Florence, Pisa and Rome in three days.

---

18.-22. March 2008

These pictures are a month old, but hopefully Italy hasn't changed *that* much since then. So here's how we visited Florence, Pisa and Rome in three days.

Day 1

So, our first day (after arrival, arrival = day 0) in Florence took us down to the famous Duomo of Santa Maria Cathedral. Personally im not very intrigued by churches, but from what I've heard this was a must see. So we visited both the campanile and Florence Cathedral as you can see from the pictures. I'm not sure what the exact number of steps were, but we surely walked over 1600 steps in 1 1/2 hour(sigh?).

Now Florence is somewhat small and therefore we had no problem's reaching all the famous spots by foot. Proceeding down to Palazzo Vecchio where David was to be seen from 1504 to 1873, and now hosts the copy, while the real one's placed in Accademia di Belle Arti Firenze. And now our biggest blunder; entering the queue of Galleria degli Uffizi. I have to admit that there were some lack of motivation from one part here, but one isn't in Florence every day, right? Problem wasn't really the long queue(as the one we met at Accademia), but this one rarely progressed. And after waiting 45 minutes and realising that we had moved 1/5 of the total, we simply gave up and went down to Ponte Vecchio and a quick walk to palazzo pizzi.

Day 2

Second day and time to visit Pisa and the Leaning Tower. 1 hour with train and we had arrived. We weren't promised much about Pisa except for the Leaning Tower, and were quite satisified after lurking around the tower for an hour or two. So train back to Florence and visiting Accademia di Belle Arti Firenze to see the real Michelangelo's David was what was left of this day. As with Uffizi, the queue were curling around the corners of Florence, but this time it did progress and we were in in about an hour.

Day 3

And now the great finale; Rome. From our point of view the most important parts of rome were Vatican City (Cathedral, St. Peter's square), Colosseum, Forum Romanum, Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps. Doing this by foot would be impossible, but Rome has a very nice metro we made use of. Taking the easy accessible metro up to the Vatican City, we hadn't walked for many minutes before the huuuge queue revealed itself infront of us. Let me remind you that this was on Good Friday (is there a "worse" day to visit the Vatican?). We were truly lucky when this American guide approached and invited us to join their guided tour which were starting "very soon" (had to wait 40 minutes). Student's got a nice discount, and we bought ourself a guided tour thru the vatican and were eligible to skip the queue for a total amount of €35. Not bad when the entry fee is €15 for an adult (probably a little less for students). The Basilica was closed this day, but didn't bother us much. We had enough after this 3 hour tour with our splendid American guide. Our legs were starting to ache, so after a quick tour out on the St.Peter's square and observing another endless queue to the Cathedral, we sat down for a snack.

One down and already spent four hours, with only five more to use we had to speed up. Our next meeting was the giant Colosseum! While the Vatican was smaller than expected, this overwhelming building took us by storm. We were really looking forward to have a tour inside, but unfortunately for us the Colosseum were closed at this time because Pope Benedict XVI was to give his annual speech that night, at the same time our train was to leave Rome. So, no Pope nor Colosseum, time for Forum Romanum. This one was also closed. Why we do not know, but we were able to have a glimpse at some of the enormous Roman buildings. On the other hand, we hadn't done the proper preparations so it was ok to leave that one for later on.

Then there were only the minor two left. First we went to the Trevi Fountain, not really certain of what to do there except for throwing in a coin and hoping for a safe return to Rome (atleast that is what the legend tells you). Except for some nice(I guess?) architecture it was really croudy, but to be honest.. it's one of those places you have to see because every other visitor has seen it. Now up to the Spanish Steps. Again, why did we go there? I'm not sure, but it surely is famous.

A Few Comments

We should've had another day in Rome. Walking almost for nine hours is less than ideal. As some of you might notice the quality of the photos are not so good. This because our digital compact camera had some techinical difficulties and we had to shoot the photos with my phone (Sony Ericsson K800i). So next time we'll bring atleast two cameras:-)

---

Photos

Some stairs
Walking the 414 steps to the top of the campanile

Hehe..
Very original, or?

Campanile
Cathrine with the 84m high campanile

River in Pisa
Arno

Yummu
Famous italian ice cream

Pizza..
With eggs and bacon? Quite tasty :-)

Comments

[torres]

boooring
lite spicy bilder her botnan...vi vil se "kun i se og hør"-bildene:P

[tina]

what !! did that first comment say boring?
I loved it not boring at all what an awsome thing thank you for that