And They're Off...To Italy That Is

As I've mentioned, Rachel and I started our travels off in Italy. More specifically, we flew into Pisa, home of the leaning tower. Here, we encountered our first of many obstacles/adventures. You see, we were staying in Florence, which is about a 2 hour bus ride away--significant enough that we would not be returning to Pisa. But seriously, how can one go to Pisa and not see the leaning tower. So we collected our bags (and by we I mean me, since Rachel was still hobbling around on the crutch) and hopped on the city bus. After missing our stop once and riding all through the city, we got off at a close-enough stop. Picture the following scenario: Rachel is on her one crutch, I have my backpack and am pulling our 2 suitcases. The sidewalks in Italy are only wide enough for half a person. We cross under some bridge and fight our way through all the vendors into the square with the tower.

By the time we arrived the sun was setting, and the tower really did look beautiful against the horizon. We took the obligatory "holding up the tower" pictures. As you can see, these were taken from a distance, and we lined ourselves up to make it look like we were pushing against the tower. After setting up to take the shot, I understood why an Asian woman had been in the exact same pose moments before. (She was not in fact doing tai-chi as I had originally thought.)




Besides the tower and the church standing next to it, there isn't mush to see in Pisa. So, after our photos, we picked everything back up, hopped on the bus and went back to the airport. From there we hopped on a bus to Florence.

It didn't really occur to me until we were on the bus that I had no idea where we going in Florence. Fortunately, Rachel had the hostel reservation and it came with directions. But guess what, when you don't know how Italian and the street signs are scarce, they're only so helpful. Miraculously, we found it, only to get upstairs and find out it was full. The owner(?) led us to another hostel, and even helped carry our bags. As it turned out, the hostel we ended up in looked better than the one we had reserved. It was actually quite nice. We had our own room. There were two (clean!) bathrooms, a kitchen, and free internet. Also, the location was great, just a few minutes walk to the Academia. That night,we basically got in and crashed so we could get an early start the next morning.

Sunday we headed out bright and early. The plan was to find breakfast first. (I am very cranky if no one feeds me in the morning.) To my dismay, we happenned upon the Galleria dell'Accademia before coming across a cafe. It turned out for the best though, as we only waited in line for about 15 minutes. I hear the wait can be over an hour later in the day. We saw quite a collection of paintings and sculptures, culminating in Michelangelo's David. The scale is absoultely amazing. I don't know much (read: anything) about art, but this was spectacular. Pictures aren't allowed inside, but we did get some of the replica that now stands in the Palazzo della Signoria.

In fact, we were on our way to the Santa Croce when we noticed a large sculpture down the street in the opposite direction. Rachel and I looked at each other, said "That looks cool," and wandered over. Turns out, we had wandered into the Palazzo della Signoria. We saw the David statue, as well as Neptune, and several others. After taking some pictures outisde, we got back on track and headed over to the Santa Croce. It's a beautiful Gothic church. Being Sunday, it unfortunately wasn't open. I wish we had gotten to go inside. It wasn't a huge loss though, as there was lots more to see. Next, we wanted to go to Uffizi. When we pulled out the map, we realized that it was in the Palazzo della Signoria, where we had just been. Laughing at our stupidity, we walked back to the palazzo. In the end we didn't go in Uffizi, but the museum next door as the line was much shorter. Neither Rachel nor I know much about art, so we had pretty much had our fill of art museums after that.

Here's the Santa Maria del Fiore, known as The Duomo. You can't see the dome from this angle, but it's the best-known cathedral in the city.

This is the statue of Neptune in the Palazzo della Signoria. I was going to show you the David, but Rachel has all those pictures. I only have one from behind. I mena, its still a nice view, but I'll wait for a normal picture.

That's the front of the Basilica of Santa Croce. Unfortunately the light wasn't great, but as you can see, the building is still spectacular. Wish we could have gone inside.

I'll be honest, I don't excatly remember where this was take. i do know that it's a picture of a ceiling. It could be a ceiling in the museum we visited. In fact, that's quite likely. We'll go with that for now. If I figure it out for sure, I'll update with accurate information. :)

By the time we'd seen all this, we were starving again. (I really am like a small child, always complaining that I was either hungry or that I had to go the bathroom.) We ended up finding a sidewalk cafe in the middle of a plaza where we had delicious pizza and listened to a woman singing opera. I could really get used to this.

Exhausted from our day of travel the day before and walking around all morning, we went back to the hostel for a quick nap. It turned into more of a two hour nap, so we woke up in time for dinner. We went out to find a restaurant, which ended up taking about an hour, maybe more. (This ended up being the norm. We spent a large portion of every day looking for places to eat.) After walking all the way down to the river, along the bank, and back towards the center of the city, we found a nice little place. It was quite small, but the food was great. Fresh bread, spaghetti with tomato sauce, and a bottle of wine. On the way back to the hostel, we stopped for gelato. (I think gelato is heaven, an pretty much demanded that we have it daily.) Really, I could eat like this every day.

On Monday, it was time to catch our train to Rome. We had to check out by 10, but our train wasn't until 12:20, so we packed our bags and went looking for a cafe. We were lucky to find one right by the station. We had time to kill, so we had breakfast--muffins, oranges, and cappuccinos. And yes, we enjoyed feeling quite European drinking our cappuccinos in a cafe in Florence. Then, being the responsible people we are, Rachel and I went to the station a full hour before our train was to depart. We stood watching the screen, waiting for it to come up. Waiting....11:40, 12:00, 12:20. Yea, it was a 12:20 train, but there was still no sign of it. Off we went to information, where I spoke to an Italian guy whose English was terrible. He told us we missed the train. Not possible I said. It never came. Well, that's because we were at the wrong train station. Ha! In that case, perhaps we did miss it. Who knew there were two train stations in Florence? Not us. In our defense, the station we were supposed to go to isn't even on the map, and the Italian train system is not exactly straightforward. In the end, we took a train from the central station to the one we were supposed to leave from, and caught the next train to Rome. other than gettin to Rome a few hours later than planned, it all worked out.

So that was Pisa and Florence. Stay tuned for the rest of the trip. Next up: Rome!