The Chewys’ Europe Honeymoon Trip: Days 7 & 8 in Italy/Venice

Posted on May 15, 2013 by missuschewy

Hello Chewys! This photo cute or not? Hahaha! 😛 On the 7th day of our honeymoon trip, we left Florence immediately after visiting the Uffizi Gallery. It took about two hours to reach Venice by the intercity train, and we hurriedly got off, extremely eager to explore one of the world’s most romantic cities. 🙂 I really really love Venice and wanna revisit this place with misterchewy in future if possible. A number of friends told me that Venice is sinking?! :'(

The main modes of transportation in Venice include the vaporetto (water bus), water taxi and of course, the gondola. We purchased the vaporetto time-limited tickets which were very much cost effective than if we were to buy tickets on a per trip basis. This is how their water bus stop (behind misterchewy) looks like! One way for entering and the other is for exiting.

On the vaporetto with our luggages! Omg the speed of these water buses is really really slow.. Hahaha. I think we alighted around the fourth stop or so, at Sant’Angelo vaporetto stop because that is a mere 3-minute walk to our hotel. However, the entire place was like a maze and we wasted a lot of time trying to find our way there and pulling our luggages everywhere with us. The husband even tried asking for directions from this elderly dude at a hotel but he said, “Sorry, no information.” Freaking rude! >:(

Of course, we found the place in the end if not we had to sleep by the roadside or riverside in this context. What a relief. LOL. All that exercise certainly whetted our appetite and we quickly settled for lunch nearby.

Nice experience eating outside Ristorante San Stefano, in the fine cool weather with the sun shining down on us! 🙂

We opted for the set lunch which included starters, mains and desserts at an attractive price and was quite a good deal.

From our hotel, we were able to walk to Piazza San Marco (St Mark’s Square) and we also passed by Hard Rock Cafe along the way.

St Mark’s Basilica.

It was really bleeding cold when we were hanging around Piazza San Marco. The winds were really strong and we stood there feeling very helpless because there was nowhere to hide! I think it was there and then I caught a cold. *Sniff sniff* 🙁

As it was close to nightfall, and clearly, temperatures had dipped, we promised ourselves that we would return the next day for our gondola ride! 🙂

Bridge of Sighs. Apparently, this bridge was named as such because prisoners would sigh at their final view of beautiful Venice through the window before their imprisonment.

We sighed too. Venice is just so charming and lovely. Every honeymooning couple should visit Venice! 😀

I was actually beginning to feel a little under the weather but I was so enthralled by Venice’s beauty that I refused to leave because all I wanted was simply to bask in its misty and magical atmosphere. Venice has a slow pace of life which makes a great getaway for working adults who need a good break from work (and never go back). Haha.

It was getting darker and colder, and misterchewy had to pull me away so that we could go back to our hotel.

We stayed at Locanda Antico Fiore, a quaint yet gracious 18th century building, for two nights. This photo was taken when we checked out, which explains why our luggages were outside. Earlier in the day when we checked in, Lilia (I think that’s her name, based on online reviews of the hotel) came down the stairs and warmly greeted us, “Ciao! Ciao!” in a cheery voice. We really felt at home that very instant 🙂

Lilia told us that all the rooms were occupied, so we were given a complimentary suite upgrade which we didn’t complain about of course 😛 She helped us settle into our room and I must say that it was the nicest room throughout our entire honeymoon trip!

Looks like someone’s home instead of a hotel right?

The bathroom was a little cramped though. Well, at least it had all the amenities we needed.

I love the bedroom! So pretty!

Sorry I must add that I was considerably ill that night 🙁 Was having a sore throat and I felt weak all over. My mum had packed some medicine for me to bring along (she always does that when we travel abroad) and I popped some panadol and lozenges before going to bed.

I forced myself to get out of bed the next morning. Or rather, misterchewy forced me to. LOL. Cuz he wanted to take me to see a doctor but upon checking with Lilia, there are no clinics in Venice. There are only hospitals for serious and urgent cases, and pharmacies for not-so-serious ones.

