Florence Takeaway Thoughts and Tips

By -
  • Florence is the perfect base if you want to do daytrips of nearby towns. I believe some places deserve an overnight exploration, it can be exhausting packing and unpacking everything (for me, because I am a pack rat).
  • Florence is filled with tourists. The cobblestone streets are narrow and noisy. I didn’t find any quiet alley unlike the streets of Venice.
  • If you can't read a map to save your life, Florence have these street signs which leads you to the popular tourist spots. 


  • Almost everything in the leather market are similar. Learn how to haggle. See that belt? You’ll see it in another vendor’s stand just a few steps away.
  • The real David is NOT the one outside Museo di Palazzo Vecchio. It is inside the Accademia. It is forbidden to take pictures. Forbidden, not impossible. :P
  • The lines for Uffiziand Accademia can be unbearably long  - especially if the sun is mighty high. Buy your tickets in advance. I think they only sell a number of tickets online. If there are no available tickets online, try to call the museum’s ticket office to reserve your tickets. Your last bet to avoid the lines is to purchase from some third-party site which will cost you more than twice the price of the actual ticket (the provider forever sends you spam mail  after).
  • You have to be at the museum 15 minutes before the time indicated in the ticket. You have to claim your reserved ticket first – which is a different line from entering the museum. If you want an audioguide, that is not included in the ticket price and there is a different line for that.
  • Florence offers a Museum Card which costs €50, valid for 3 days in numerous museums and some public transportation lines. Considering that I am not a fan of museums, this was not a choice. €50 is really pricey. (The Paris Museum Pass also costs this much but I got that one because it was really a good deal).
  • Good food is hard to find. I stumbled upon Nerone Trattoria which is just a few steps away from Archi Rossi. They have reasonable-priced food and it tastes superb. SUPERB. I ate two dinners there – which cost me around €20 a meal – including my €2 tip. A glass of wine (€3) costs less than Coke or juice (€4-6).



  • If your plain spaghetti is crappy, then everything else is crappy. This is the simplest dish so it better be right. 

You can add all the parmesan cheese you want.  Nomnomnom.

  • You are still in Italy, you still have to eat two scoops of gelato a day. By this time, I got more adventurous and I tried out different flavours instead of my usual pistachio/ chocolate/ coffee flavors. 
With a waffle piece on top.
  • Because of the gelato, I developed this scratchy throat which kept me a bit weary during my adventure. I bought some bananas and tea in the grocery store. 
The fruit zone

  • It is fun to buy bottles of wine and olive oil in the grocery. Of course, there’s that probably of how to ship them home.

  • As a solo female traveler, I felt safe wandering around Florence at night. There are a lot of tourists and there are roving police cars all over the city. 


  • Accept the fact that you may not be able to see and experience everything that Florence can offer. Just choose the ones you think that you will enjoy the most - the rest can be done when you visit Florence again.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

UK Visa Application in the Philippines

By -
Image
The United Kingdom (UK) may be in Europe but it is not included in the Schengen zone. You need to apply for a separate visa in the UK. I’ve always wanted to see London (because of Mary Poppins) but I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of applying and paying for another visa aside from Schengen. Since this was a family trip, I finally had the opportunity of visiting London. We had to apply for a UK visa first before applying for a Schengen visa in the French Embassy. The process is a bit similar to the US Visa application wherein you fill-out a long form, pay the visa fee, then schedule your application to submit your documents. Here’s the basic process: 1.    Create an account and fill-out application forms  here: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/uk-visas-and- immigration 2.    Pay for the visa fee - via credit card – USD 110 3.    Schedule the visa appointment in VFS Global UK 4.    Print and gather documents...
Take me there!

Blaaaaah-ging

By -
Image
I established this blog as a "shrine" for my adventures.  I've have travelled, since my last update - I took time to at least update my Adventure Accounts page. It's just...more difficult to really give trip details. Each blog post takes me approximately 4 hours to write, select and watermark photos, and recheck my excel file & trip notes. So two long and detailed blog posts equal to one working day. In the last couple of years, the rise of microblogging just made it easier to just skip a blogpost; because hey, there's your audience in FB or IG. I don't like to admit this, but there's a sense of "instant validation" when others do like your travel update post vs. waiting for someone to give a nice comment in your blog post (that took hours to write).  In between my March 2017 post and today, I've been busy being a postgraduate student in the UK (thru the Chevening scholarship), then I've travelled for 90 days to cover 11 count...
Take me there!

The Road Less Travelled: Malang-Ngadas-Cemoro Lawang. My Epic Adventure.

By -
Image
“Two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less traveled, and that has made all the difference. - Robert Frost” The usual route from Yogyakarta to Mount Bromo is via Probolinggo, a bus terminal filled with touts. I read lots of horror stories about the drama in Probolinggo (I have one as well but that’s for a separate blog post). The other option is to get a package tour from your hostel or any travel agency and then endure a 15-16 hour minivan ride with other tourists. Two lousy options. Both not fun. After some careful research, I stumbled across the Bromo backdoor route via the town of Ngadas. I read about the Malang-Ngadas-Cemoro Lawang route from these amazing bloggers. A good acquaintance, who also did this route, helped me out with the details. Kurtzy WalkFlyPinoy Ambot Ah So there are some adventurers who did this route. The thing is, they are all male. That made me a bit apprehensive about doing this route. Since you are reading my blog post...
Take me there!