenated and ready for some adventure. We strolled along the main shopping street Corso Italia which merged into Borgo Stretto north of River Arno before retracing our steps to settle into restaurant Bagus, a couple of streets from our hotel.
In Bagus, we had excellent traditional Tuscany meal - Bruschetta with fresh tomatoes, olive oil and sun dried tomatoes and bread crumbs soaked in tomato soup for antipasti, Tagliata Manzo i.e. marinated and sliced grilled sirloin steak on a salad of rocket and Parmesan shavings with rosemary and balsamic dressing for Secondi, and Cantuccini(almond flavoured cookies) with Vin Santo (a sweet white dessert wine) for Dolci. At the end of this meal, I'm warming up to the idea of taking a sabbatical to be an apprentice chef in Italy!
SIENA
The next day, we made a last minute decision to detour to Siena, one of the UNESCO World heritage city before heading for Bologna. With a couple of hours in Siena, we wasted no time to getting to the highly recommended Campanile and the architecturally striking Duomo. Despite handicapped by the incessant rain, we also managed to stroll around the city centre - there were lots of fine leather merchandise and truly, Italian fashion was fascinating, it's subtle yet elegant - and stomached a delicious pizza for lunch. It was a fruitful trip as I managed to find a suitable new wallet to replace the one which was stolen at Lisbon in May.
We caught a train ride to Bologna in the evening and arrived after 2 hours.
BOLOGNA
It is a huge city with wide roads, separate cycling lanes, pavements and spacious restaurants, a different feel from Pisa and Siena altogether! And it was snowing lightly when we got off the train!
The next day, we set off to explore the city proper. As it was Christmas day, to my disappointment, all the shops along the main shopping street Via Indipendeza and all the restaurants recommended by Tripadvisor were closed. It was a shame because Tripadvisor food recommendations worked splendidly in Pisa. I guessed we have to follow our instinct to guide us to great Italian food. For lunch, we chanced upon a family operated restaurant along Augusto Righi road. It was fairly crowded, filled with diners of all sorts. There was an extended family who was most likely having its Xmas lunch, a lonely guy who seemed to be a professional pasta reviewer, taking collective photos and penning down thoughts of the pastas served. And most importantly, we were quite excited to discover that Italian Ragu sauce was not red, which we are used to, nevertheless the Ragu fettuccine was smashing!
Early next morning, we boarded a high velocity Trenitalia train to Florence. The journey took only half an hour!
FLORENCE
I fell in love with the city the moment I arrived: the train station was surprisingly spacious and bright, made me feel that Florence was extending its long arms to welcome us! We dropped our bags at Bed&Breakfast Old Florence near the train station and like sponges, were ready to absorb all aspects of Florence.
The city was thronged with tourists and locals (it was Boxing day, a public holiday), albeit the crowd, believe me, it was a nice change from Bologna. Somehow, people I met in Bologna were cold and distant which led to the conclusion that Bologna was not really my cup of tea. I was elated to be in Florence and I could not contain my excitement that my friend would be here in a couple of hours!
The distinguishingly exquisite Duomo caught my eye from afar. However, it was only open to tourists in the afternoon, so we scaled 400 steps up Giotto Campanile instead. I was quite glad to have done so because the view of the city at the top was amazing. Thereafter, we decided to reward ourselves for our hard work, and thus we arrived at Preche No. at Via Travolina for some world class Gelato (It is ranked 2nd in the world). I strongly recommend their pistachio ice-cream, which was sold out when we returned for a second helping at night.
We went down a couple of streets to Piazza della Republica which marked Florence short stint as Italy capital. It was quite an impressive structure, akin to the scale of Brandenburg Tor in Berlin. As it was relatively sunny, we decided to sit by Gilli right in front of the square to soak in some warm sunshine and people watch. Gilli pastries, soft inside and crusty outside, were a delight! The olives we had were huge and fresh, with surfaces so smooth that they reflected the sun rays!
Our next stop was Ponte Vecchio. It was the oldest bridge in Florence with three storey houses on top. This is possibly the most packed part of the city during the trip as we were sandwiched between tourists like ourselves. By the bridge, we noticed bundles of locks (termed Palazzo Vecchio) which we later found out came with a story: young couples attached an additional lock to the bundle and threw the keys in the river believing they would never be separated.
Once again, I was thrilled to adhere by Tripadvisor food recommendation and it had become mine as well. GustoPizza was our favourite place for its stone oven baked pizza - the base was rather thin and fairly soft with juices oozing out from the top as one delved into it.
After lunch, we went in search of Cantuccini (almond flavoured cookies) and Vin santo (sweet white dessert wine) to prepare a mini welcome party for our friends who would be reaching in a couple of hours!
The next morning, we left hostel at 0820 to buy bus tickets and had to join a relatively long queue to board the bus. Embarrassingly, the majority were Chinese, which really showed their spending powers and their penchant for discounted goods. Despite coming so early, we only managed to get on the second bus! Nevertheless, we were happy as we did not know how many buses were in service. And off we went to the Mall! After 40 mins, the factory outlet came into our peripheral. There were quite a few people queuing at the doors of various boutiques, with the most for Gucci. Excited and full of zest, we alighted and decided to join the Gucci queue. A full hearted salute to the factory outlet. The items here were priced at a steep discount, 60% off the retail price. Many fellow travellers came out with smug smiles carrying huge bags of Prada merchandises. While I bought a pair of purple double shade sunglasses, the couple in front bagged for themselves 2,800EUR worth of items!
While my friends went on to shop at the exclusive Prada outlet, hubby and I went back to Florence old town. In the last couple of hours, we made a dash for the Mercato Centrale to taste Florence the proper local way, re-visit Perche No. for our last gelato fix and saw David statue by Michelangelo in front of Palazzo della Signoria.
All good things have to come to an end. As reluctant as we were, it's time for us to say goodbye....
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