Day 60 - 7th June
It was nice not to have to get up too early this morning since Daniela the hotel owner, had arranged the ride with his friend for us to Cecina this morning. The hot water wasn’t working again dammit, so we had to go down and have breakfast before showers or make up again this morning. But it was working by the time we came back up. They are waiting on a technician to come and look at why the tank keeps emptying and has to be reset. A quick breakfast then packed up the last of our bits and pieces – we haven’t bought much because our suitcases were so full already and we have to carry everything. You live and learn again and again – trying to really minimise what you take, as it is heavy when you are pulling them around for two months! Although to be fair, we have worn everything we have taken with cruises x 3.
We paid up the last of our accommodation– It was only €90 a night and Daniela took us up to meet his friend Andrea – luckily he had a car big enough for two suitcases and a backpack! He spoke a little english and we had a lovely trip through the Tuscan countryside towards Cecina. The only thing was, he didn’t seem to realise he had his heater cranked on full blast at 30°C! My toenails felt like they were on fire by the time I got there ha ha😂. But just left the windows wound down and went for the ruffled hair look! Along the way we chatted a bit and having data and my google translate app were invaluable again.
Andrea asked us if we liked the music of Andrea Bocelli and said he had learned to sing like that – I think Bocelli lives not far away in Pisa somewhere? Anyway, he started to sing for us acappella – he sang a bit of “time to say, goodbye” beautifully, and then some other Italian songs we hadn’t heard, but really enjoyed. What a lovely way to travel!
We got to Cecina, no problems, and then found the right platform to wait on – it is really just a very small town railway station. The lift was not working to go down and under the tracks, over to where we needed to go, so we had to manhandle our bags up and down, but there was no rush so it was okay. The train information for what was coming was in Italian and then English which was really helpful. We knew that our carriage was number 6 so Graeme was counting as it came in - It was a really long train that’s for sure, and the conductor leaned out of one as we were going along, and we said carriage number 6…… he pointed to the one he was in – it was number 2! They were numbered back to front!
We hoofed it up up the platform and then heard the conductors whistle, so I thought ‘stuff that” and jumped on at number 5. Only problem was there were 5 or 6 teenage boys all hanging out the door having a desperate smoke while the train has stopped! They were all crowded around the door and weren’t moving, so I was saying a lot of scusi, scusi! In the end, one of them took pity and leaned down and lifted up my case, so I could get on it and then helped Graeme lift his- phew! Wasn’t going to risk it trying to get to no 6 carriage as the train waits for no one here I remember! It was really quite funny with all the boys heads leaning out the train door, trying to suck on those smokes madly, as we tried to climb through them ha ha!😂
No problems with the trip, although the seat numbers we had – there were people already sitting in them, so we just sat across in other free seats and luckily our suitcases fitted in the luggage rack right behind our seats, as Graeme doesn’t like to be too far from them, so he can keep an eye on them. 2 hrs 45 to Rome and the countryside looks very much like Gippsland in Victoria, from the train!
We got off the train at the Roma Termini and I and grabbed a fresh bread roll to share between us and the drink – we are hungry from watching the lady opposite us in the train carriage eat one! I’ve done really well with basic French and Italian this trip- my brain hasn’t found it too hard strangely!
Found the taxis and caught one to our hotel at the end of the road of the Colosseum :-) the taxi driver was really nice and funny as well. He was talking to us and has broken English, then Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper song shallow came on… I said it was a really nice song, and he started telling us about how he had picked Bradley Cooper up in his taxi and the people with him were saying who he was, and the taxi guy was laughing because he didn’t believe it. But then realised he did have a very big star in his cab. He said he was really nice too!
Went into hotel Lancelot, quite art deco style and we had a room on the second floor that had a nice balcony on it. The air conditioning wasn’t working so great as I think it is struggling in the heat, but we went to the bar and got a couple of drinks then out walking. We stopped and got dinner – we had a burger and fries down the road at an outdoor restaurant. It was divine to have beef! Enjoyed an aperol and a wine as usual, then off walking. We caught the light perfectly in the evening for the Colosseum and walked all the way down, past the other monuments and statues, while buskers vied for position with their lovely music. Walking past Mussolini’s altar of the fatherland was impressive in the golden light – we must have walked for an hour and a half at least just soaking it all up.
Wandered back to the hotel, had showers and into bed. It’s a bit uncomfortable with the Aircon not very hot and we have two single beds pushed together again! Do europeans never sleep cuddled up together?!?! Ha ha🤫
Woke up after a so-so night of sleep, we got ourselves packed up and took our bags downstairs and had a bit of continental breakfast – wasn’t so good at this hotel and the room was okay, but the staff were what made it – they were really nice. We left the hotel at 11 am and had arranged for our transfer pick up at 1 pm so we wandered up in the opposite direction today. Just looking at what was on maps.me, as we went along. We came across a park in the middle of Rome! They don’t keep them very tidy and there is always long grass, but it was like an oasis and had an beautiful altar made of marble! It looked exactly like something out of the elf kingdom in the hobbit movies😲. We stayed in there for over an hour. Just people watching and also the dogs playing with their wonders throwing balls there. One guy walked through were three little ponies and a cart and then walked them back again!
