Up early at Hotel Martello. We were out of the room at 0645 for the train station. Left 2 postcards in the room and a note for our hostess to please put them in the mail at her convenience - left 4Euro for her to put towards the postage and her effort.
No issues with our stroll to the station. Had some croissants (brioches in Italian) for breakfast and a double espresso for me at the Express Cafe. Boarded the 9403 train and departed on the 2hr trip at 0739 - on time. Our train pulled into and stopped briefly at Bologna Centrale before continuing on to Florence. We were surprised at how much of the trip between Bologna and Florence was through tunnels in mountains. Felt like we were in tunnels for most of the trip.
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| Hotel Esther |
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| #7 Luna Rossa? |
Arrived at Florence's SMN station around ~0930 and, having written down the directions to our new sleep over, Luna Rossa, headed out confidently to Via Nazionale, #7 - only 500meters from the station. Found what appeared to be a deserted, locked up hostel as directed only to find signs posted saying to check-in across the street at the Hotel Esther on the 2nd floor. Found that, went upstairs, - they were expecting us - and met the folks manning the check-in desk. They were not ready for us so, they let us drop off our backpacks in another room for holding, gave us a map of significant landmarks and, sent us on our way. We were told they would be ready for us when we got back, whenever that was. :-)
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| Baptistry |
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| Enroute Piazza Duomo |
So, like good tourists, we broke out the map and headed out at ~1015. First destination: the Piazza Duomo, the religious center of Florence. Turns out that there are 3 fairly gigantic buildings in the Piazza with 4 parts. The baptistry, quite the large 8-sided building; Grotto's Bell Tower, a tall thin structure scaling up ~85meters; the enormous Cathedral, and the 4th part; the Dome of Brunelleschi that sits on top of the Cathedral towering up 107meters. The buildings together give this area of Florence a distinctive skyline - which one cannot grasp or appreciate at ground level.
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| Grotto's Bell Tower |
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| Nearly there.... |
We spent quite a bit of time just walking around the massive complex people watching and taking photos of many aspects of the architecture on display. There was a very long line of tourists/visitors queued up to get into the Cathedral, a line that wrapped 1/2 way around the building. Those folks were in line to enter the Cathedral to observe her ornate wonders and vaulted ceilings for 15Euros/person. Conor and I decided to pass on burning a lot of time standing in line and continued to walk around and to the left of where this line was entering the building.
As we were nearing the end of the long line waiting to get in the Cathedral, I noticed a separate opening in the side of the Cathedral that appeared to be open but seldom entered. Hmm, what could this be? Our curiosities were peaked. There wasn't anything particularly special about this entrance - apart from it's lack of attention by the throngs. The entrance was marked 'ingresso cupola' (entrance to the dome) - seemed harmless enough and, perhaps, a short cut into the Cathedral. :-) So, we boldly cut through the other line of visitors and strode confidently into this portal to the unknown... 5 steps in, take a left and there's a ticket stand in front of us with the rest of the Cathedral cordoned off!
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| What's this lead to? |
It was now apparent to both of us what this line allowed you to do for 8Euros/person: climb the 463 steps up to the top of the Duomo's Dome! My feet started tingling immediately and with Conor unable to stop laughing at my discomfiture and a few people already queued up behind us to get in, I felt compelled to fork out the Euros and give it a go!!! :-(
A side note: Many of you know my background - I had nearly 15yrs of service to our country flying for the Navy up into the deep blue skies - loved it! However, for some reason, put me on a building high off the ground on some viewing area (aka: a ledge!) and I'm way uncomfortable and would prefer not to be put in those situations - avoid them if I can. 'Course, I'm immature enough to be dared to do things and, depending on the circumstance, will give anything a shot not to 'lose face'. Doesn't stop my innards from churning and my feet from tingling like crazy though!
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| A short rest during the climb |
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| Steepest near the top |
463 steps... all for the small price of 8Euros! What the heck were the Italian monks thinking? About half way up and many colorful exclamations later, I was convinced the Italian monks should have been paying us to go up - yes, I know, I could have just not gone, chickened out, etc., but, that really wasn't an option for me, now was it?
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| On the windowed ledge inside the dome |
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| Looking down. The ants! |
Having said that, there were some pretty cool views of the inside of the Cathedral to be had particularly at the level in the dome where you're actually circumnavigating 3/4 of the inside of the dome looking down at the ant-sized people in the Cathedral - breath taking and feet tingling.
You couldn't really pause for long because there was always someone behind you following. For some reason, Conor was quite amused all the way up. Only needed 1 breather at the first landing we came to and continued. The higher we climbed the narrower the spaces became - I can't imagine anyone with claustrophobia making the attempt. There were several Dads with babies strapped to their backs making the ascent - I was stunned. A good part of the last third of the trip was a 2 way cluster, as those of us going up were colliding with those coming down with very few opportunities to make way. The last 50ft or so up was extremely steep requiring the use of 2 handrails up to the observation level. Everyone was sweating profusely due to the tight confines, lack of moving air and, at least in my case, the mere thought of making the climb.
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| Artsy B&W inside Cathedral |
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| On top of Florence |
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| What a view! |
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| My feet are tingling!! |
The descent was fairly non-eventful apart from having to squeeze by visitors going up while we were going down. Both Conor and I enjoyed conversing with the folks coming up as we were going down encouraging them to continue and how close they were to the top sweating all the way. The closer I got to the ground the better I felt until we finely popped out and, I nearly fell on my face tripping on one of the last steps - now that would have been noteworthy!
