Travel

When you are in Rome there is one major tourist attraction which you must visit, the Colosseum. It was originally an amphitheatre and was used for many battles among/between animals, man and animal and men. There were many Christians who got brutally killed there before Rome was a Christian state. Within this amphitheatre there were many “lifts” where animals were brought up from the underground passage to ground level for battles. Wow! Given the lack of technology in the past, it is amazing.

For tourists, it is interesting to know that this majestic building was built during AD 70 – 72! Wow. You probably need less than an hour to walk around this site and read the exhibits displayed. I love visiting ancient ruins!

Just around the corner of Colosseum, you will see the Roman Forum. What is left is a few of these structures and many rocks and bits and pieces of buildings which looks like huge rocks. Haha. At one of the rocks, many flowers were being thrown in there, it was where the public burning of Julius Cesar took place.

I’m the kind of tourist where I’ll go “Since I’m already here, I might as well see it with my own eyes!” So yes, we went to Pisa! There is really nothing other than the Pisa tower over at Pisa. Haha. We didn’t managed to book an advance ticket to go up the tower and so we merely took pictures of the exterior. From the train station it is about 20 minutes walk to the tower and before you reach Pisa tower you will walk passed a bridge and we managed to take a nice picture of the reflection of the opposite river bank. Heh.

The Cinque Terre is a rugged portion of coast on the Italian Riviera. It is in the Liguria region of Italy, to the west of the city of La Spezia. “The Five Lands” is composed of five villages: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. The coastline, the five villages, and the surrounding hillsides are all part of the Cinque Terre National Park and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

- Wikipedia

Initially we intended to sign up for a relaxing Cinque Terre tour but the tour office was closed at 5pm so we called up Walk about florence tour and signed up for a trekking tour to Cinque Terre. It was amazing! Breath taking even at certain point! The guide was two young chaps who were really helpful and friendly. They spoke perfect English having grown up in US and are part US part Italian nationality. The tour includes walking pass vineyards on terraces, olive oil groves, orange and lemon trees, homegrown pumpkins, had lunch at a restaurant with an amazing view, train rides from villages to villages and a ferry ride (if weather permits). The trek was tiring and long but we saw many grannies with their trekking sticks walking at the side of the cliffs, so we had no excuse but to complete the trek! Haha.

We were lucky! We had them all and even though the weather was slightly drizzling we managed to take the ferry ride and some marvelous pictures. So here are some of our favourite pictures!

On a ferry!

The lovers bridge where couples come here and lock a lock in the bridge symbolizing the locking of their love. What they didn’t know is that the staffs will remove those locks after a couple of years. HAHA.

We went to Piazza Navona, Rome and bought a painting! It costs 100 euro for a rather large oil painting! I know I do not have enough walls for the many paintings, prints, posters and pictures (4Ps) but I can’t resist leaving a beautiful picture behind!

If you love oil paintings you can get a small one probably 50 cm by 50 cm for around 40 euros and a big one 1.2 by 0.8 metres from 100 to 300 euros! They are many country styles painting of the Tuscany, Rome and Venice region which is not our style for our home but we found one which was rather modern! I’ll show you once I get it stretched.

I love the painting but when I found out it costs $100 stretch the canvas the frameless way and $150 for a frame, I’m depressed! Anyone know of any framing shops or company who can do that at a lower price? Any artsy people who knows?

We saw a lot of dogs in Italy and we concluded that their top 3 most popular breeds (according to what we saw, LOL) are (1) Dachshund (whenever we saw one, we will go, “Oh look, Da Shun”, as though they are Korean. HAHA) , (2) Golden retriever and (3) bitsy / mongrels! We saw many rare breeds too! Pretty!

We missed Barley a lot! In Italy (and probably all of Europe), they can bring their dogs anywhere! Literally! On a train, shopping at Hermes, in a supermarket, in a hotel, anywhere! We saw many dog owners bringing their dogs along for holidays too! Awww.

At Florence, we also saw a Japanese spitz begging for food with a lady outside a supermarket. When we decided to buy some food for them the next day, they were no longer there. Boo.

See, I told you my blog posts are going to be random. HAHA.

One of our best moments in Italy was a Vespa tour we signed up for at Viator with Florence Town. It was a scooter tour around the Chianti wine region where we get to tour vineyards, olive groves and view the wine and olive oil making process. It is expensive but it is a unique experience and a chance to learn to ride a scooter without a license! Haha. It costs around SGD$200 per pax for a 5 hour tour which also includes cheese on bread and snacks on our first rest stop, lunch at a mansion and a gelato stop on the way back!

If you want to join the tour, go take a look at Florence Town !