A Crash Course in ...Italy?
Rome: Day 3
Well... really Florence... but who’s counting.
We woke at 6:30 to shower, grab breakfast, walk to the metro, and get to the Roma Termini. Breakfast was salami, a donut, and yogurt.
Our train was set to leave from Rome at 8:30. But we missed that train because we couldn’t find the right platform and the big board was of no help.
But in Italy, it’s no problem when you miss your train. You just go to the counter, and they exchange your tickets for free. Too bad the American airline industry doesn’t work the same way. So we caught the 9:00 high speed train to Florence.
An hour and a half later we were arriving, having rode thru some incredible countryside. One notable thing about the train was the tunnels. As the train is moving so much air, and squeezing it thru the small tunnel, the air pressure changes. My ears popped more on the train than on any airplane flight I have ever taken.
We de-trained (is that a word) and headed for the information desk. I purchased an English map of Florence for 1 Euro.
There were two things that we needed to do in Florence: see the Santa Maria del Fiore, and The David by Michelangelo. We started with the Dome and the Santa Maria del Fiore.
What a magnificent church. Like St. Peter’s gave me chills, so too did the Santa Maria del Fiore. We climbed the 463 steps to Michelangelo’s lighthouse at the top where we had had a panoramic view of Florence. This building was the reason I had to come to Florence, so it was an extremely fulfilling and satisfying experience for me.
Florence has a much more “Prague-like” feel to it, so it was like being home, but with different buildings.
We wound our way down the 463 steps to have lunch at the Cafe Duomo. More Italian wine, and Pizza for me. Mom would have appreciated this red wine... It was served to me chilled. Anyone who know my mother knows that she puts ice in her red wine. I cringe every time.
After lunch we found our way to the museum that houses the David. And without being grossly descriptive he is very... large. In every sense of the idea. Namely that he is a marble sculpture that looks over 20 feet tall. The detail that was put into the work is amazing. Even the veins in his arms and the sculpting of his legs are true-to-life.
Jess and I sat behind him and marveled at the quality of the workmanship before we decided we had seen enough ass for one day, and headed out.
We went back to the Plaza Duomo and I climbed Giotto’s Bell Tower to get some better pictures of the Santa Maria Del Fiore. That was 414 steps up.
So by the end of the day I had walked up 877 steps to see Florence, and 877 steps down. If you combine them its 1,754 steps.
It’s a a lot more challenging than it sounds. At least I worked out my quads.
Jess and I then walked around the souvenir shops right on the street. I picked up a red tie for 5 euro. Don’t really care if it’s real Italian silk, but I loved the color.
We then did the most stereotypical thing we could think to do in Italy. Sit, look at the architecture, and have wine and cheese.
So we did.
After wine and cheese we headed off to the train station, making a pit stop along the way so I could have gelato from one of the street vendors. Yum.
We waited in line to change our tickets, when we reached the man behind the glass he informed us, “There has been an incident in Bologna.” He scurried into another room telling us to wait a few minutes. He returned and put us on the 7:30 rather than the 8:45. We waited the 25 minutes, boarded the train and headed back to Rome.
Jokingly we wondered what happened in Bologna. Did Oscar Mayer and Boar’s Head have a fight? Was there Bologna spread across the tracks?
All bad jokes I know. But we still made it home in an hour forty-five, as the train had to avoid the so called “incident.”
Exhausted from the long day, we walked thru the dark streets of Rome, not illuminated by any street lights until we found a restaurant to have a late dinner. I stuck with the bowl of soup. Jess had a Pizza.
We went back to the hotel and went to bed.
I do feel it’s important to mention something else here.
Rome Leaks.
Seriously. Everything leaks. The ceilings under the train terminals, the hotel, the umbrellas, they all leak. And more often than not they leak right onto high voltage lines.
Go figure.