Italy!

During April I had the pleasure the travel to Italy for a week <3
It took us a lot of planning and budgeting and we finally decided on going to Pisa, Florence and Rome <3

I went with my twin sister and our friend from high school. 3 girls traveling isn't very safe, however if you are careful you shouldn't run into too much trouble, particularly since it is a touristy place.

Here's a short iternery of my trip:
Day 1 - land at Pisa, visit the leaning tower then catch a train to Florence
Day 2 to 4 - stay in Florence, take the afternoon train to Rome
Day 5 - 7 - Rome, with day 6 spend mostly in Vatican.

I am going to do a highlight of the trip - since I had pretty much walked my feet off the entire week! First I am going to start with Pisa :)

Pisa

Pisa airport is a good choice if you want to go to Florence or anywhere in Tuscany, since flying there through budget airline is a lot cheaper than flying direct to Florence. And also it's a small enough place that you can probably just spend the day you arrive there.

We landed in the afternoon, taking ryan air :) Outside the airport there is A LOT of buses that go direct to Florence (Terravision etc) to SMN station, so you don't really have to worry about train etc.

To get to Pisa Central Station (for trains), you need to go outside the airport and on the the road island to the right across the road to catch a local bus!
This is what the bus stop sign looks like!
You can also take this bus directly to the leaning tower!

You need to buy tickets, which costs 1.2 Euro via ticketing machines.

The system is that you buy a ticket valid for about 40 minutes (or was it 50?) - so if you are quick then you can make it to the Pisa Centrale station, drop you luggage at left luggage and hop on the leaning tower of Pisa using 1 ticket!

You need to validate you ticket on the bus - using the machine on the left. If you are found without a validating ticket you will be fined!
 On the right is me with my ticket - remember it's valid for 40 minutes so don't just throw it away!

We left our luggage at Pisa Centrale - hoping to catch the train to Florence later. The station is easy to recognize and you will have no trouble getting off.


The left luggage is situated at the end of platform 1. It's 4-5 Euro per luggage, lots of people leave their stuff there and it was opened till 9pm the day I went. So it's pretty safe.

From the station we walked to the Tower. To be honest it wasn't a difficult or a far walk. About 15 - 20 minutes along the river, a pretty straight forward route (Do google map it before your journey if you wishes to walk - just in case you get lost).

 To be honest, I was a little bit disappointed about the Pisa Tower. It was a lot smaller than expected - and on the day we went the grass area was fenced off so we couldn't stand inside and take photos like many other tourists did.

Entrance to the Cathedral is FREE! All you need to do is pick up a free ticket at the counter! It's worth a look if you are there already.

We spent most of our time there trying to take photos :P
Here is one of me kicking the tower! And a massive thank you to my friend who was helping me to balance :)

Overall Pisa was worth a quick visit just for the touristy bit!