We slowly wandered back down to our hotel a little early, but our ride was already waiting as he has contracted to the hotel. A very interesting guy from Ethiopia – I could tell he was well educated straight away from the way he spoke to the gold watch on his wrist, and the way he dressed and talked. He said his father was a diplomat, so they had gone to international schools all over the world and university. He also does all the computer set up in the hotel. He had a lot of sound thoughts on the world, why it is the way it is, industry, commerce, etc – he was really quite interesting and we hardly had to speak. Ha ha! He dropped us at ehe airport, no problems – then the fun began…
We wanted to go early as we had a tax rebate that needed to be done for my leather jacket I bought, so we wanted to be there a bit earlier as it suggested it on the cashback form. We found that Air France wasn’t open so went and asked at the ticket office, and she said it wouldn’t be open until two hours before – bummer, we thought, because we are flying from Rome to Paris, it would be the usual three hours before, giving us one hour to sort the tax refund. So we went and got that done anyway. It was really easy and then I get a message on my phone – luckily when I did the online check in with Air France, I had ticked to get messenger updates as I knew I would be able to use airport Wi-Fi. It said our flight has been delayed 1 1/2 hrs and then below that said to rebook another flight???😳. So I went back to the air France Ticket counter, but she didn’t really know a lot and was so hard to hear through the Perspex screen, along with a strong accent. I got another messenger update saying we have been rebooked two hours later on Singapore air after our first flight. So it Air France from Rome to Paris, which was 2hours, then a 2 hour wait, then 13 hours on Singapore air. We got so many conflicting opinions from different staff along the way about how, what and where we should do things.
We lined up so that we can check in opened wouldn’t have a big wait – it did open a little bit early, but it was still a really long queue and slow. Graeme noticed a couple in front of us that her Qantas tags on their bags and later on we got to meet them. But first got our bags checked in so at least we could go up to the Air France lounge for the 4 hour wait before the first flight. Wandered around trying to find the lounge and saw that couple so I asked them if they are Australian, which they were. Fiona and Mark had the same flights as us, so had been put onto the Singapore air flight as well.
So we walked around a bit and I went and asked a couple of times as we were being told to go one way and another but in the end we did find the lounge together, as we were all travelling business. Absolutely packed small lounge and at first we couldn’t get seats together but then within 20 minutes, some people left and the nice tall seats were free which was good because my neck was very tight and sore by this time. We sat and talked the hours away, which was lovely as they are very like-minded people. They live in the Gold Coast and we had lots to chat about. We boarded the first flight – the business class was economy but they block out every middle seat. Pretty upright and comfortable seats, but okay for the two hours.
We all got off that flight and then started having some trouble, finding where to go as the AirFrance cabin crew had read out where to go, and we were supposed to be in the same terminal, but unfortunately they had all the old info from the cancelled flight. It took us about 45 minutes, as we actually had to leave the terminal, go from terminal 1to terminal 3, which meant you had to get the sky train and then go up down round and all over the place to find the next boarding gate. We just got there we thought with minutes to spare as they were boarding – only to find they weren’t boarding and the flight crew were still sitting there waiting.
Then they announce there would be another 40 minute delay before we finally got on board, and were away! We were very lucky as we have been put in the bulkhead right at the front, which means we had the straight beds, where is all the rest have a sharp curve to the right, which is quite hard when you are trying to sleep as your feet have to go that way. Fiona and Mark have been separated but I knew because of what Danni had told me that if you ask at the boarding gate nicely they might change your seats around so we asked and they were able to move them so they could sit together.
I had an absolute twat older guy sitting next to me in the front of the plane – he told the flight attendant his wife was back in another section, so she went and worked it out, so they could shuffle things and put them together - whereby he refused to go down the back and said… ‘she can stay where she is’?! Didn’t think very much of him after that.
Pretty good flight – The 13 hours, went quite quick, watched ‘a man called Otto’ before dinner on the movies, and then had a bit of a meal and we settled to get some sleep. I was woken after an hour by the male flight attendant talking loudly and continuously on the other side of the curtain right in front of me, which made me a bit pissy, so I asked one of the crew going past if she could please ask him to speak more quietly since all the lights were down, and people were trying to sleep – they all stopped straight away which was good.
We had about 4–5 hours sleep, and then I watched another movie called ‘the champions’, which had Woody Harrelson in it, about coaching kids with disabilities. Was a good movie. Graeme watched a couple of war movies with lots of blood and guts – what’s new?!
Got off the flight and we proceeded to the arrivals hall, only to find that we had to do our arrival forms online now – turns out you could do them up to 3 days prior and have to do them whenever you into Singapore along with a thumb print. Standing in a hot hall filling in a form on the phone for both of us for 20 minutes. Wasn’t exactly what we wanted to do after being up for over 24 hours, but got it done so know from now on – wish we had known sooner!