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| Post-climb, on to lunch |
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| Entrance to Piazza Della Republica |
All-in-all, I'm glad to have that item checked off my bucket list! Man did I need a beer and quart of acqua! By the time we got down, it was about 1130 and we started looking for a place for our major meal of the day. Continued walking south away from the Duomo. Crossing 1 street I looked right and noticed a large arched building and we turned right and headed that way. We had entered the Piazza Della Republica - no idea what that was all about but, there was a merry-go-round located within and quite a few restaurants with hawkers vying for everyone's patronage.
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| Inside Piazza Della Republica |
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| Insalade Caprese! |
The restaurant we choose, Guibbe Rosse, didn't appear to be much different than the other potential places to eat but, both Conor and I had to use the restrooms and it's not good form to barge in and run away. :-) So we took 'un tavolo per due' (a table for 2) and spent the next 1 1/2hrs from 1145 - 1315 enjoying the midday meal like a any good 'faux' Italians under the comforting water mist being blown by fans under the awning over the seating area in the piazza.
Started off with a couple of beers and couple of bottles of water non-gas. For our antipasta, both Conor and I had the insalade caprese, mozzarella and tomato salad. I've had my fair share of this dish but, I gotta say this was the tastiest one I've ever had - it was delicious! Conor followed that with his standard, pizza margherita. I had a veggie soup bowl and roast beef and potatoes, Italian style - yum! We really enjoyed lunch.
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| The Biancone |
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| Piazza Della Signoria |
After lunch we continued our trek southward towards the River Arno and the Piazza Della Signoria, the civic center of Florentine life. This particular plaza is dominated by the Palazzo della Signoria and has a lot of huge statues all about including the Biancone, by Ammannati, a replica of Michelangelo's David and, Cellini's Perseus holding up Medusa's severed head. You could spend a whole day just in this Piazza.
From there we traversed through the Palazzo Degli Uffizi, a long, high vaulted structure that eventually opens up to the River Arno. Housed within this structure are large statues set into niches of the most famous Tuscan personalities such as Michaelangelo and Galileo Galilei - just to name two.
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| Replica of David |
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| Perseus |
The whole point of walking down to the River Arno was to see and walk over the Ponte Vecchio bridge, the most ancient and characteristic bridge in Florence. It makes for quite the site spanning over the river and today houses vendors the entire length of the bridge on both sides. From there we headed to our last site-seeing stop of the afternoon before heading back up to our hostel - the Piazza de' Pitti and Pitti Palace. The structure is ginormous and I couldn't fit the whole thing into my camera frame!
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| Pitti Palace - HUGE |
By this time I was getting quite tired and the blister on my left foot was barking at me so, we decided to head back to the hostel and got there about 4pm. We really got a ton of sight seeing done in the afternoon!
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| Ponte Vecchio Bridge |
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| River Arno |
Went back up into the Hotel Esther, checked in and then got escorted across the street into a completely different building to our room - which was on the 4th floor and takes a minimum of 3 keys to get through to. This particular lodging - not what I expected based on what I booked via HostelWorld.com - is the most secure place we've stayed to date. The elevator up to the 4th floor has the feel and cramped size of the one that's a phone booth in the Harry Potter movies... you should see Conor and I crammed into it. :-)
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| Going up? |
The room has a nice restroom/shower, WIFI, cable TV with flatscreen TV, in-room desktop computer connected to the internet, small fridge and 1 desk to work on - which is where I'm blogging from at the moment. On the not so good side, the twin beds in the room are the worst we've slept on to date - they're just cots with a mattress on top... will let you know in the morning how I slept.
I have more to blog about on this day but, I'm beat and off to sleep. Will pick things up in the morning since we're in no hurry to get to Pisa, including uploading pics.
Buon giorno! It's about 0630. Wasn't a comfortable night in my twin so, got up to finish yesterday's blog. Conor's awake and just chillin'.
Once we got settled in our room, #1 on the 4th floor, we both needed showers to freshen up. While we relaxed, did something we hadn't done so far on the trip - watched the last part of a movie, the 'International' starring Clive Owen and Naomi Watts - was OK not great. We didn't really siesta just relaxed. Still wanted to get to the the Gallery of the Academy near the Piazza San Marco to see Michaelangelo's David. Checked museum times and found out that the Gallery closed at 1850 - an odd time. We hurried up and headed out at 1745 for the 10min walk.
The Gallery was not packed at all so close to closing and we got in quickly. You do have to go through a metal detector prior to queuing up for tickets. 10Euro/person at the door. The Gallery is quite impressive and only takes as long to see as you'd like. Conor's been in it before - about 6yrs ago on a excursion set up by his high school - and claims to have been allowed to take as many pictures as you'd like. No longer allowed. Michaelangelo's David is quite impressive standing over 4meters tall! If you want to take away any memories of your visit - besides what you remember, you need to visit the gift shop. :-)
That was our day and what a day. We've tried to cram as much sight seeing over the past 2 days as we can and done a pretty good job of it. For dinner before calling it a day, we both bought some fresh cut fruit and gelato.
Ciao for now and on to Pisa - the last stop on this adventure.
1 comments:
You guys are non-stop! But it sounds like you are having a blast on the father/son eurotrip. :-) Thanks for sharing all the stories.
Hope you get to sleep in one of these days, lol. See you Monday!!
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