sgp - kl - paris
arrived in the early hours of the morning, oooh it's cold. OMG, we then realised we've finally landed - charles de gaulle airport in paris!
no time for paris, not yet. our journey goes like this:
beauvais - bergamo - milan - rome - siena - chianti - florence - venice - paris
a very early start, hopped onto the train and off we went to 1 of the prettiest lil' town in france, beauvais. we fell in love with it at first glance, everyone was so sweet natured and no one spoke a word of english! it was a classic episode where we had hand gestures, english language, french language, fingers pointing, confused faces, smiles, laughters, giggles... alas, we managed to find out the bus number, the bus fare and the route to their little town! perfecto!
ok i went a lil crazy with all their munchies, and seriously, its YUMMY! they had smoked salmon jelly like wraps with meat, seafooooood, chocccs - dark, coffee, mint,.. the picture will try to speak for itself
21st - 22nd apr 2005
talk about budget flights, we have all praises for ryanair - http://www.ryanair.com/ (go on, you deserve your break!) it's not $299 or $399 like some "budget" airlines around here, but 1.99euro, 10.99euro that sorta pricing.. go figure. ryan, it's time to come by asia!
we landed at bergamo, and took a train to milan - the designer's city. it was a pity we were on budget backpack thus no labels for me. upon arrival, we headed straight to piazza del duomo (the grand cathedral) and were awed. 3rd largest in the world, started in 1386 and never actually completed till 19th century. it was a magnificent structure...
like all european cities, italy definitely has all their piazzas - the public squares. its like their main hangout area, it's flooded with restaurants, shops, people, pigeons, statues etc.
it was a pity we didn't managed to go to stadio san siro as we were very tired & time was runnin out. we only saw the sign that said "stadio san siro->"
23rd - 24th apr 2005
bye bye milano, hello roma!
oh, i have to truly commend the inter-state trains. it's sooooooo clean and sooooooo fast, it's amazin! and here we are bragging about our 1hr mrt that goes from jurong to changi airport?
as we did this picture in the train, 3 men outside were cheering us on :)
we've heard so many stories about rome, the anticipation was killing us. the churches, the structures, the sights, the restaurants, the pastas, the vino... hmmm can we stay in rome forever?
this country is overflowing with people... we reached termini rome and were amazed by the crowd. if you always had the perception to book your hotels in advance, this doesnt apply to the main cities in italy. everyone was pushing their hotel or hostel brochures to us, everyone was competing - yay to the buyer's market! of course, being singaporeans, we were born and bred as skeptics. "is this a fraud", "are they out to cheat us", arrghhh and we were out of the station only because we had well booked our hostel.
u know those old traditional lifts where you had to drag the gate with your hands to close it before the lift can move? and it can probably fit 2 slim people in it? there you go, this country loves lifts like that. ok but then maybe it only applies to hostels and low budget hotels. nope, im not complaining, im actually amazed and loving the simplicity of it.
just like every muslim has to go to mecca, every catholic has to go to st. peter's basili
ca. just staring at it, one will never be able to take in all of its grandeur. after a hearty lunch, we reached st peter's in the afternoon, and we knew for sure we had to come back. it was way too huge to conquer it within 3 hours. they had chapels within chapels, the church hall itself looked like an art gallery with gorgeous paintings and statues all around. if u just look left, look right, look up, you'll be lost with all that exquisite art pieces.
rome truly has a way with all her attractions, it's endless and counting.. we were deeply awed by the colosseum, it remains to be rome's greatest architectural legacy. debuting in 80 A.D, it sits 50,000 audiences with names carved on each seat (hierarchical), and most of the carvings are still visible today. we spent a moment of silence in grieve for all the faithful departed gladiators that painfully died during the beastly fights
and the roman walkways, and the trevi fountain that is oh so magical, and the spanish steps which we're clueless why its flooded with peeps, and of course, the pasta, the risotto, the vino rosso, the vino bianco, the gelato... we fell in love with roma
we picked up our car and headed off to siena and towards radda in chianti, tuscany. vino vino, here we come!
