A Day in Florence

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

This was a pretty full day on our Italy trip. We got up just after 6 in the morning to make sure that we were packed, checked out of the hotel, and waiting for the Vaporetto by just after 7, since we estimated the boat from the Lido to the train station would take an hour, or a little more, and we thought we'd be boarding the train by 8:30. It turned out that we had plenty of time, and ended up waiting in the (freezing cold) Venice train station for about half an hour. We finally got a platform for our train and boarded.

The train ride itself was pretty uneventful, although the train was definitely the fanciest train I've been on. We even got assigned seats. It did a couple stops on the way out of Venice, and then, from there, travelled to Florence (its final destination was Rome). There were definitely some fields that we saw that were covered with, if not snow, then very thick frost. This time, Nick fell asleep on the train.



We eventually got to Florence just after 11, and took our luggage to the storage place in the train station. We ended up paying about 10 euros for three of our bags to be stored for the day. Then we meandered out.

We had a tiny guidebook listing about 25 cool sites in Venice, and so we wandered around trying to see as many as we could. We started by walking towards the Arno river and the Ponte Vecchio, a wide bridge with shops that crosses the river. (Well, actually we started with Nick navigating us into a bus terminal while speaking of his orienteering expertice, but then we turned around, fixed ourselves, and headed towards the Arno.) We wandered along to look at it all, and also took a look at the bridge. Most of the shops crossing it now are jewelry and watch shops.













Also, in one of the pictures above of the Ponte Vecchio up close, you can see an architectural feature that Nick and I were wondering about for a lot of our trip. The bridge, along with a lot of other buildings we saw while we were in Venice, had a lot of metal pieces on the outside that kind of looked like some sort of giant screw that would hold a beam in place. Nick said that those were sometimes used in building, but then normally covered up rather than left on the outside of a building -- but in Italy, they were all over the outsides of old buildings. Does anyone know anything about these? Just curious.

From there, we wandered over to the outside of the Uffizi and the Piazza della Signoria, and took some more photos, particularly of the Loggia dei Lanzi, an outside, open sculpture museum.









At this point, Nick and I were pretty hungry, but we didn't want to eat in the Piazza della Signoria because we knew that it was illegal to eat in St. Mark's Square back in Venice, so we decided to continue on until we found a good place to sit. Eventually we found a square with a Christmas market in front of a church (the Basilica of Santa Croce), and decided to eat on a bench there.



While we were eating, a group of American girls came up to the candy booth right behind us, and got very excited. It sold a LOT of really good-looking candy, and they made quite a production out of getting a lot of it. Meanwhile, I managed to refrain, but barely.

After lunch, we continued along, seeing a few minor churches that made it into the "top 25 sites," but nothing too interesting until we came to the Duomo, the cathedral church in Florence. This was pretty cool, and had very interesting white, green, and pink marble tiles covering the outside. So for a while, Nick and I just took pictures of the church itself, as well as its Campanile.





Then Nick and I decided to pay the 6 euros each so that we could go to the top of the Campanile and take a look at all of surrounding Florence. Of course, we later figured out that we could have also paid 6 euros to go inside the Duomo itself, which would have let us see all the cool stuff inside of it AND go up to its dome, which would have also given us a view around Florence, but whatever. We still had fun in the Campanile. My one complaint was that everywhere it was advertised that the Campanile had 412 steps and no elevator, but I counted on both the way up and the way down, and there were definitely only 411. We had a good time, though, looking around at various landings in the bell tower and getting various views of the city. I was a little nervous at the top remember what had happened to the Campanile in St. Mark's in 1902, but it was okay. Nick and I also managed to see a lot of the sights that we had seen from the ground earlier in the day.





















After finishing the Campanile, Nick and I wandered around the front of the Campanile and the Duomo, and also saw the outside of the Baptistry, made of the same white and green marble tiles found in the cathedral and including the gold doors dubbed by Michaelangelo the "Gates of Paradise."









From there, we wandered over to the Piazza della Santissima Annunziata, which included the Ospedale degli Innocenti, a historic orphanage of Florence. The part I liked best was the carved designs of swaddled babies above the arches of the building.



From there, we started making our way generally back to the train station, but also saw a few more sights, including San Gaetano, the Basilica of San Lorenzo, and the Piazza della Repubblica.









Also, near the train station, we took a second look at the outside of the Santa Maria Novella that we had passed earlier in the day.



We arrive at the train station at about 3:55 for our 4:25 train. We successfully collect the luggage and head over toward the track that we think the train might come in on to wait for it to show up on the board. Unfortunately, by 4:10, our train is listed as delayed -- and we are freezing in the open train station. We notice the "waiting rooms," but Nick claims you typically have to pay to be able to sit in those, which he claims are like airline lounges. But we go over to investigate anyways, and it turns out they are totally free -- and really warm. Perfect. Our train continues to be delayed (it doesn't arrive in Florence until about 5), but I don't particularly mind.

We get on the train, and unfortunately have seats diagonal from each other rather than directly across from each other. An American girl hears me talking, so I discuss with her for a bit; turns out she's from Concord High School in NH and is spending a semester in Italy. Nick falls asleep. I do texting with Gianpaolo, the owner of the bed and breakfast we're going to be staying at in Rome, to arrange our final arrival time.

We finally make it into the giant Termini train station in Rome about an hour and a half later. From there, we get right onto the subway and hop off about four stops later in the neighborhood of our house. We are pleased to discover that it is definitely significantly warmer (about 20 degrees Fahrenheit difference) than it had been in Venice and Florence. We find the apartment we're headed for eventually, with just a little bit of wandering (I know we're in the right vicinity, though, because of my pre-trip research on Google Street View). It's up on the 8th floor, and Nick decides the tiny Euro-elevator is broken. He helps me carry all three of our suitcases up the 8-or-so flights of stairs. Gianpaolo's friend meets us, and the room is quite nice. We also discover that the elevator wasn't broken, it's just that Nick had to close the door for it to work (duh).

Gianpaolo's friend recommends some places to eat, but they all involve both subway and buses to get to, so we just wander around the mainly residential neighborhood we seem to be in, and find a take-out pizza place. I get a pizza with potatoes on it (that I initially thought were cheese...). I've actually had really good pizza-with-potatoes at Jupiter in Berkeley, but this one was decidedly not great. That's okay, though. We also stopped at a grocery store before eating to get food (and beer for Nick), but as soon as we get back to the room Nick has a beer explosion -- somehow the bottle gets bumped by the other groceries and there's an oopsies. Oh well (he managed to get replacement beer later on in the trip).

Overall, it was a pretty good day. Here are some of the places we saw in Florence on the map:


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