Winter 2011 - Florence, Italy

Salam

19th December 2011

Departed from Pisa Centrale to Firenze Santa Maria Novella Stazione (Florence).
Since it's a short distance journey (regional train - 1hour) so we didn't book our seats.

Florence is a small, beautiful city where you can take a tour by foot only

What's the meaning of Italy without leather.

Over here, hundreds of leather stalls and shops are waiting for you, with superb quality and affordable price!

Venetian Masks

Vendetta!

Arno River

Tips

Buy your Italian souvenirs here, it's the cheapest! (for more choices of Venetian masks, Venice has a good offer)

For leather goods, as usual, haggling is recommended to get a good price.

We toured the city in four and a half hours only, if you have more time, spend a night over here. It's lovely :)


wassalam~

Winter 2011 - Pisa, Italy

Salam

18th December 2011

Departed from Milano Centrale to Pisa Centrale (approximately 4 hours of journey)
From Milano Centrale, we took the RED-LAM (LAM ROSSA) city bus to Leaning Tower of Pisa which costs EUR 1, bought from tobacco/newspaper store.

Since we are budget travellers, we didn't enter the tower which costs EUR 15.

And we had an Italian dinner too!

Spaghetti - EUR 7  

12-inch Margherita Pizza with Mushroom EUR 5.50

Tips

Buy the bus ticket before you ride the bus (buy at tobacco stores) as buying the tickets from the driver will costs extra cents.

When buying souvenirs, make sure you walk along the stalls and survey the prices first, the cheapest they can give you for key-chains are 5 for EUR 5, and magnets roughly around EUR 1.50 - 2.50. Usually Bangladeshi sellers will give you cheaper prices. No harm on haggling :)

The best and most original pizza are from Naples and they are called Napoli Pizza. Unfortunately the restaurant that sells that pizza in Pisa is already closed :(

Pisa is nice and is a must in Italy!

wassalam~

Winter 2011 - Milan, Italy

Salam

17th December 2011

Departed from London Stansted to Milano Bergamo via Ryanair

Swiss-Italy Alps. Breathtaking view. Subhanallah :)

As usual, once we arrived in a new city, search for tourist information counter and ask for the city's map. They usually give it for free. Ask them on public transports, places of interests and other information.

Tour in Milan city via Metro. 

Day-pass ticket costs € 4.50, however we managed to get for only € 3.50 due to holiday (christmas) offer.

One of the metro lines

 Piazza Del Duomo

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II

Louis Vuitton, when can you be mine?

 And you too Lamborghini, when can I have you?

Beautiful Ferrari

 They have Ferrari stores almost in all main cities in Italy

 € 5000 for a dummy Ferrari

Milan Cathedral at night 

 Galleria at night

Tips 

In Milan, the souvenirs are quite expensive compared to other cities. Same goes for accommodation & food. Save your money and buy souvenirs from other cities

Beware of the people (read : immigrants) wandering around giving bird food to feed the pigeons in front of the Cathedral. Sometimes they will go over the limit and being too pushy, hold your hands and insist you to take the food, and even force including using religious reasons which is totally out of topic and ridiculous. Example : "Sisters, we are Muslims. You don't help me, you are bad sister" (and the same time before that he hold my friend's hand and yet he called us bad sisters? urghh) Be patient and just ignore them. Kick them if you want.

Gotcha! We should just slap him right?

Also, bring extra money/debit/credit card for emergencies. We picked up our interrail tickets (3 days pass in a month in Italy - € 75) at Trenitalia counter in Milano Centrale, and out of 5 tickets, one of them is not valid because of database problem which is NON of our fault, and we had to wait for 2 hours to claim the ticket, in the end we bought a new ticket and filled in the refund form to refund the money which will only be given in 1 month time. Unsatisfied with the service indeed, compared to the hospitality in United Kingdom.

All in all, Milan is not really a favourite to us. But if you are fashionistas, do drop by here. You will recognise italians that come from Milan from their style ;)

wassalam~

My children's trip to UK & Europe ...Part 3- Manchester

Trip to Manchester was by train.We were lucky that the train was on schedule but prior to this there were delays and cancellation.

London Euston Train Station

In the waiting room

Snow..at one of the station on the way from London to Manchester

All along ...snow...

At car rental office

Settled..Ford Mondeo..Diesel..

The children were so eager ...could not wait for tomorrow..the temperature was -8C