The travels of عائشة: July 2013

Friday, July 19, 2013

Pisa

During our stay in Florence, we decided to take a day trip to Pisa which is only about an hour or so away from Florence. Seeing that Florence isn't really that big and we thought it would be a good idea to venture out more into the Italian country side. As expected, the drive to Pisa was beautiful and very scenic. Although we were driving towards the coast, it seemed like we were going somewhere where there weren't a lot of people. When we finally got to Pisa and parked in the piazza in front of the leaning tower, we got a ticket- or so the store clerk we asked said. Apparently the piazza we parked in was reserved for "special vehicles" and as soon as you enter with a car you get fined 200 Euros. Let me say that again, just driving through the piazza gets you a ticket of 200 Euros which is the equivalent of $262.70. Pretty insane. We immediately parked somewhere else and hoped that they wouldn't actually charge us because it was a rented car. We still haven't received any sort of ticket or fine in the mail so I guess it was nothing. After that fiasco we walked around the plaza where the famous leaning tower of Pisa is. Let me just confirm your suspicion, it leans. A lot. It's actually pretty insane that it hasn't fallen over because it's really scary how much of a slant there is. Before you climb to the top they make you leave any purses and backpacks in a locker area because they don't want added weight in the tower. Knowing that a couple of purses could make this tower topple made me feel SO much safer. Going up the 300 something stairs was hell; it required lots of breaks and "ohmygod I'm dying", but we eventually got to the top. Needless to say the view was amazing. I feel like I have said that a thousand times throughout this whole blog. but Italy is SO beautiful. Everything is pretty. When you are standing on the slanted side of the tower you feel like you are about to fall over; it's pretty great. Afterwards we just wandered around Pisa, grabbed some lunch, and wandered some more. When we got in the car, we spontaneously decided to drive another hour to the actual beach. It was like a trip within a trip within a trip. So that happened. I think you know what I'm going to say, the beach was beautiful. However, there was the downfall of seeing old Italian men in speedos and topless women laying on rocks. We avoided that area and walked on the boardwalk. It's not a typical beach, it is a beach made of large boulders- no sand. You will see that in the pictures. We walked around, got some gelato, spoke a little Italian and went home. I think the only words I know in Italian are "scusi", "un cono", "cioccolato", "gelato", and "grazie," Which are all the words you need to know in order to order ice cream.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Florence

WASSGOOD?? Yeah I know I have totally dropped the ball on this whole travel blog, but it's hard! Even though Europe is oh so fancy, they really suck at providing free WiFi. Why in the world would I pay for WiFi? Annyywwaayyy I left off posting about Florence so I am going to try my best to remember all the amazing details. Hereeee I go!

Let's start off in my last morning in Rome! My whole entire family caught some sort of bug and we were all miserable, especially me. I woke up feeling super nauseous and queasy; it was awful. We were suppose to check out of our hotel room and drive 2 hours straight to Florence. The drive to Florence was absolutely beautiful and the best way to describe it is to tell you that it is exactly how you imagine it would be. The rolling hills, the neutral toned villages with pops of terracotta colored roofs, and the lush scenery. The coolest thing about the drive was seeing all the different villages that I mentioned before. You would think you would see a couple of villages on the drive, but there were SO MANY. As soon as one cluster of homes and stores would end, you could see the next cluster just a little bit off in the distance. My mom kept asking if we could pull over and walk around in the villages, but we moved on. When we finally got to Florence and checked in I was relieved to find out that the place offered free WiFi THANK GOD. We went out and walked around Florence and to be completely honest, Florence is really not that big. Now I'm talking about the main city, not all the suburbs and what not because I am sure there are plenty of suburbs. The streets were lined with designer stores and leather shops- which are very common in Italy. Italy is HUGE on designer clothes and leather. My father bought some cuff links from his favorite designer store on father's day and my mother bought a leather handbag. The food is absolutely THE BOMB there. Like I said in my previous post, I had THE BEST pizza EVER in Florence. The shop is called Gusta Pizza and if you are ever in Florence you have to try it! My sister, who was studying abroad in Istanbul, has a friend who previously studied abroad in Florence and she told us all the amazing places to eat and all the sights to see. She recommended this panini place which was awesome as well as some places to eat gelato. Between just me and you, I liked Florence the best out of all of Italy. The weather was AMAZING, the food was EXCELLENT and the gelato was the bomb. We were there for a couple of days, but it was mostly spent walking around and looking at various landmarks.

I think I posted only some of my Florence pictures in the previous post, here come more! Enjoy!