RajLast weekend our group of three set out on our first major weeekend trip, to Italy. We left for Frankfurt in the wee hours of Saturday morning and took a flight for Rome at 7.40 am. Reached Rome in about 1 and a half hour, checked in to our hostel (which was very near to Termini Station) and then started our tour of the city. Italy seemed far more foreign than Germany did to me.
I’ll let the pictures do the talking from now on.
We walked for 10 minutes through the streets and saw huge roman buildings and ruins.
It was amazing how there was so much to see in just a small compound.
The Colosseum was also conviniently located right next door. There were hundreds of people there and very few of them were Italians. Atleast 60% of tourists were Americans. There was a fairly large number of Indian tourists everywhere we went.
After having a pizza in one of the famous roman roadside restaurants, we headed towards the Spanish steps (the only place in our trip that I didn’t care much about) which were extremely crowded and then to the Vatican. Needless to say, The Vatican was truly amazing. The Piazza was huge. We tasted our first Gelati there as well.
Our last stop for the day was Trevi Fountain which was swarming with people. We managed to find a place near the fountain to throw the customary coin though.
Day two of our journey started with a train ride to Pisa. The whole track ran parallel to the beach and if you remember this post, this was the closest I’ve ever been to a beach.
Our first and only stop in Pisa was Piazza del Duomo because all the attractions are inside one walled area. Somebody must have thought of tourists while constructing these buildings. The only low point of my trip was when I got to know that we could only go up the Leaning Tower at 4.40 pm as only few people are allowed at a time and that wasn’t an option for us as we had a flight back to Frankfurt at 7pm from Florence.
The cathedral (Duomo) is spectacular on the inside but since it was dark, I couldn’t get too many great pictures out of it. Outside, hundreds of people kept taking pictures in the cliched pose and we went to the base of the leaning tower to atleast see it properly from the outside.
A 1 hour train journey took us to Florence but we didn’t have much time left to see the city properly. We just went aroud the station which is pretty close to the famous Duomo and quickly caught the shuttle to the airport. From whatever I saw in the 2 hours that I was there, Florence seemed like a really great place, very modern and clean and the only place in Italy I can imagine leading a normal life in. Others are just worth a short visit, in my opinion.
We soon got into a really small plane and left for Frankfurt. The view from the flight window was beautiful though. After an hour and a half, we reached Frankfurt and all of us felt relieved to be back home.
In the end, it was a really successful trip and I was doubly happy since I was the one who planned it and made all the arrangements.
I took a total of 338 pictures in 2 days out of which I’ve uploaded 85 on flickr. So if the pictures posted here look good to you, go take a look at my flickr page.
Raj: Each and every picture has its history. I love the picture of those mountains from top and the pisa towers looks great.
Can I tag you at my site?? Please do drop by to my site when time permits.
You are doing good pretty well with your camera.Great pics.
All the pictures show that Europian countries are indeed full of history and culture.
Wow lovely pictures. YOu are making good of your travel.
But you covered Rome, Pisa and Florence in 2 days !!!. I had to spend 2 days in Rome alone.
I do not see you in any of the pics. Take some of your pics and send it
Picture say 1000 words… awesome man
@priya: Thanks.
Of course, you can tag me. You don’t have to ask me for that. I did visit ur blog. Unfortunately, didn’t have time to leave a comment. Will do it soon
@sharda: Thanks
Ya, every place in Italy seemed historic.
@greensatya: Thanks. I am doing what I can
As u already must have read, we cudn’t see anything in Florence plus it was easy for us since we weren’t interested in museums. We just saw the most popular spots.
@lucio: Okay, I will mail u my pics
@abhinav: Thanks
hey… be careful abt ur cam… i donno when i am going to snatch it… :-p
Roman ruins!!
I’m jealous. Enough of your showing off!!
Looks like you are enjoying yourself. good, good…
@preeti: Don’t worry, I am very careful. I would never let u take my beloved cam
@freeze: It good to make others jealous and show off once in a while, isn’t it? :p
i’ve always wanted to go to rome! i’d love to see the colosseum. i loved learning about roman history when i was in school. it fascinated me. [is that weird?]
Beautiful pics.
BTW, I loved your Lko post. I am from there two, and share the smae passion. Thanks for those lovely Lko pics!
I have request to make. Google Earth at my company, and I am not allowed to download big files. Google Earth, I have heard is of size 13MB!
The request is whether you can upload a few more pics of Lucknow - say old city, kaiserbagh, RDSO-Rajajipuram stretch, airport etc!
Thanks Manish
@becky: No, its not weird at all. Roman history is pretty exciting
@manish: Thanks. And you’re welcome
I sure can upload those pics but whats better is that you can use sites like http://wikimapia.org/ and http://maps.google.com/ (with satellite view on) to see the same image of Lucknow thats available on Google Earth.
Hope that works for u!
Wow, amazing pics, simply gorgeous. Each monument looks so magnificent. I simply love ur pics (I have one as my desktop wallpaper).Each picture depicts historical significance & grandeur especially Colosseum, Trevi Fountain & the Leaning Tower (Now I am feeling jealous!)
Anyways, have a great time & keep clicking!
@disha: Thanks.
//I have one as my desktop wallpaper
I am totally flattered
Clicking kept me busy this weekend too. You’ll get to see the latest set of pics very soon.
Wow, beautiful pics. That’s a pretty neat camera you have there. i’ve been wanting to get a good one for a while now.
Also, one place in Europe that’s really beautiful is Prague.
@tarini: Thanks. It is a very good camera
I am very happy with it.
Ya, Prague is very beautiful and I wanted to visit it too but there’s no time left now. Next time, maybe.
Hi Raj,
It’s great of your trip, seem to be well planned to cover a lot. I am planning to go Florence and Pisa. May I know what train did you take to Pisa from Rome and from Pisa to Florence? Thanks in advance.
Regards
Flo
@flo: Hey, Flo.
Go to http://www.trenitalia.it/ and search for trains from ‘Roma Termini’ to ‘Pisa Centrale’ and you will get a list of all types of trains. But there are not many trains between Rome and Pisa. So you can alternatively look for trains from Rome to Florence (’Firenze S.M. Novella’) cos there are lots of options and it takes between 1h30m and 4h depending on the money you are willing to spend on tickets.
There are trains every half an hour between Pisa and Florence and the journey takes an hour. You can buy an open ticket and take any of the trains. Just don’t forget to timestamp your ticket before you board the train.
I took the intercity from Rome to Pisa. (Dep - 07:35,Arrival - 10:57)
Raj : Its a wonderful piece of info. I happen to see this info just a day before I was due to visit Rome - Pisa- Florence. I think this info would be of great help to us. We got two full days so hope we would be able to cover bit of Florence aswell.
Thank you!!!
Cheers..