Eurotrip 3 Day 15 . Florence(Yizhen's bag stolen)

Today we were supposed to tour Florence, see the Duomo in the day, see David in the museum...but our plans took an unexpected turn when Yizhen's bag got stolen. Yes stolen...while they were sitting at a curb having lunch. The culprit was just a normal looking guy who had sat near Yizhen while she was eating her croissant. Her bag was behind her, and when she turned to take her water bottle, it was gone. No one saw him do it obviously. So the rest of the day was spent trying to report to the police. We couldn't just lodge it anywhere, no we had to go to the central station...the entrance of which was not easy to find...it was actually the carpark entrance! Anyway, Yizhen had her particulars stored in her internet email account so al she needed to do was to print it out. She lost her wallet, 2 cameras(one hers the other Lily's), I-Pod...

At the police station, the sergeant was quite hostile, saying that we were in Italy, so we had to speak Italian...what nonsense!...I'd like to see him speak mandarin in China...anyway after much trouble, we managed to report the theft. We then realized that there was no field for us to fill in our contact number should the bag be found! So this reporting business is all an act??!! They didn't intend on looking for the bag in the first place. I guess one could understand...the police in Italy is simply not able to police properly...

so as expected, we didn't do any sight seeing except to the dark side of security...

Dinner was pasta in tomato sauce...

Eurotrip 3 Day 14 . Florence ( Pisa, Siena)

Fountain at Piazza del Campo, Siena
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Originally uploaded by chlum79.

The Piazza del Campo
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friends sleeping on the train
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the Tower of Pisa
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Eurotrip 3 Day 13 . Florence

This is the Duomo by Brunelleschi...
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Originally uploaded by chlum79.

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Originally uploaded by chlum79.

Evening sky in Florence

Today we reached Florence and were delighted to see reasonably cheaper merchandise the moment we left the station.


We proceeded to our hotel, but were informed that our rooms were not available! The receptionist was quite alright, reassuring us that we would get our rooms. He assured us that we would get better rooms, but we would have to walk...and so we did. We trudged in the baking heat to Plaza Pitti. Not bad...quite new...has nice kitchen we could use...the room had five beds and a toilet...nice...but no air-con and there was no form of ventilation!...the only window it had opened into a meagre air shaft so it was like a sauna...anyway, we went out and explored, of cos finding the supermarket first...

dinner was seafood pasta in cream sauce...

Eurotrip 3 Day 12 . Venice

Today, we went to the Venice Art Biennalle, and found some interesting pavilions...the Singaporean one was actually not bad...the theme revolved around the intention to bring the merlion to venice...come on...which of cos did not come true...so the exhibit was a sign that read " I wanted to bring Mike( the merlion) over..." The rest of the pavilion space was devoted to a reception area manned by two younglings...Singaporeans at least, a boy and a girl...a pretty friendly malay guy greeted me and we had a nice chat about who we knew from school...and to my pleasant surprise, the other exhibit was two toilets-male and female...yes toilets...the significance of toilets being the exhibit, apart from being somewhat avant garde, bordering on being a little different for the sake of being different, was salvaged by the perceived multi-layered implications it signified...merlion, water, cleanliness to the point that even toilets could be exhibited as a state symbol of cleanliness and that singapore had developed clean toilets into an art(?)...ya...

Below you will see in order of appearance: the singapore toilet...nice waterfall like tap, the hungarian pavilion, here showcasing 2 mannequin kendo fighters...why they r not facing each other could be attributed to their abstract artistic character which I for one could not decipher and cannot be bothered to...nice composition and sunlight tho, the australian pavilion showcased some really expensive laser sculpture...man if they weren't laser sculpted ...how did he do it??? then there was this fancy machine that read your brain waves and projected them onto the ceiling as dynamic ghostly amorphous auroras...i didnt get to do it as they were closed by the time we got there. The last pic was initially thought not to be a pavilion...up till now I still don't know which country it represented...but nice space tho...


Dinner was for today the same as yesterday...

Eurotrip 3 Day 11 . Venice

First thing upon arriving at Venice, we went to the tourist info and found out where the supermarket and key archi sites were(mainly stuff by Scarpa).

We then headed for the University Institute for Architecture.


Following that we walked around


and stumbled upon Querini Stampalia Foundation where we were greeted with no less than hostility by the staff...maybe cos it was approaching closing time. The lady monitoring the garden could not keep her eyes off those of us who were there; patiently waiting for us to do something wrong. It wasn't long before Lily stepped onto the lawn, and she wasted no time in telling Lily to get off. sigh...o yes ...we couldn't take pics, so here are some sketches...i just can't understand why we weren't allowed to take pics...so that we would be forced to buy the books?? In their dreams...


Well, we weren't gona let that get us down...no...cause a nice seaside dinner was awaiting us...

We sat at the water's edge, between 2 luxury yachts which had docked to serve dinner, and had our bread, sausages, cheese and canned fish with beer...and today's special, canned mushrooms!!...erhem...

