The few Italians that I spoke to when I was in Milan call it “The Italian Spring Snow”- Pollens and this is a photo of me with my make-shift mask to help me breathe better temporarily.
Our train came in around lunch time and we were greeted by the hot weather, soon after, came these pollens. This made it very hard to walk around the city. I felt sticky and agitated.
Our 17-day trip was nearing its end but there is still 1 more city that I am pretty much excited about – Venice. This is our 2nd to the last stop before we head back to Singapore and waiting for this leg made me really anxious – more for Sel than any other thing.
I knew Selwyn really wanted to go visit Venice ever since I have known him (for about 7 years) and now, God has given us this opportunity to go and visit together. How exciting!
We had planned to do a couple of things on our second day in Siena. The first half was to go back to the Duomo di Sienna, then walk again around the city followed with a quick lunch at the Antica Osteria Da Divo (it was good & the ambiance is awesome, will review seperately), while the second half of the day was allocated to visit the small town of San Gimignano.
Our trip to the Tuscan city of Siena has proven to be very memorable to both Selwyn & I, it is one of three cities that we visited this trip that I have not been to so far, the other two being San Gimignano & Milan.
From the train station we took the cab (€8+) to the historic centre where our hotel – Albergo Cannon d’ Oro is located. We were both like kids inside the cab while we make our way to the hotel. We could not stop admiring what we are seeing – historic buildings one after the other against the lush Tuscan hilltops.
Day 2. A Lovely day in Florence.
We woke up early on our 2nd day in Florence to re-pack our luggage and move 1 floor down to our “real” hotel – Hotel Colomba. That day, we had the option to choose whether to have breakfast on either of the hotels, we chose the hotel above (Hotel La Venere) to mix it up a bit, knowing that we will definitely have the next one below.
We finally arrived Florence last night and both Sel & I were tired from the 2-day consecutive train rides. From Paris we took a 6-hour train ride and spent 1 night in Nice, the following day we were up early again to catch the 1st train that departs to Florence (via Ventigmila, Genova & Pisa).
Nice Beach along Promenade des Anglais
We did not do much in Nice since we were only there for 1/2 a day, we went to the beach in the afternoon and spent the rest of the time just walking around the city. For dinner, we went to a small authentic French restaurant (Voyegeur Nissart) – it’s cheap and is highly recommended.
