The Tourist- Part 4 - Florence

My colleague suggested that i visit Florence and he was so confident that it wouldn't go wrong . Florence , one of the important city of the region of Tuscany lived up to the expectations.

I've always wanted to visit italy , this trip was a dream come true in many ways.

Italy is a fascinating country , its rich historical heritage combined with great food and top class fashion makes it a much sought after tourist destination.

My visit to Florence did not come as an accident , it was well planned and in my tourist series , this place was already on the cards even before i started my first trip.

To start with , any trip to Italy means lot of homework to do  especially due to its history and heritage . So i dutifully bought rough guides to Tuscany& Umbria .

I started to read a lot and mark out places that i had to visit. The only problem was given Tuscany was so large i was left with a slight confusion on whether i should base myself in Pisa or in Florence.

After good amount of deliberation , i chose Florence . Once i chose my base, it was now time for preparing the logistics.

I used trip advisor to choose the hotel , i must admit that the tool is really good and when put to the right use , it provides lot of benefits.

I chose my hotel based on trip advisor recommendation and it was spot on.  Once logistics, including flights fell into place , it was time to formulate a itinerary .

I read through the whole of rough guidebook on Tuscany , looked up Florence tourism board website , which had plenty of recommendation and i must say it was good.

A roughly planned itinerary for the three days , meant nothing was set in stone and i was flexible to change the plan.

Just the day before the trip , i asked my wife to pack few items with a view of visiting a friend, little did she know that i was just preparing her to give her a huge surprise. 

On the day itself , my better half got to know the whole plan only when we reached the airport , she genuinely was pleased and was blushing all the way through to Pisa because we were on our way to Italy a land of Pizza and Pasta which she loves quite a lot.

We boarded the flight and landed in Pisa Gallileo Gallile Airport, which in itself was not bigger than our Chennai Kamaraj Domestic airport , it almost looked like an airport in the middle of a village.

We came out of the airport in less than ten minutes and to our dismay , we were both saying where is the Italian beauty , this looks like a shanty town.

We were to be proven wrong later in the day. It took us an hour to visit Palais Di Miracoli , the place where the world famous leaning tower of Pisa exists , we along with whole host of tourists spent the next few hours.

Our next stop was Florence, which was some 85 kms away. We promptly took a train from Pisa's central station to Firenze ( as Florence is called in Italy) . Our train took all of an hour and twenty minutes to cover the 85 km's . We rolled into Firenze SMN railway station.

Once in the station, we had little trouble in finding our hotel , which was slap bang next to the famous Florence Duomo.

We checked into our hotel and were ushered into our room , which was quite nice with free WIFI and LCD TV's. This hotel was the best of all the places we stayed. A conclusion both me and my better half agreed to.

The evening was spent walking along the banks of River Arno , visiting the great coffee shops of Florence and having sumptuous biscuits. 

We retired to our room early after a solid meal in a near by Restaurant as we had a early start to make the following day.

Next day we were off early . Our first port of call was San Gimignano , a town of historical importance to Florence as this was the town which was used as Fortress when Florence captured Siena in early 12th Century. Then we were off to visit Siena & the wine making region of Chianti.

Siena presents the rustic past , all its walls , the narrow alleyways were standout features. 

We first visited Banque Monte De Paschi , the birth place of banking or the worlds first bank established in the middle of 14th century , still exists proudly in Siena.

After it , we visited the Siena central square where the world famous Palio takes place every July & August. After that we visited the central church before we heading off to Chianti.

The worlds famous Red Wine The Chiantico comes from this place but the region produces some of the worlds best wines and olive oil.

It took us about an hour to reach from Siena to Chianti region. Chianti region is know for its mountains as the grapes for the wines are grown on top of the hills due to the need for better moisture.

In Chianti we visited the Tenuta Casanova wine farm , whose owner left a well paid job in a big super market chain about 20 years ago to take up his hobby full time which was Wine making.

http://www.tenutacasanova.it

The owner (whose name skips my mind) spoke his heart about the wine making and olive oils . Given both of us were teetotaler , we just stuck to tasting olive oil & home made breads.

At about 30 minutes past eight we reached Florence and made our way to dinner . We just had pasta, penne with arabiatta & Ravioli , it was the best ever pasta i have ever tasted . 

Satisfied, we headed back to our room and crashed.

Next morning , i was dealt with a big blow , our flight was cancelled. We frantically tried to get hold of the airline but in vein . However we were lucky to have availability in another flight , although we had to shell out extra money but hey ho this happens and took it in the chin.

Flight issue sorted out, we had lot of time in hand , we headed off to the village of Fiesole, this has to be the icing on the cake of the entire trip.

The quite village tucked up in the high hills provided us with some of the most spectacular views of florence .

Satisified we headed back to Amerigo Vespucci airport in Florence, which was nothing more than just a tiny airport and as they say , small is always beautiful and it surely was .

We checked in and were off to the departure gate in less than ten minutes . We waited for our flights and reminisced about our trip .

Overall it was one of the best and the most satisfying trip 

The Tourist- Part 3 - Geneva

Switzerland is home to some of the Uber Rich and Geneva is the heart of it all . Surrounded by Lake Geneva or Lac Leman as its locally known , this city shows of its international prowess at every level.

In this city , everything works like a clockwork , right from what you see in the airport to restaurants and to daily walks of life.

To start with Geneva is not the capital of Switzerland , its Bern but Geneva has a special place due to its importance as it is host to several offices of International agencies , it is so very important that the second largest UN office after the UN head quarters in New York is in Geneva , you can imagine how powerful this city is in International politics.