Eurotrip 3 Day 10 . Verona

Today we sent on a somewhat wild goose chase. Ah Ben had given us instructions to Brion Monumental Tomb. I had read that it was in Treviso, pretty far from Verona, but since he was supposed to be a local, who was I to doubt his authority?...anyway, as we got off the bus at Bardolino...which was near the beach, and getting instructions from the tourist information about the whereabouts of the address, we headed off but not before first having our lunch at a restaurant of polished silver and ivorish china...or rather, next to it because of the shade of a tree ...we branished our trusty ol' bread and biscuits salvaged from breakfast, and ate over a dustbin cause of the crumbs...it was a not a pretty contrast... amusing though...and to top it off, they told me to use the toilet at the pub nearby when I asked to use theirs; they had previously allowed Yizhen to use it!!

Anyway after filling ourselves, we started our supposedly 20min walk to the place we thought was the monumental tomb. And as usual, the europeans tend to underestimate distances( or maybe they just walk faster than us? highly unllikely), so the walk came up to at least 45 min ...and what did we see? Ottolenghi House, which we weren't even allowed to enter, partly cos the owner didn't speak english, or cos they were tired of archi students?

Anyway we took some pictures for the effort and went back to Verona... where we found the Banque Populaire ...


Dinner was once again bread with canned fish, sausages and cheese at the train station while we were waiting for the train to Venice, which was late as usual...so I took the opportunity to shave...with my electric shaver of cos...

We played big 2 once again on the train ride to Venice...reaching there at almost midnight...but realized that our hotel was at Maestra which required a bus ride....tired...

Eurotrip 3 Day 9 . Verona

This morning we woke up late...Lily and Yizhen, who had gone to Ah Ben 's friend's place for the night, had to wake us up. I don't know what got into us, but we still had the presence of mind(if not a little foolish) to prepare breakfast before setting off for the station. It was only when we left that we realized that we were late!...Yes it was true that the train station was indeed near JiaJia's place...anyway it was still a good fifteen minute walk, which turned into a slow jog for some of us...and a brisk walk for those who were lugging wheelers behind...

Raimund arrived there earlier as he had to find Ah Ben and hand him the key to JiaJia's apartment as she had left earlier this morning for Taiwan...When we got onto the train, Raimund was not to be found and the crowd on board did not make it any easier, what with everyone laden with so much luggage...people were standing in the corridor, with no place to sit...people who wanted to get past had to squeeze. The corridor was not wide. Anyway, claustrophobic woes aside, we finally found Raimund and guess who...Ah Ben...it seemed that in the confusion, he had gotten on board as well! It didn't matter, as he could meet his friends who were in Verona...he stays in Milan anyway...

Onboard, we met a couple of Dutch girls who were also on their way to Verona.

Upon reaching Verona, we met Ah Ben's friends and hung around the station to find out where our hotel was. It seemed that the trains were to be out of commission for 24hrs from tonight till tomorrow night for the whole of Italy...man what's happening??!! So Ah Ben's plan of going back late was not to be. So he and his friends decided to start on their journey to see the city. And as for us, we found out the way to our hotel...or so we thought...

We took the bus number 22 I think...after much waiting...i knew this cause we went to the toilet many times in the course of waiting...I think Raimund even went to crap at Mac's...anyway...we took the bus...and got off at the address...funny this place seems pretty residential...lo and behold...it was...the address was correct, but the city was not!!! It was in the neighbouring city!...My goodness!!...and it said in the advertisement that it was near the city centre! Ya sure, but not of Verona! So we had to get back to the train station where the bus terminus was. And this involved some more waiting. After we had gotten back, we were told that we had to take an inter city bus the number of which was impossible to find...why?...because there was no such bus!!! Outrageous!!! After much effort, involving much gesticulation, pointing and the waving of hands, we finally found out what we had to do...phew...I'm never coming back to Verona...

And so we were one our way...after getting tickets, 1 euro per trip, we waited for the bus and had lunch in the mean time...bread, canned fish and croissants...the usual...we had spent the entire late morning, and noon trying to get to our hotel...it was getting on our nerves...

After checking into our hotel, which was at least quite nice, but was in the middle of nowhere...we headed back for Verona...more waiting...

There, we found Castel Vecchio, which was renovated by Carlo Scarpa. Nice...the highlight was the staircase...man u gota walk up it to understand the sense of awe at the genius of Scarpa...one hardly needs to move forward when walking up it...the stairs propel you forward without your feeling it!!...wow...

Eurotrip 3 Day 8 . Milan

Today we went to Genova to see Renzo Piano's port project...as you can see the journey there was not very interesting...

Genova was not much to see...same old windy streets, nice cathedral, old interiors,nice piazzas, made interesting by the occasional crazy asian(Raimund)...well at least that was my opinion...

Dinner was sliced beef tomato sauce with spaghetti plus chianti red wine...cant get enough...

Eurotrip 3 Day 7 . Milan

Today we went to the most luxurious cemetary in Europe, if ostentascious tomb stones are anything to tell by, it had the most number of textbook grade sculptures I had ever seen in a cemetary!...


After picking Lily up from the train station, we hung around the inner courts of the castle where we had the ice-cream yesterday.

We then brought her to the arcade we went to yesterday before heading back for the apartment. We prepared seafood pasta today...found out that panna was good for cream sauce...JiaJia came back to find that Lily was staying in the apartment too and got upset cause we had not informed her...but it was an impromptu thing as we had not expected dinner to last so late...anyway all was well after Adu's apology...