Even having breakfast at the hotel felt like we were enjoying it in the comfort of our host’s home. Very nice! 🙂

Our breakfast spread. There was an assortment of bread, jam and cheese. I took a plain croissant so as not to further aggravate my sore throat and I totally spammed on the delicious fruit juice. Had no idea what it was 😛

LOL. The husband insisted on taking this photo for me because the building in the background seemed to be tilting towards one side. Pardon the shagged face cuz I felt horrible and the chilly weather only made things worse 🙁

Took the vaporetto and embarked on our sightseeing journey for the day.

Santa Maria Della Salute (Saint Mary of Health)

This Roman Catholic church was built and dedicated to the Virgin Mary after a wave of plague killed almost a third of the population of Venice in 1630.

More gondolas spotted!

Lunch time! We randomly went into one of the restaurants and had their set lunch. Hahaha really very value-for-money mah 😛

I felt much better after lunch!

Church of San Giorgio Maggiore

The Last Supper

Whoohoo! We were totally psyched up for the gondola ride! Prices were kinda steep though at €80 (roughly SGD130 based on the exchange rate we got) for a 40-minute trip along the small canal. Definitely a tad expensive but it’s not an experience that you can get anywhere else! Prices are more or less fixed. You can try haggling for the fun of it 😛 Each gondola can take up to 6 passengers so that’s one way of splitting the cost. 😉

Headed back to our hotel after grabbing a takeaway sandwich for misterchewy because I didn’t have much of an appetite. We only got to stay in the suite for one night due to availability issues. This was the double room that we originally booked.

Checked out the next morning and had quick breakfast at the hotel before departing Venice. Guess where was our next stop? 😉

Leaving you guys with another photo of Venice taken during sunset! Connect with us on Facebook www.facebook.com/missuschewy and on Instagram @missuschewy and @misterchewy 😀

The Chewys’ Europe Honeymoon Trip: Days 5 & 6 in Italy/Florence

Posted on May 10, 2013 by missuschewy

After four days in Rome, we took an intercity train that was covered by our Eurail pass to Florence, capital of Tuscany. We spent two full days in this beautiful city, which was our second destination in Italy!

If you are interested to know, we got the 1st class Eurail Global Pass which allowed us to explore up to 24 European countries for 15 days continuously.

It was our very first time boarding a train with all our luggages and the entire experience was quite novel. Anyway, our seats were pre-assigned to us upon reserving our tickets at the train station. Reservation fee varies from city to city.

After travelling for about 3 hours, we finally reached Florence! Had quite a difficult time locating our place of lodging even though it’s actually quite near the train station. Not only that, the pavements were so uneven that we thought the wheels of our luggages might fall off from all that dragging around! We dumped our stuff in our room and took the next regional train to Pisa. Journey lasted for more than an hour.

The weather was pretty bad when we reached Piazza dei Miracoli. It started to drizzle a little and it was impossible for us to take photos without getting our camera lenses wet. Seeked shelter in the souvenir shop and thankfully, the rain stopped after a while.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa! 😀 It costs €18 per person to ascend the tower and only 10 people are allowed to go up every 20 minutes.

We bought tickets at €5 per person to enter the Baptistery of St John, which is the largest baptistery in Italy. It also included free admission into the Duomo.

Bronze sculpture of St John.

Duomo di Pisa. Very very lovely cathedral.

I absolutely love this photo! 😀

As we were about to leave, we caught sight of and were amused by all these youngsters doing silly poses in front of the tower!

I guess silliness is infectious because we started to join in the fun as well! 😛

Took the train in the late afternoon and by the time we reached Florence, it was time for dinner! We decided not to wander too far from our B&B and settled for Le Fonticine which had been awarded 4.5 out of 5 stars by TripAdvisor.

The food served here was simply divine! I had the Linguine in Cod Fish Creamy Sauce (€8) which is a specialty of Florence while misterchewy had the Risotto with Savoy Cabbage and Duck Sauce (€9). Service was top notch too. Highly recommended.

We stayed at Sette Angeli Rooms for two nights. As mentioned earlier, the location is not bad. However, there is no elevator. And the stairs are very steep! The husband was cursing and swearing under his breath when he hauled his luggage up the stairs earlier in the day. Luckily the reception guy offered to help carry mine up.

