Before sharing with you more sunny pictures, I wanted to give you some practical information that may be useful. For this weekend, my two friends and I left on a Thursday night and we returned on a Monday morning.
1. BEAUVAIS-PISE FLIGHT
To go to Florence, there is the short way of taking a flight from Paris to Florence, and then there is the byway … For the weekend, my friends and I decided to take a Ryanair flight from Beauvais airport (Oise) to Pisa by pricing issues since 3 trips cost 174€, so 58€/person. In retrospect, I’m not sure if we had made a good deal knowing that travel conditions are not really comfortable nor convenient. The flight was at night with a start at 22:10 and finish at 23:55, which give us time to get to the airport, which is nearly 90km from Paris. For the return, we chose the 10:15 flight but a week after booking, we were warned that the schedules have changed and that the flight is advanced to 6:40!
But the advantage of arriving in Pisa, is that we had the opportunity to visit the city and its famous tower!
2. PISA: TAXI, HOTEL, TRAIN Taxi For our night in Pisa, we chose a hotel located just few minutes from the airport. As it was late, there was no bus so we took a taxi. Although the trip was short, it cost us 14€! The driver charged us for our small suitcases cabin.
Hotel We chose the Hotel Capitol. The night cost 83€ with breakfast for 3 people or 28 €/person. The room was a decent size with a bunk bed and a double bed. For cons, the bathroom was really small. Regarding the breakfast, it was really basic with very little choice.
Train For the first day of our weekend, we decided not to linger in Pisa and take the train to Florence. The hotel is located a few minutes from the station, we went there on foot. The station has many controllers for ticket sales. For Pisa-Florence trip, the ticket cost € 7.90 and it lasts between 45min and 1h depending on whether you take a omnibus or a direct train. The journey did not seem very long to me compared to my time commuting to work!
3. FLORENCE : ACCOMODATION
In Florence, we took a room at the Hotel Due Fontane located 300m from the cathedral, in a pretty square rather quiet. For 2 nights and breakfast, we paid 273€, or 91€/person. Regarding the room, we had a little surprise at discovering that rather than cram in a room with 3/4 beds, the room had 2 seperate rooms with 2 beds in each which is perfect. The breakfast is simple but meanwhile with more choices than in Pisa with fruits, mini-sandwiches (cheese and meat), yogurt, pastries, etc..
4. FLORENCE : VISITS How to move? Florence is a small town, everything can be done on foot! But the city is so nice that we would like to amble all day long so I advise you to take comfortable shoes. Book your visits Florence is one of the cities which has one of the largest concentrations of art in the world so it’s called City Museum! There are many monuments to visit but also many tourists. It’s recommended to book tickets in advance. The only museum we did is the Uffizi Gallery. A week before our weekend, we tried to take our tickets online but there was sold out! Once arrived in Florence, we took a chance on the stand via Calzaioli, right next to the Chiesa Orsanmichele.
Please note that the door of the booth is very small you can easily miss it! (See picture below) With this stand, we could have entries for the gallery for the following day (saturday morning). Be carefull, in addition to ticket 11€, we paid 4€ additional booking fees.
5. FLORENCE-PISE : COMMUNICATE In Florence and Pisa, we speak Italian. If you cand find English speaker everywhere in Roma, it’s harder in Tuscany and in small shops if the servers / vendors speak English, the displays are only in Italian. During the weekend, we unfortunately dealt with professionals who really made no effort and in addition were particularly unpleasant.
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Here were the practical information and we’ll talk about lighter things next time, I promise!
