http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Pall-Y-It/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Pall Y It en-us Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:47:09 +0000 Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:47:09 +0000 DAYS 15DAYS OF PLANNING 175HOTELS RESEARCHED 140ISHEURO RATE 1000 US dollars would equal1ST DAY 1.46 684 EURO8TH DAY 1.40 714 EURO15TH DAY 1.36 735 EUROMARKET CRASH AFTER TRIP 1.23 813 EUROMILES TRAVELED10145 by way of google mapsCITIES VISITED 17NEWARK New JerseyFIUMICINO LazioANCONA Le MarcheSENIGALLIA Le MarcheBOLOGNA EmiliaRomagnaFLORENCE TuscanyPOGGIB http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/blog-339142.html WE FINALLY LEARNED. we had reserved a private mercedes escort to take us to the airport how pimp is that. nice fancy leather tricked out mercedes came and picked us up and drove about 130kmh to the airport. and guess what jenn was 1 hour behind on her watch again.. this time we didnt find out till the terminal sitting down not a big issue but i need to but her a digital 1 for xmas. got on th http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Rome/blog-343355.html grabbed a bite in saint peters square. a formaccia and a cannoli i think. we walked into the square and this time the line to get in was about 100feet long and moving. YESS we got lucky again. we toured the church where that pope dude preaches from bought some 'rosemary' beads. then we walked to the vatican museum. that line was about 45min long. jenn got in for student price thats wh http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Rome/blog-343353.html so we sorta slept in and started to walk to main tourist area of rome. we walked thru saint peters square and at 930am the line to get into the church was no lie a quarter mile long and what looked like about 2.5hrs. we strolled on thru checking out the river and some big castle just down from saint petes. looked at the pantheon nice. walked to the piazza navona nice. walked thru some goverm http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Rome/blog-343349.html Checked out of the Alma Domus no prob and then the adventure beginswell we had some time to sorta waste so we decided to see if we could walk back to the train station after we already said it was too far and after i had already bought bus tickets. we started waiting for a bus then we couldnt tell which one to catch or where so we huffed it. well we walked around our ass a couple of tim http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Rome/blog-343348.html we woke up early again and packed and go on the train to pisa.when we got to pisa we had a little trouble figuring out which rosa bus to take. got on got to the piazza del miracoli and walked around a leaning tower. it was pretty cool to actually be there after seeing it my whole life. i remember reading about it in 7th grade and thinking... oh how cool too bad ill never see it. humm.. wierd. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Siena/blog-343294.html woke up from the damn church bells also bc we were excited to get up. i left jenn in bed and went walking around town to look for a place to wash clothes. found the only place in town 4 washers 2 dryers 1 dryer broke cost .... 5euro. i went and grabbed myself a formaccia sandwich i fell in love with them things. walked to the marina and found our restaurant we had reservations for tha http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Liguria/Cinque-Terre/blog-343286.html we woke up fairly early and checked out of the hotel monica 5 days 475euroWe got to the train station and bought tickets with about 5min to spare.... ok so we go to the track that we the schedule tells us. and unless youve been to florence you should know there are 2 track 1's one is on the main concorse and the other on a sperated platform. we get there and we the doors are closed to the trai http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Liguria/Cinque-Terre/blog-343281.html we woke up late around 11went to piazza san marco to chillwent to the academywere the orginal david isspent 45min in there. it was something else to sit there and look up at the david.. wowalso.... realize that alot of paintings of jesus have a wound in his right breast that bleeding... whywalked the riverfront and looked at all the shops i cant shop inwalked some moretook a napcalled familygot http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Florence/blog-339144.html took us a while to figure out how to get here....took a bus to poggibonsi...that damn town stunk bad near the train station....got connecting bus to 'san jimmy'wow what a spectacular townwe walked all aroundthe best view is from the northeast corner in some old fort area.... great views of chianti countryit started to rain just as we were eating lunch. we drank some chianti colli sensia sp and http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/San-Gimignano/blog-339138.html we slept in damn we needed thatwe grabbed a great chicken parm pannini on the way to the duomowent inside duomo it was big... sorry im not a poet to write about what i sawit was tall then we payed 6 each to walk the 463 steps up to the top.well you follow a tight circular staircase up then you on a 24inch wide ledge what wraps around the inside of the dome well your about 25stories up on a 2 http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Florence/blog-339136.html woke up started walking to the bargelo museum and turned around bc i forgot the tix.got there and based on our uffizi tix we looked at jenns watch and gave us 45min hereit was 6 for entry we walked around i fell in love with the 'beheading of john the baptist' statuesa curator yelled at me for taking pics inside.i enjoyed all the statues and shit recognized some famous onesgot to uffiziok got http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Florence/blog-339131.html ummmwoke up hung over as shitthat damn LEMONCELLO luckily my pharaceutical advisor had phennigran which i popped and it sorta help.well got to the train station in senigallia and used the self service train tickets booth.the tickets cost half as much as they should have... i dunnogot on a train and headed to Pesaro.i started to feel nervous bout the tix and train...looked at a http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Florence/blog-339120.html youll like this day...up bout 9am looked at the breakfast buffett in the hotel.... found out that this country doesnt eat a hot breakfast or healthy. just a bunch of sweets doughnut like croissants etc some salami and cheese though. tried their fresh orange juice.... blagggeeoo. not was i was used to. trust me this was 1 of 2 things i didnt like in italy. hit the road and walked toward http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Marche/Senigallia/blog-339113.html Got on the long train ride to FalconaMarmimar. This high speed train went about 120kmh or around 80mph. going thru those tunnels fast made jenn and my ears pop. oh yeah we didnt realize our tickets gave us assigned seats and we found out when some couple started telling us something in italian and by there gestures and tickets in hand i put 2 and 2 together. So about and hour into the train http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Marche/Senigallia/blog-337835.html So today was the big day. I left the fire station and met jenn and her mom at brueggers. hung out a bit and headed to my parents. got a haircut by my hair cutter... jenn. Then we just sat around waiting to leave for the airport. When we got there we checked our backs exchanged jenns cash into euros. Todays rate was e1.633 or e0.612. We went thru security showed em my matching http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Rome/blog-337828.html Bion serra we are in the tribeca of florence across the arno river on the south side. florence is a very busy city damn scooters are crazy. jenn almost got hit twice. we have only had one bad meal it was a touristy place. for those wanting to know it is damn better to get your euro cash over here the mainland use rates suckwe got to san giammano tomorrow the weather is nice cool a http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Florence/blog-330085.html hey guys we made it to senigallia. without anything going wrong we actually got here 3hrs early we got the early train from rome. we are checking in as i type this. its about 60degrees in the town though... cold front. we are going up to our room now. ttyl http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Marche/Senigallia/blog-328494.html Hey everybody.... well its already crept up on us and the time did fly. the time to come is soon which kinda sucks bc that means it will be a memory soon. We are all set. Only thing left to do is pack and get cash. The euro was at .61cents when we planned this its currently at .71cents. Thas an extra 300 euros over an estimated 3000. We have made some significant travel changes however. http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/North-Carolina/Raleigh/blog-324082.html Well we finished our planning phase. All hotels are booked and confirmed down to the floor view breakfast bathroom etc. I have read at least 200 reviews on these 5 hotels. And if you look at my sheets of paper here in front of me i researched approx. 180 different hotels on the entire trip. Wow im a nerd. Our Siena hotel has a curfew of 1am which most hotels in that city have so the own http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/North-Carolina/Raleigh/blog-283787.html