Staying Alive

Needed a break and after taking a day off from my hectic schedule, flew to Italy on 17th October and with this trip I am winding up the Euro trip 2009.

From Copenhagen took flight at 7.15 am (Transavia) to Pisa and reached around 10 am. From the Airport took the train to the Pisa Central and reached the “Leaning Tower” by bus, it took around 5 mins in bus. After spending a couple of hours roaming around the Tower and Cathedral, it was a 15 minutes walk from Tower to the central crossing the beautiful Arno River on the way.

There were number of (every 20 mins) trains going to Florence from Pisa central and took one around 1 pm and it was after 1 hr, I was in Florence Central. The hostel was just a 5 min walk from the station and after refreshing started my walking tour with the map of the Florence city  with important places to be visited.

Florence : An open museum, is full of beautiful buildings in narrow streets and with beautiful sculptures all around. Palazzo Vecchio, not to be missed which has the copy of the Michelangelo’s David and other sculptures and paintings. Crossed the Arno river bridge which was the only bridge which escaped WW2 attack.  And I started feeling that my legs will not allow me to walk further, so after enjoying the view over the Arno river for few minutes I started heading back to the hostel. So it was around 4 hours I spent walking around Florence. Archi Rossi is the hostel I stayed, and it one of the best hostels I have ever been in Europe. The breakfast was just awesome.

Slept for a long time and couldn’t catch an early train to Rome as planned before. So took one which started around 9.45 from Florence Central. Eurostar, a non stop from Florence central to Roma termini and it was a very good journey through the countryside. Beautiful, I just say. Hills all along the way and after crossing though lotz of tunnels, reached Rome around 11.30 am on sunday.

Rome: A paradise for photography enthusiasts. Bought the Roma pass just after reaching station, which offers unlimited travel by metro and city buses for 3 days and free first 2 site visits. As already planned, put my luggages in Hostel (The Yellow) and headed straight to Colosseum. An awesome structure.  Then entered the Roma forum which is just opposite the Colosseum. The Roma Forum, an archeological site brings virtually the Palaces of Roman empire in front of you.

Headed to Vatican City in metro and as impressed as I am inspired by many movies pictured in Rome and Vatican. St Peter’s square is the place to be.  Traveled back to Piazza Popolo which is almost the north entrance to Rome and walked down the main street which almost had all International brand stores. Visited the Trevi fountain and the Spanish steps before heading back to hostel. It was again a tiresome day after around 5 hours of walking.

Gelato, the italian Ice cream and Italian Pizza are definitely not to be missed when in Italy. Got up early in the morning the next day and after having the French toast in the restaurant at the doorstep headed to Pantheon and Piazza Navona. After walking for some mintues, visited the castle near vatican and took metro to catch flight (Ryanair) at 12.15 to Dussledorf.

3 hrs of transit in Weeze (Dussledorf) and again took another flight (Ryanair) to Vaxjo, which is around 1.5 hrs from Karlskrona by train.

http://picasaweb.google.com/shanmg/Italy09#

And back to basics on tuesday!!!!

These kind of breaks are really needed to Stay Alive!!!!

I have created another blog “Trying 2 Fish” to write down my progress on learning Technical Analysis and discuss about stock market related stuff.
So, in the coming days, I will be blogging about TA related stuff in my new blog and continue to write in this blog about other things happening with/around me which I find interesting to share.

Stay Alive!!!!