Just came back from my ten day madness Italy tour, which is free and easy, and with my silly friend as our tour guide. It's been a fun trip. We travelled from Florence to Piza to Rome to Naples to Sicily and lastly to Venice. Italy is a very beautiful place, with all the greeneries and of course, excellent shopping. Before embarking on this tour, I didn't know much about Italy. Only heard much about the Piza leaning tower and the coliseum. Okay, I didn't know where this two monuments are. I thought these two are in Rome. Haha. The five of us, as usual, took an overnight train to Florence. This time, we lugged two big luggages that contains our belongings for five persons. It's quite big and heavy for petite people like us. The first impression of Florence was the air was quite dusty and the entire city seemed old. Air pollution was apparently quite serious in Florence. Restorations works are being conducted to prevent monument buildings from being destroyed. The cathedrals are grand and spacious. Sometimes, I do wonder how on earth these people in the past managed to paint such beautiful pictures on the high walls and ceilings of the churchs. Worship is such a big thing in history? Grand alters and design of the building really made me go "woah..". As usual, free and easy trip means a lot of self-walking with my trusty pink adidas shoes. The excursion to tuscanny countryside, Chianti, brought out another beautiful side of Italy. The hills and mountains in the far away seemed so majestic and wonderous. We had a real tour guide for this tuscanny tour. According to her, the income of Italy partly depends on agriculture such as olives and wine. We visited a small castle, which is actually a wine and olives production place. In there lives a family and a caretaker who is very old and "hum-sup". Haha. Why? He wanted to kiss my friend who took a picture with him. It's so hilarious. I can still picture the sight of his head leaning forward and my friend leaning backwards, while I was taking the picture of them. Ahaha. Madness. The next unexpected itnerary was Piza. We didn't plan to go Piza until we realized that it was actually quite convenient to head there for a day trip. Piza leaning tower is absolutely stunning. It is really tilted. The lonely planets called it a disaster because the stupid engineers miscalculated! Haa. The queue to climb the tower is rumored to be very long. There is also a maximum of twenty people to climb the tower each time. Otherwise, it will collapse. The queue I saw was quite okay. Not too long. Maybe it's because we came early in the morning to Piza. One of the surrounding monuments include a cathedral which is a even more grand than Florence's cathedrals. It has ceilings are golden and elaborately decorated altars. Again here, I wondered why they pour so much money into beautify cathedrals than use it to help the poor? Okay, I am stopping here tonight. Too tired to continue now.. Good nite!

Continuing from the Italy madness tour at Piza, the next stop was Rome (Roma in Italian). Rome's train station was considerably bigger and there's a big shopping department underground. We trudged to our hostel and made our first stop at the famous coliseum. There's only one word to describe the monument. Grand. The high pillars, the magnificent arcs of the windows and the overall structure of the entire coliseum. It just makes you breathless. Can you imagines gladiators fighting with lions and tigers with the olden roman people cheering? Well, I thought gladiators are glamour figures in the past. However, according my friend, gladiators are in fact prisioners who are thrown into a unescapable circumstance and are forced to fight for their lives and freedom in the enclosed space. The "Gladiator" film shows that. Maybe I have forgotten. At this point in time, I have never ever dreamt of coming to Piza leaning tower and the coliseum. I am really lucky to do so. Thanks to the sponsorship of my dad and the careful planning of my "tour guide" to conquer Europe. Hahaha.