Our transfer had been rearranged as I had emailed our travel agent as soon as I knew our flight had been cancelled and she let them know when to come. Had a lovely couple of ladies who walked us down to a car with a different young lady driver, who got us to the hotel and was very lovely and chatty. We are staying at the Pan Pacific- very nice huge and very busy. They told us it is the start of the Singapore school holidays so would be busy everywhere. Took quite a while to get checked in as nothing was moving but in the end someone came, and we said we were very tired from flying for so long so they got us checked in. I asked if we could please have a room on a high floor – we have a marina bay premier room and she upgraded us to one on the 18th floor, which was the highest level they have she said and it had a small balcony so that was very nice. The room is very nice and sit out similar to how they are in the South Pacific with the bed in the middle of the room. There are jack hammers going outside non stop,but you could hardly hear them inside- apparently it has been going on for eight months and there is more to come. Had showers that we desperately needed and into bed after a look out at the beautiful view at night. No hassles really today but just lots of trying to sort things out to find out what we needed to do with the cancelled flights, but got there :-)
Day, 62–9 June
Moving forward 8 hours in time, we are a bit screwed up with sleeping, even though we are really tired was very little sleep yesterday, but we both woke at 1:30a.m, then got back to sleep and woke about 8 am. We are both feeling very jetlagged today – coming back this way is always so much harder on your body than when you’re flying to Europe. We had showers and took our time, then down to breakfast which takes up half of an entire floor, and they have the most incredible array of food you could think of and all these food stations with different foods from around the world. You can have everything from cereal to roast duck and dumplings if you want! It was really busy so we got a table out on the quieter edge and just took our time.
We decided to just walk and explore today, so we went over to Suntec city as I was looking to get my nails done, given I have kept them going for 7 weeks and replaced in the tips myself, so they were pretty tatty with all the travel and carrying suitcases. We found one that could fit me in so got that done although they don’t do SNS here only gel nails, so it was my first time trying those and they look quite good. She was very careful and like everything here - it is impeccably clean everywhere. We went to walk in the door and she said ‘ooh don’t work on the floor’ politely! And proceeded to give us these big rubber slip ons that looked like bears feet!
Anyway, she did my nails, and then we wandered around again – getting lost, But got there in the end. We went back and just mooched around in the room and cooled down a little – it is 32° here and the humidity is really high, so you just walk, very slow, but it’s a very different type of heat to Europe, far more muggy. We missed lunch today since breakfast was so big and decided to walk over to Gardens by the Bay and grab something to eat there. I stopped and asked at an information booth, and like everywhere here – they were incredibly helpful. We were directed down to a food hall – massive, massive place with so many people! You had to just go with it – lots and lots of chinese and thai food, so we got some fried rice and Graeme looked around for a while until someone had a couple of seats free at a table – there is no such thing as having a table to yourself here as it is packed with a capital P! Luckily an older lady was very kind and let us sit down, even though she had two teenage boys with her. The food was really nice, and then we wandered outside and walked down the promenade. It feels so much like Melbourne’s Southbank area. It feels very safe and again extremely clean.
As we wandered along, the sun was starting to come down, and then all of a sudden a huge plane with some fighter planes supporting it went overhead, then another set a fighter planes and a chinook helicopter and another couple of small helicopters and then another set of fighter planes doing like dog fight practice. Then we turned around and look at the river beside us and there are a whole lot of army boats with machine guns on them. I am like ‘I hope we are not being invaded’!! All I could think I was the movie tomorrow when the war began, which is about the Chinese invading in taking over the Australia. It was pretty cool to see though and we knew that there is a military base nearby, so obviously they were practising. A taxi driver later, told us that the military are practising for their national day. The Grand Prix is going to be here very soon so there are lots of closed off roads and things going on, with the army guarding area so people don’t cross where they’re not supposed to.
We got to Gardens by the bay after going on the MRT train – it is much easier now, as you can just tap your Visa card rather than having to get a paper ticket with the correct amount of money and we knew the light show was at 7:45 pm. We were there half an hour before so decided we would not go into the domes tonight, rather just wander around like everybody else and wait for the show. There are so many families there, and everyone just stopped and sat on the ground, waiting while the huge trees they have there which had lights on the,. Then they started the show which is pulsing light to different music like Harry Potter, Indiana Jones and Bonanza! It was really good and enjoyable, especially with all the kids loving it. We decided to walk the whole way back to the Pan-Pacific hotel, but stopped and watched fireworks going off on the helix bridge, which was pretty good as well. Very sore feet – we have walked more than 17,000 steps in jandals today, so I think I am wearing myself a new blister on the sole of my foot. Showers and into bed – it is such a nice quality bed to after some of them we have slept on! And it is a king size, not singles pushed together – yay :-)
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