The next morning was a beautiful one for sightseeing but we went shopping at The Mall instead! LOL. Kiasu us being very kiasu, we bought our shuttle bus tickets the night before at the BUSITALIA/SITA depot (pickup and drop-off point). It cost us €5 per person for a one-way trip. Boarded the earliest bus at 8.50am and close to one hour later, we reached The Mall! 😀

The entire place was so peaceful and quiet, unlike any of those Great Singapore Sales nonsense. Except for the Prada store! See below. LOL.

If my memory doesn’t fail me, Prada opens at 10am. There was already a queue waiting to get in and these people are from you-know-where. I swear my heart did a little cheer when the shutter was finally being pulled up. Haha.

A number of bags caught my eye and I finally settled for just one 😛 Plus key pouches for misterchewy and myself. I think I took only about an hour for all my purchases?

The next bus from The Mall to Florence was at 1pm so we took our time to check out other brands. Wanted to get a YSL clutch but the color I wanted was out of stock 🙁

Grabbed lunch at the cafe!

The husband knows that I like hot chocolate and had been feeding me plenty of it for the past few days! Kinda developed a little sore throat after that. >_<

Piazza del Duomo

Santa Maria del Fiore is the main church of Florence.

This is the largest brick dome ever constructed.

Huge clock decorated by Paolo Uccello.

St. Giovanni Baptistery

Piazza della Signoria

Replica of Michelangelo’s David. Prior to this, we saw the actual masterpiece at Accademia Gallery! Needless to say, it was an absolute fine piece of work. Photography is prohibited though.

We didnt enter Palazzo Vecchio as it was about to close by the time we got in.

Popped into Ristorante Dante e Beatrice for dinner on our way back. It’s strange. Ever since we touched down in Italy, I fell in love with tomato-based spaghetti. I used to be a huge fan of cream-based pastas but I found myself ordering tomato-based ones most of the time while in Italy! Not hormones changing right? LOL.

The husband was kinda disappointed with his ravioli 🙁

Before we eat, must Instagram first! Haha! We were amused that our white wine was served in a small jug.

Night market near our B&B!

We woke up early the next morning and visited the Uffizi Gallery before setting off for Venice. Yes, that is what our next post will be all about. If I had to choose only one city to revisit in Italy, it would be Venice! Connect with us on Facebook www.facebook.com/missuschewy and on Instagram @missuschewy and @misterchewy 😀 TGIF chewys!

The Chewys’ Europe Honeymoon Trip: Day 4 in Italy/Rome

Posted on May 7, 2013 by missuschewy

The 4th day of our honeymoon trip was also our last day in Rome! The husband and I tried our best to cover as many places as possible. Felt a little sad but we had 17 days to go so it wasn’t really that bad at that point of time 😛 This is our favorite photo taken that day 🙂

After a quick breakfast at the hotel, we went to the Vatican Museum but the Sistine Chapel was not open to public due to an ongoing conclave. Anyway the weather was wet and chilly because it drizzled the entire day! Me no likey 🙁

Admission ticket and audio guide cost €18 per person.

The hubs acting cute and silly. Hahaha.

I hope to visit Egypt some day! Have always found the history of ancient Egypt very mysterious yet captivating at the same time. But then again, I heard that it’s quite a dangerous country to visit.. Hmm so maybe not.

The husband must have benefited quite a bit from listening to the audio guide! My attention span was too short for it.

The famous Laocoön statue

Hall of Maps

This was our very first museum visit but little did I know, misterchewy had planned many more of such visits throughout our trip! *Faints*

Recharged ourselves at a cafe and we shared a bottle of beer over lunch! *Gloop gloop gloop*

Walked to St. Peter’s Square which is located within Vatican City. Many people were eagerly anticipating the unveiling of the new Pope.

This was one of the Altar of Science in Angels and Demons.

We joined in the queue to get into St. Peter’s Basilica. Admission is free except to certain parts of the church. You will be surprised but some churches do collect entrance fees.

St. Peter’s Basilica is one of the biggest churches that we visited in Europe!

In Angels and Demons, the Camerlengo (Italian for “Chamberlain”) set himself on fire and ran down these flight of stairs upon realization that he had murdered his own father, the Pope.

The media on standby.

This is the Ponte Sant’Angelo which leads to Castel Sant’Angelo (Castle of the Holy Angel).