My trip started off with a flight from London to Geneva , i was delayed to the flight , thanks to a delayed train departure to the airport . Both me and my wife had to gasp our breath to run across to the check in counter and then another dash across to the flight .

Thankfully we made it on time and the journey itself was smooth . 

Even before we landed in the airport , the scenery before touch down blew our minds away , mountains across and lush green outfields , it was simply stunning scenery.

Once we touch down everything was clockwork , immigration took us just five minutes and we were out collecting our baggage in less than ten minutes. I can only dream of that in other airports.

The surprise starts after that.

The first one was that you could go across to France without stepping into Switzerland within the airport i.e. without having a transit visa , how nice that is . The Geneva airport is slap bang in the border between France and Switzerland , the pathway is signposted , so you couldn't miss it.

As a tourist , right after baggage collection , there are free vending machines which provide you tickets valid for 80 minutes on trains to Central Geneva and its absolutely free , yes its free. The tickets are provided by Unireso the organization that runs the local transports in Geneva,

Unlike other cities you don't get lost as the train station is inside the airport and is clearly signposted. 

We take our train to the Geneva city where our hotel is , the journey was all about 6 minutes and we got down at the main station aka Gare Cornavin . Geneva is a French speaking Canton. Some Swiss history , Switzerland is made up of 26 Cantons , largely divided as French Cantons like Geneva and German Cantons like Zurich & Bern . The linguistic divide in Switzerland is so fierce that its one of the very few items that divide the country where neutrality is everything.

Back to Gare Cornavin. We come out of the train station only to be confused to find out where our hotel was, as we wander across , we politely ask a lady . She stops speaking on her phone and tries to find out the place and finally finds someone who knows it . We get our way and halfway down we are again confused . Seeing our predicament , another lady stops by and helps us all the way to our hotel .

The first impression of our city , they are a bunch of very friendly people.

We check into our hotel , where another surprise awaited us . All tourists checking into a hotel in Geneva gets a Geneva Transport Card , which is valid for Zone 10 which is all of Geneva on Trams, buses and Trains . No need to pay , its all free. That blew my mind away , no other city does this . I was amazed.

Once we had completed the check in formalities , we get a city map , important places to visit guide etc. Fortunately we had planned our visit, so we had a list of places to Visit .

First Up , Patek Phillip Museum . Patek Philip is a Swiss watch maker, little did i know until i visited the museum that they have had such a large history dating back to more than a century. We saw models of watches which we have never ever imagined had existed before.

Watches that flew to space, watches made of complete diamonds to name a few were on display. Three full stories of horology history .

From there we made our way to the United Nations secretariat and to Ariana museum , The UN office was closed so we spent our time in the Ariana museum which is a museum of ceramics , was really beautiful.

We were stunned by the quietness and the natural beauty of the place, that meant we spent a lot of time clicking good photos.

As the day came to a close , we head back to Geneva Central and had our lunch at McDonald's , this is where i found out a another surprise .This city is ultra expensive . Wouldn't delve into details , we spent a lot on just Fries, veggie burger and cola , was a rip off.

Post lunch, we made our way back to hotel to refresh ourselves , then we were back to the streets of Geneva, roaming around and finding our way across neatly curved streets with good architectures .

We made our way to lake Geneva at nightfall , we did that specifically to see Jet D Etau , the Geneva fountain , towering 140 meters and pouring our a million litres of water every minute , this place is a tourist delight.

From there we made our way to the Flower clock , very Swiss way of making things . Very neat , tidy and extremely unique.

It was now 20:00 and we made our way back to the hotel, only to stop at a Lebanese restaurant for some Mediterranean food.

We slept early as a long day awaited next.

Next day we made our way across the Swiss border into France to visit , Chamonix .  A valley in the Alps overseeing Mt Blanc . the highest peak in Europe.

Chamonix valley & Mt Blanc. 

To sum up day two in just  a sentence ' Extraordinary Natural Beauty' ,  it had to be a place where god was at his imaginative best .

By the time we headed back home it was dark again but our spirits were lit up by what we had seen in Chamonix , it was breathtaking.

Day three started off with a solid breakfast , from where we headed off to the UN secretariat , thankfully it was open and we bought two tickets for guided tour .

Interestingly , the UN office sits on a land that was donated by the Geneva Canton and the current Secretariat is the new office right next to the old office . The historical significance of this office is too many to summarize in this blog. We spent close to two hours in the UN secretariat.

It was already mid day and our next appointment CERN , the European Nuclear Research Organization and home to LHC , the Large Hadron Collider , which 100 meters below the ground is trying to recreate the situation moments after big bang .

It was nostalgia for me , as a physics student seeing particle accelerator and equations in the Gallelio Galleli globe exhibition was all fun and brought back good old college memories , was missing my friends Gaurav, Sriram and Dinakar.

An hour in CERN , we made our way to a town called Carouge , which is a very old town characterizing everything that is Swiss . Its beauty , boutique shops signifies everything Swiss. 

The day flew by and it was now time to be back to the hotel to leave back to London. So we made our way back to the hotel where we collected our bags and made our way to the Airport , although to early for our flight , we did not want to take a chance.

We safely made our way back to our home almost close to stroke of mid night .

It was an interesting trip , very different city . The highlight was Chamonix which is in France . Although French spoiled by previous trip due to a pick pocketed purse , they duly made it up this time around by the way of Chamonix.

Geneva another city but very quite and calm , everything is business as usual for them.

As i finish this blog , this weekend is a break for us . We have lived off our back packs in our last three weekends, this one has to be time for a break and some recuperation because the journey continues .

Next Stop .. ah ah .. keep guessing.