italy travel diary

Italy is somewhere that I have wanted to travel to for absolutely years now so whilst I was interrailing we stopped off at two places; Pisa and Florence. These are two amazing places but because I only spent 4 days in Italy, I thought I would include both places in this post. Also, Pisa is considerably small in terms of where everything is so I would recommend that if you were thinking of going to one of these places then you go to both, as Pisa is only an hour train journey away from Florence and whilst I was in Florence there were many places that offered day trips to Pisa as this is all that I think you need.

I started off experiencing Italy in Pisa and like I have mentioned, all the tourist spots are located together, this consists of a grassy area called the Piazza del Duomo with the Leaning Tower, Pisa Baptistry and the Pisa Cathedral.

One of the nicest things about Pisa is a beautiful park that we found called Giardino Scotto. This is the grounds of an old fortress but there are so many different areas that it is such a lovely place to walk around and sit with some lunch. There are quite a few green areas in Pisa that you could probably find some other areas similar to this as well.

The other thing that I loved about Pisa was the number of restaurants and cafes down such beautiful streets. As I only spent 1 days in Pisa, I only got to experience going to one cafe and restaurant but these were so lovely and I definitely would've loved to try some of the other places that we went past.

Moving on to Florence, we travelled on a weekend and the trains can be very busy because of this but it is only a short journey which is really nice. The main area in Florence is around the Cathedral which is such a beautiful building. There are so many cafes and restaurants around this area as well which is such a nice place to sit and eat. You can also go inside the Cathedral but the queues can get very long for this and go round the entire Cathedral so I would look to see if you can buy tickets beforehand to go inside. 

Another great place to go in Florence is to Ponte Vecchio which is one of the bridges along the river which is full of jewellery and souvenier shops and is just a lovely place to walk along. It's really nice to look at from a distance as well so even just to walk along the river.

A lovely square to visit is the Piazza del Signoria where once again there are many restaurants and is also the home to the Statue of David and also the Fountain of Neptune. Unfortunately, whilst I was there the fountain was undergoing restoration work so I was unable to see that. There are so many other lovely statues in this square though and it is just a lovely place to go in an evening for some food.

One thing that I wanted to include in my post about Florence was the Fontana del Porcellino which is a fountain of a bronze boar, which if you rub it's snout you will return to Florence and if you drop a coin from the boar's mouth and it falls through the grates you will receive good luck. This is just another cute little thing to do and you will find many tourists gathered around this area. 

That is it for my italy travel diary and I really hope you have enjoyed this and look forward to reading some of the other travel diaries that I am planning on posting throughout the summer.

bethany x