Castel Sant’Angelo is also known as Mausoleum of Hadrian. The building was later used by the popes as a fortress because it had an underground tunnel which was connected to Vatican City. As for us, we had to pay €21 to get into this museum.

Guess the hubs was thinking about food when he did this Italian hand gesture which meant ‘delicious’. Haha.

A top view of Ponte Sant’Angelo.

The rain was getting heavier so we seeked shelter at Tartufo House along Piazza Navona.

Our upside down dark chocolate ice cream! 😀 Tartufo is an Italian icecream dessert usually composed of two or more flavors of ice cream. Ours was also encased in a chocolate shell.

Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the Four Rivers) at Piazza Navona.

Our final stop of the day was the Pantheon.

The Pantheon used to be a temple to all the gods of ancient Rome and is now a Christian church. The Oculus (opening at the top) is the main source of natural light and also serves as a cooling and ventilation method. At the same time, it could have played an important role for prayers to ascend to the heavens.

Tomb of King Umberto I, successor of Vittorio Emanuele.

Main altar of church.

Ending the post with a photo of Trevi Fountain taken on our way back to our hotel. Next post will be on Florence! Remember to check back as we will be sharing about our shopping experience at The Mall’s Prada outlet. Stay connected with us on Facebook www.facebook.com/missuschewy and on Instagram @missuschewy and @misterchewy 😀

The Chewys’ Europe Honeymoon Trip: Day 3 in Italy/Pompeii

Posted on May 3, 2013 by missuschewy

Ciao chewys! Did you enjoy our previous post about the first two days of our honeymoon trip? Today’s post is gonna be slightly shorter because I just wanna focus on our Pompeii day tour from Rome on the third day of our trip! It was really fun and we experienced a bit of snow that day! Whoopee! 😀

Back in Singapore, misterchewy booked this guided tour online with Viator Tours because since young, he had been very fascinated by stories he read about Pompeii and its remarkably well preserved ruins. We were told to meet at 7.15am at Piazza del Popolo before setting off. Thankfully, it was just a small group of 5 because I never liked traveling with big groups of strangers.

The journey to Europe’s only active volcano took about 3 hours and halfway through, we stopped for a short toilet cum coffee break.

The chocolate croissant and hot chocolate sold at this kiosk were pretty awesome!

Hopped back onto the minivan and the next thing we knew, we were at Mount Vesuvius, which is infamous for causing the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79AD and has erupted many times since.

Lava flows have scarred the sides of Mount Vesuvius, and are visible on the winding road up to the summit. We took our own sweet time to hike up the crater of Mount Vesuvius.

The mountain is actually quite steep and very uneven. I was panting and gasping for air just five minutes into my way up! Very unfit and I feel like an old granny! Plus, it was so much colder on the volcano and the wind was really strong! We were freezing the whole time.

I think we took about 30 minutes to reach the crater. Hurriedly took a few photos and made our way down. Going up was tough but going down was scary!

At this point, it began to snow! Not sure if it’s snow or hail or whatever you call it but yeah, we were so thrilled because it was misterchewy’s first time experiencing snow! We decided that for every country we visited that snowed, we would buy a snow globe as a souvenir! 😀 Both of us were smiling like idiots and we quickly continued descending upon realizing that if the snow got heavier, it would be very slippery and dangerous.

Not only was the ‘morning exercise’ very adventurous, it was physically exhausting as well! It was time for lunch and all of us were looking forward to having pizza!

Pizza and beer never tasted this splendid! 🙂

After lunch, we headed for Pompeii, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. The now ruined city of Pompeii was once a sprawling metropolis of shops and residences, restaurants, gyms and brothels.

Gladiatorial Barracks at Pompeii.

Plenty of carvings on the wall tell a story.

This was where and how ‘fast food’ was served in Pompeii!

We walked Pompeii’s main streets just as the ancient Romans did. The stones are still worn with tracks from the drawn carriages that used them nearly 2,000 years ago.

Possibly an entrance to a shop.

Wood-fired pizza, anyone?

Plaster death casts of the victims of the catastrophic eruption that destroyed the city of Pompeii.

I was a little surprised that red light districts existed in Pompeii. Didn’t know they were already so ‘advanced’. LOL. According to the local guide, the ‘Mickey Mouse with a long nose’ on the ground served as directions for men to make their way to the brothels.

