Viva L'Italia - A Day in Florence, Firenze

  Following the trip in Venice, we traveled to Florence by train. The ride on Eurostar was quite comfortable. Even though I forgot to validate the ticket before boarding, it proved that our ticket already had a valid date and seat reservation that didn't need further validation (in fact, before realizing that, I validated it by the yellow machine in Padova instead).

Eurostar, Venice to Florence

Viva L'Italia - Marvelous Venice, Venezia

 Venice was our first destination in Italy. After successfully acquiring a SIM card (with internet access for check-in on facebook, my favorite) from TIM in Rome Fiumicino Airport, we took the flight to Venice. It was very exhausting to fly all day long. However, everything was going well since we arrived in Venice, the City of Water.

Viva L'Italia - Good Morning, Holland

   We booked the flight of KLM which flew from Taipei to Rome via Amsterdam. It cost us about 40,000 NTW each. Previously, the flight had landed in Bangkok once to be fueled before it arrived in Amsterdam that resulted in the total flight time to more than 16 hours. Luckily, KLM has changed the flight to a direct non-stop one form Taipei to Amsterdam since this March. Therefore, it took us about 12 hours from Taiwan to Europe.

Viva L'Italia - The Beginning

   About one year ago, my aunt saw an advertisement of Longines featuring Aishwarya Rai, Chiling Lin, and Kate Winslet. She asked me where the advertisement was filmed. "Is that Greece?" she said. "No, I think it's Italy." I replied immediately because I had read the news about the advertisement. After a while, my aunt came to me again. "Is it possible you bring us to Italy for an individual travel next year?" she asked. I was surprised at what I heard. Italy? It's in Europe, very far away form Taiwan. Us? My aunt has four children, so us means at least 5 people. "Maybe." that was my answer.