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Florence disappointed me greatly. After hearing heaps of praises about Florence, i was entirely disappointed with this tourist infested city
covered with birds shit and dogs droppings and also polluted by large number of traffics.
However, i did enjoyed my staying in Florence as we met some very interesting people there. It started off like this, we were approached by a Belgium girl (quite pretty) who told us that she has
a private hostel that we could stay for 30 millas, i was suspiscous at first but decided to give it a try any way. So she brought us to this ulu place climb up a dark stair to this small room packed with 6 beds.
There we met a french girl, (even prettier :>) and discovered that she works there as well and she sleeps in the next room. The room looks quite cosy (or was it the girls?) so we decided to stay for 1 night first.
That night when we came back, we met up with those people staying in that "hostel" and interestingly, there is a Australian lady originally from Singapore, unmarried, traveling by herself. She has been traveling for
6 weeks and going for another month before going back to Singapore to visit her parents. She boasted that she does weight, jogging and she doesn't like marriage and giving birth and her mother has given up on her... sound familiar? (i can see Shiying like that 10 yrs down the road.. hahaahaha)
She was telling us about how she found this "free" hostel in Florence which has only one bed and the old man who owns it said she could use all the facility there for a very cheap price. the moment she started unpack her stuff, he started hugging her from behind and groping her but she push him away then left.
She said she has met this kind of thing so often when she travels alone and she has a ring sometimes to pretend that she is married.
There were also a Canadian, an american girl, an Alaskan guy and of course another Aussies. they Aussies has been going around for 3 months and he is traveling for about 10 months to a year. All these backpackers started exchanging stories of their trips, and then exchanging books they read while travelling. you might be surprised
what they have in their backpack, from "Harry Potter" to "War and Peace". They each have one or two books and started exchanging books to each other. It's an interesting concept as they write down their names and places they have been to while reading the book, then pass it to the next guy they meet and so the go on traveling. the Aussie said that
he was hoping that a few years later he might see one of the book he has read again while travelling. :> ... quite interesting!
talking to them makes me also realise why they want to travel alone, they have no fixed itinerary, makes friends as they go and decide their next destination by tossing a coin, by following a recommendation, by following a fellow backpacker or just by going to the train station and hop on the one that is leaving. They have met a great deal of people,
which i can understand cos i only traveled for 3 weeks and i have already met quite a few. The thing about traveling in a large group is that you tend to clique together and not meeting all these new people of different cultures with new and exotic stories to tell. Ok, enough talking, here are some photos in Florence.
Caught in a small festival in Florence.
The ceiling of the Duomo in Florence.
On top of the Duomo. There were so many people that we couldn't find a nice an empty spot to take photo.
The only bridge that survived World War II bombing in Florence
Florence in the rain. taken from a hill outside the centre.
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