GEA Part 4: Florence

Ah, my dear reader, it seems we've come to the last leg of my Grand European Adventure. Part 4 has arrived, and our journey from Rome took us to Florence next. But let's not jump right away into that lovely city because I have one heck of a crazy story before that.

I've been telling you all about these exciting places I've visited, but haven't focused much on how I got from one to the other. Mostly I skipped that stuff because it's boring. This, however, is a bit more amusing.

We arrived at the massive train station in Rome. We went to a teller, but the machine told us we didn't need tickets, that our confirmation number was enough. Then we found our train on a board and sat down to wait. That's when when I randomly bumped into a guy I knew from St. John's. He then informed us that the board we were looking at was the Arrivals board. Sometimes I, too, wonder how I got into Cambridge. We then found the Departures board and waited for our platform number to show up. Now, this train station is huge. And we had no idea if our train was directly in front of us, or two miles on the opposite side of the station. Thankfully our train was close-by and we got to our platform. Unfortunately, a snotty little Italian boy was also close-by. I had been warned about kids like him who want to do you favors and then demand money. So when he offered to carry my bag onto the train, I refused and brushed past him. C and A didn't manage to save their bags from his grasp. Despite their loud protests, he snatched the bags from them and hauled them onboard. And then he had the audacity to rub his fingers together, asking for cash. Ha! I think not! I told him we had no cash on us (actually the truth) and when he didn't buy it I politely told him we hadn't asked for his services anyway and if he was smart he'd kindly leave. I'm not a mean person at all, but situations like this drive me up the wall. 

We settled into our trip in a lovely private carriage complete with air conditioning. THAT didn't last long. Shortly into our journey the lights flickered on and off and the air conditioning went kaput. We also realized we were making quite a few stops. The ride was supposed to be a little over an hour long, and didn't take us much longer than that to realize something wasn't quite right. One hour passed. Two hours. No maps. No conductors came by. Three hours. No air conditioning. No windows that would open. Finally a conductor came by asking for tickets. Of course, as the teller told us, we only had our number. The man did not seem pleased about this and started jabbering at us in Italian. When we told him we don't speak Italian, he just huffed and left us. Okay... Then the lights went off in the whole carriage. And then we went into a tunnel. That lasted a good five minutes. That might not seem a long time to you, but think about it. A tunnel. For FIVE MINUTES. In complete, utter darkness. I just thought to myself, we HAVE GOT to be in the Twilight Zone or something. Where on earth are we going? We didn't even know if we were heading the right direction! 

Somehow, SOMEHOW, four hours later we arrived in Florence, pissed off, hot, freaked out. And we found out that we had taken a local train that made stops in about 30 different small towns. This local train left about 4 minutes before the train we were SUPPOSED to get on that would have gotten us to Florence in less than 2 hours. We were so fed up with transportation that we got a cab instead of walking and went on the most terrifying cab ride of our lives. Our cab driver seemed to like going 70mph down really narrow, windy Italian streets. Oh dear. We survived, though, and managed to get to our hotel, despite the fact that we had to go up one incredibly small elevator and through three sets of locked doors to get into our room. We were greeted by two small beds and quite a few paintings of naked women. Oh, whatever. We immediately destroyed the room by throwing our stuff everywhere, and collapsed on the bed, exhausted.

We decided that despite how much our bones ached and our brains hurt, we were only in Florence a short time and needed to get out and about. We left our hotel and wandered the nearby streets. We were in a super cute district, right on the river. The bridge was full of fancy jewelry shops, and the streets were packed with tourist shops, little stalls selling trinkets, and the like. Of course, we had to welcome ourselves into the city with some gelato. After that we went to a small market and did a bit of shopping amongst the stands selling leather purses, masks, bracelets, and scarves. We also ran into a random boar statue. "Let's touch it!" A said. "It's lucky!" Not quite sure about that, but it was becoming A's catchphrase for the trip ("Look at this door, it's famous!" was probably the culminating quote of our whole adventure). 

Since we got to Florence later than expected, it wasn't long before we were starving. We decided to have dinner at Quattro Leoni, a restaurant highly recommended by two friends. We were not disappointed. We ordered a delicious bottle of white wine that was served to us in massive wine glasses. I felt very fancy and bit crazy. We had lovely, simple food that really tasted homemade. It hit the spot. After the stress of the day, the heat of Rome, and the general exhaustion from our travels, it was really nice just sitting outside of a little restaurant in Florence, eating good food with good friends.

