Travel Tour

I still could remember the 2nd dinner my wife and I had when we were in Italy. We were in Tuscany and the dinner that night was a fine dining dinner, Tuscan style. Even when I had the travel itinery, I had started to google on “Tuscan Dinner”, hoping for a clue on what this dinner is all about. Alas, after a hard day of travelling and touring, we arrived at a semi-posh Italian restaurant for our Tuscan dinner.

Piazzale Michelangelo, on the hill on the south bank of the Arno River in Florence, was a bonus item to our travel itinery in our Florence, Italy tour. At this place, there was a statue of Michelangelo, of course!

After our hearty lunch of Pizzas at Pisa and the purchase of the beautiful umbrella featuring the leaning tower of Pisa, the tour group of 24 made our way to another part of Italy, Florence, which is 89 km away. Florence was the third city in Italy we visited after Rome, Pisa. Yesterday, we had also visited the Vatican city, the smallest country in the world. I am not sure whether to call Pisa a city. As a tourist to Europe, in Italy, I do not exactly know the nomenclature of Pisa, to call it a town, a prefecture, etc. The most important thing to do as a tourist is to have an open mind and to explore! (Below is a photo of a Jewish Synagogue in Peruzzi):

This European tour is about hotels-hopping and hence our first night of sleep in Hotel Princess was just for 6 hours. My wife and I woke up at 6.30 am, Italian time, packed our luggage, proceeded for breakfast in the hotel, wore our winter jacket, and went down again, towing our luggage for the tour bus to come. Today, we would be visiting Pisa, another part of Italy! When we talk about Pisa, we are definitely going to visit The Leaning Tower of Pisa! I first came across the Leaning Tower of Pisa when I was in primary school. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is also an intriguing structure to me and hence I was naturally enthralled to visit the tower this day. It took almost the whole morning by coach to arrive at Pisa. As Pisa was quite a controlled area, our tour coach stopped and the tour group took a public bus to reach Pisa.

Our (my wife and I) very first night in Europe was soon drawing to a close when we reached an Italian restaurant for our first genuinely European fare: an Italian dinner! It was indeed such a relieve for us as well as, in my belief, the rest of the tour group, as the group has ventured for more than 30 hours or so, unbathed, from Terminal One of Singapore, all the way to Turkey for transit and then to Italy airport, and visited 4 major attractions in Italy without any pause. It was hence a major feat for all of us! We were all tired and my wife and I learnt that the day in Italy at this time of the year, is especially long as at 8pm, we were still soaked in Sunlight as though it is 5 to 6pm in Singapore! The Italian dinner was comprised of 3 parts: spaghetti, beef and gelato ice-cream (a must try ice-cream when one comes to Italy). My wife and I sat with a pair of old aunty friends from Malaysia for the dinner. Halfway through the dinner, I and another youngster went to buy mineral ...

Trevis Fountain and Spanish Steps were the last two attractions for the first day of our Europe tour and our first day in our Italy tour. Before our bus arrived at Trevis Fountain, our tour manager taught us how to throw the coin into the fountain. There were, as he explained, 3 kinds of throw: throwing after one gesture is good enough, throwing after two or three related to something of a break-up in relationship, hence all of us did not try it. I still could remember the scene when my wife and I set foot to Trevis Fountain. The sun has gone away, the air was cool and cold and many Italians, cloaked in winter wear were out having fun with friends and family. The tour group stopped to take a look at a Gelato ice-cream stall recommended by the tour manager before proceeding to Trevis Fountain. The tour manager has earlier cautioned against pickpockets here and hence my wife and I were extra-cautious. We threw our coins and caught our poses on camera and then like the many of our t...

Our first day of European tour took us to the smallest country on earth: Vatican City! It was amazing, as the tour manager pointed out, just metres away from a demarcation across the road was Vatican City and on the other side: Italy! The tour group joined the hundreds of visitors to St Peter’s Basilica and the same tour guide who took us for the Rome colosseum tour regaled us with the amazing history of the holiest church in the world! I was amazed that the construction of the church transcended over centuries, even Leonardo Da Vinci was involved in the intricate design of the church.

For this tour, my Dear and I have invested quite a substantial amount, purchasing large luggage, Timberland boots for use on Mount Titlis, Switzerland as well as sling bags to protect ourselves from thieves and robbers. Chan Brothers’ tour manager kept reinforcing to be extra vigilant and careful in Rome, as the message of many pickpockets is being hammered to us. There is a saying and I quote, “In Rome, do as the Romans do” and from what I have been reading about Rome since my early days, Rome is a place I must travel and which I find interesting. A local Italian woman was hired to give the briefing to our tour group. Basically she briefed us on the history of the colosseum before leading us through two or three long flights of stone stairs to the top of the colosseum. I have never seen anything like that: majestic stone structure which has stood the annals of time.There was so much crowd that everyone is having fun. I have never watched the movie “The Gladiator” but now here...