One of the rooms in the brothel.

Goodbye Pompeii!

Had hot chocolate again at the same kiosk on our way back to Rome! 😀

After we were being dropped off at Piazza del Popolo, misterchewy and I visited Santa Maria del Popolo as recommended by the local guide.

Soon, it was nightfall and we went in search of a dinner place nearby before returning to our hotel. Stay tuned to our next post chewy chewy friends! 😉 Connect with us on Facebook www.facebook.com/missuschewy and on Instagram @missuschewy and @misterchewy 🙂

The Chewys’ Europe Honeymoon Trip: Days 1 & 2 in Italy/Rome

Posted on April 30, 2013 by missuschewy

Whoohoooooo chewys! I have been wanting to share about our honeymoon trip to Europe with all our dear readers! Finally had time to upload the pics and do a bit of QC-ing here and there. We departed for Europe on 9 March, a week after our customary wedding. It was our first time to Europe for the both of us and naturally, The Chewys were super duper excited! 😀

Our honeymoon trip was 21 days long and I have to emphasize that it was the BEST 21 days of my life! Our trip was purely free and easy because we wanted that flexibility but planning was a bitch of course. Hehehe the award-winning hubby did most of the research! 😛 We chose to fly with Qatar Airways and booked our airtix in January. Subsequently, we settled our accommodation via Agoda. Over the 21 days, we visited Italy, Switzerland, France (Paris) and London! 🙂 It was around the end of Winter, coming to Spring, but the weather was still very cold!

Our flight was at night and both our families sent us off at the airport. I was very worried about the two long-haul flights (we transited at Doha) that awaited us because I didn’t think I could get a good sleep on the plane and I hated that backside-on-fire feeling that I experienced before when I went to counties like Japan and Australia etc. LOL. Thankfully, it was still manageable thanks to in-flight entertainment and the cute neck pillows that misterchewy got! 🙂

We were served dinner AND breakfast! Had a small bottle of red wine each to celebrate the start of our honeymoon trip 😀

Reached Italy the next morning! Our first stop in Italy was Rome, where we spent a good four days there. Boarded the Terravision bus from the airport to the Roma Termini train station. Ticket costs €4 per person which is really cheap.

Took a train to Repubblica station and found our way to our hotel! Anyway, a single trip on the metro costs €1.50 regardless of distance. If you are planning on more than four trips on the metro in a day, you should buy the one-day pass at €6 from the ticketing machine.

Pretty amazed by the gigantic door that we had to get past in order to get to our hotel! 😛

As it was still too early to check into our room, we left our luggage at the reception and went out to explore some places nearby. I think we really sounded like tourists because we went, “Wah! Wah! Waaaaaah!” at practically everything that we saw. Lol. But really la, the architecture is such a vast difference from that of ours.

Fontana dell’Acqua Felice is of walking distance from our hotel.

On our first day, misterchewy wore only a short-sleeved t-shirt and sweater. He didn’t complain that it was too cold but from the next day onwards he wore at least 3 to 4 layers of clothing everyday! :O

The husband was so excited and dragged me to Santa Maria della Vittoria which was just next to Fontana dell’Acqua Felice. Apparently, a scene (or more) in Angels and Demons was being shot at this church. We went in at the wrong time because they were having Sunday mass and we quickly sneaked out. Of course, we returned the very next day.

Our tummies were making alot of noise, so we went in search of a place to settle breakfast. Empire Pizza was a stone’s throw away from our hotel and seemed fuss-free by the looks of it. Plus, the boss was very very friendly!

The boss was really nice and asked if we wanted a photo together behind the counter! Heh.. Why not? 😛

The husband wanted to see the Triton Fountain but sadly, it was under some kinda restoration and we got to know about it only upon reaching there 🙁

We moved on to Spanish Steps where we were conned of €50 (roughly SGD80) by an ‘overly friendly’ Italian guy. Our moods were kinda ruined after this incident. Oh wells, long story but lesson learned is that we should never ever talk to strangers. Don’t even make eye contact with them. We thought about it after a while and was thankful that we encountered such a nasty incident on our very first day in Europe because it taught us to be more vigilant and aware of our surroundings for the rest of our honeymoon trip.