Post-dinner we wandered back up the bridge and tried taking some nice group shots by the sunset. However, it was incredibly windy and the sunlight made terrible streaks on our faces. Thanks, nature, ruining another picture. But we made up for it by buying our first authentic Italian cannoli. I don't want to brag or anything, but I definitely think the ones my family makes are better. Just sayin'. The sugar rush kind of woke us up, though, and I convinced A to climb on top of the wardrobe (this is not unlike the time in Edinburgh I fed A a lot of gummy candy and convinced her to climb out of the skylight...I see a trend here...). Then I had to help her down. We're easily amused.

Then, because we were really on a roll of acting like weirdos, we wandered around our hotel taking fabulous photos of ourselves being fabulous.

Being so utterly fabulous really exhausted us, so we went to bed. The next morning we enjoyed a hearty continental breakfast before going out to explore the city. The first major sight we saw was the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, also known as the Duomo. It's located in the middle of a huge piazza, and it's absolutely stunning. The colors, coral and mint green, really emphasized Florence's sun and water motif. The statues were exquisite; it really blows my mind that someone could carve something so detailed and perfect, and on such a huge scale. It was here we saw A's "famous" door. How exciting! We also got to see the statue of Dante Alighieri located in the Piazza di Santa Croce. I think he and I could have been amazing friends since we both like to pose epically with eagles.

Our main objective for the day was going to see Michelangelo's David in the Accademia Gallery. Originally the statue was located outside the Palazzo della Signoria, but now a replica is there. We waited in what seemed to be a short line for a million years in the sweltering sun. Turns out they only let a certain amount of people in the gallery at a time to keep it from getting congested. Good idea, I suppose, but not fun when you have to wait outside. Still, it was worth it. David is quite an impressive statue, situated in the middle of the main room with a huge domed ceiling looming over him. You wander through some smaller galleries first, then BAM!, you walk into a huge, open room and there he is. Not a bad entrance, Davey. Unfortunately photography isn't allowed, and after being chastised in the Sistene Chapel, I didn't sneak a photo. Instead I got a picture of the fake, colorful David.

I probably don't need to tell you, but Florence is an incredibly gorgeous city. It's clean, it's cozy, it's calm. The hectic pace and grunginess Rome exuded was absent here. We wandered down lovely side streets and admired the stone buildings. We explored huge plazas and the extraordinary amount of statues they had on display (I even got a photo of the replica of the Rape of the Sabine Women). And though it was warm outside, like in Rome, it wasn't humid, and the sunshine felt marvelous.

For our last night in Italy, we wanted something really delicious for dinner. We considered going to the Quattro Leoni again, but felt we should try something different. Thanks to Google Search, we brought up a list of the best pizza places in Florence, and we chose one: Gusto Pizza. The shop was small and packed; that seemed to be a good sign. We each ordered our own pizza and went to sit outside of the Pitti Palace to eat. Oh. My. Goodness. Yes. Google does not lie. That pizza was incredible. Fresh. Warm. Gooey. Simply divine. I scarfed down the entire thing, and so did C and A. 

We were so thrilled with our find that we celebrated the rest of the night with a bottle of delicious champagne and a few rounds of Scopa. The champagne was fun even before we drank any of it. I volunteered to be the one to open it since I had opened bottles before, and knew it took a bit of wiggling and working to get the cork out. We joked about not aiming at people or breakables, but when I just barely touched the cork, POP!, it came flying out and went straight for the mirror. We all screamed bloody murder. I think I may have stumbled backwards into the bed. That is, before I booked it to the bathroom because champagne was spilling everywhere. Can't you tell I'm an expert at these things?

The next morning was the day we were set to leave Italy and head back to jolly ol' England. We didn't have anything much planned, so we wandered the city one last time and took in the sights. We certainly did not have enough time in Florence. It was so peaceful and beautiful, I know none of us wanted to leave. 

And then, as soon as we arrived, we left. Another (thankfully shorter) train, a plane ride, and back to England. Though we were sad to go, it had been a grand adventure, all right. Florence was the icing on the cake.