We took the metro and alighted at the next stop to get to Piazza del Popolo which is basically a large urban square.

When in Italy, eat gelato! 😛 Our Tiramisu and After Eight combination tasted heavenly, especially in the cold weather!

Passed by the Spanish Steps again. We weren’t in the mood for photos previously.

After dinner near our hotel, we decided to head back early since it was only the first day and we needed to rest after so many hours on the plane. We found the elevators that we encountered in Italy were really interesting with an element of creepiness. LOL. Must watch the video with sound! This was taken while going down but it’s the same la. Hahaha.

We stayed in Hotel Everest Inn Rome for four nights which cost us slightly lesser than SGD90 per night, inclusive of breakfast.

There is free wifi but only limited to the reception and dining area. Just ask this friendly dude or whoever is at the counter for the password.

Our room was quite small considering that we had two luggages with us. Other than the size, we were happy that our hotel is just a mere 3 minutes walk to Repubblica metro station. Staying near Repubblica station proved to be very convenient because all the attractions were along the same metro line, except for Colosseum.

On our second day, we went to the Colosseum which is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of Rome.

Admission costs €12 per person inclusive of entry to Palatine Hills and Roman Forum. We got the audio guide for Colosseum at €5 each. Explanation is very detailed and lengthy but my mind drifted away after some time.. LOL.

The Colosseum is built of concrete and stone and is considered one of the greatest works of Roman architecture and engineering. Besides that, it is also the largest amphitheatre in the world. Gladiator combats were held at the Colosseum and it could house as many as 50000 spectators. We were marvelled by the grandiosity of this magnificent ancient Roman architecture.

Beautiful view of Arc de Constantin.

Was very amazed by this! I wonder if it’s really magic or some illusion thingy? Haha.

We proceeded to the Roman Forum which is filled with architectural fragments and archeological excavations.

I think we spent close to 2 hours at the Roman Forum but we didn’t manage to cover the entire place because it was too huge! And I kept complaining that I was gonna die of hunger.

So.. Lunch it was! I think we were ripped off by the food truck guys. Two sandwiches cost us €15! Should have asked about the price before we ordered. There was a cafe nearby selling pastas and pizzas for around €9 on average too. Plus, you get to sit and enjoy your food.

Trying to enjoy our lunch while shooing away the birds by swinging our legs at the same time because I accidentally dropped a piece of sausage. Our lunch was already very pathetic and this had to happen. LOL.

After our quick bite, we went back to Santa Maria della Vittoria via the metro because as mentioned earlier, there was Sunday mass the previous day. Guess what? A young girl around 12 years of age (we think) tried to pickpocket misterchewy’s wallet while we were trying to board the train! Thank goodness he was alert and he shouted and gave her a kick! Omg that was only the second day of our trip.

We visited many many churches throughout our Europe trip and all of them are very beautiful!

Our last stop for day two was Trevi Fountain. We should have went there early in the morning because there were soooo many people there in the evening!

See what I mean?! I couldnt get a nice picture without all these ‘extra’ people around me. Boohoo.

The black haired guy is Pierfrancesco Favino, who starred as Commander Olivetti in Angels and Demons!

Ok here’s a short video clip that misterchewy took for fun! If you google “throw coin in”, the first suggested search that will appear is “throw coin in trevi fountain”! Throwing a coin into Trevi Fountain ensures a return to Rome! And yes, I was very happy about it! 😀 😀 😀

That’s all for now! Next post will be on Pompeii! Connect with us on our Facebook page www.facebook.com/missuschewy and on Instagram @missuschewy and @misterchewy 🙂

missuschewy

Singapore Lifestyle and Travel Blog

Category Archives: #Europe

The Chewys’ Europe Honeymoon Trip: Days 7 & 8 in Italy/Venice

The Chewys’ Europe Honeymoon Trip: Days 5 & 6 in Italy/Florence

The Chewys’ Europe Honeymoon Trip: Day 4 in Italy/Rome

The Chewys’ Europe Honeymoon Trip: Day 3 in Italy/Pompeii

The Chewys’ Europe Honeymoon Trip: Days 1 & 2 in Italy/Rome

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