European Escapade 2: Florence - the Mosquito Capital of the West!

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OK - here I go again. This suddenly seems like much harder work than I had anticipated. By now you will all know that we have lost our digital camera with most images from our trip away to Europe. Unfortunately there was more bad luck to come - while I was away in Russia, Vaughan decided to reformat the computer, which didn’t go exactly as planned, & he ended up wiping the entire thing, including unrecoverable files & other important stuff. This also affected the travel blog I had written about our trip, which I had completed in anticipation of sorting out our photos in the near future. So not only did we lose our digital camera & all computer files, but also the 20 hours worth of work I had put into the travel site! And so here I am again, still enthusiastic to tell you about our trip, but a little lethargic in writing it. I will include links to some websites about the places we have been, so perhaps you can all look at some extra pictures from the Net instead, if you like. Hopefully you can keep up with me just as much as usual, although I am sorry for the delay in pretty much everything at the moment……


Florence, Italy: July 31st - August 2nd

Day 5 - Today we took our time getting up & tried to work out what we would do with our day. Vaughan has sussed out that we were leaving around 3pm so we had a bit of time. Randomly I decided to check the specific train departure on our itinerary, only to discover that we actually left at 10:05am - only 6 minutes away!! Luckily we had already packed our bags, so we just rushed downstairs, practically throwing the money for our room at the lady behind reception, & raced off towards the station. Luckily it was quite close to where we were staying, but it was pretty hard-core with a big pack on - it felt like we were in the Amazing Race! We made it with seconds to spare but then realised that we had to get to the right platform, as well as the correct carriage (pre-allocated seating). We still made it & were soon on our way - what madness! We made it to Milan to switch trains, only to find that the people allocating our tickets hadn’t actually given us enough time to make our second train (I have since gained a refund for this stupidity - yay!). After sorting all of this out we eventually made it to Florence, only about an hour later than expected.

The trip was fantastic - the Italian countryside was a lot different than the French countryside. Italy had the same huge fields of sunflowers & wheat products, but also seemed to have a lot of garden herbs, which looked awesome! There were also heaps of olive groves, especially on the way to Florence, which is in a famous olive growing area called Tuscany. There seemed to be a lot of hilly farming land, & we went through a lot of tunnels. My favourite thing though was all the huge old farmhouses, looking dilapidated, just plonked in the middle of the land. They weren’t usually surrounded by anything else, except perhaps a barn & a few other out-buildings that were part of the same property. Even though some of these old places were totally run down & falling apart, I thought they added some amazing charm & a sense of history to the landscape, & it was interesting to imagine what they must have looked like back in their day.

When we arrived in Florence (which is about the same size as Christchurch), we made it to where we were staying, which was just a small B&B-type place, run by a guy who hardly spoke any English, & didn’t actually live on the premises - it was a bit weird. Florence was incredibly hot (about 40°C), but it was OK having a wander around in the evening - we went into the town centre after dark & it was much smaller than I had imagined & very easy to get around. We had a walk past the main cathedral, which was MASSIVE - the dome on top was amazing, & the cathedral itself was made of different coloured marbles. Quite impressive! From there we walked towards the river & saw some great places to eat on the way. The lights looked awesome on the water too. One of the bridges has wee buildings/shacks along both sides of it - it used to be filled with butcheries, but over time, these buildings were changed to silver & goldsmiths in an attempt to alter the town’s image. They looked really incredible, although were mostly closed at that time of night. We kept walking & made it to a restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet Guide Book, which served local food & had some outdoor tables. We had to wait a while to get a seat, but that’s good in a way as at least you know the food is good. No one in Italy eats much before 9pm so it wasn’t an issue anyway. The food was amazing - Vaughan had a big pizza & I had some pasta - & we washed it down with some ridiculously cheap wine. It was so nice to have good local food, especially since we both love Italian so much - really enjoyable! We eventually ventured back to where we were staying - it was still so hot, but we had ended up having a great day!

Day 6 - Today we were still in Florence. We had decided to go down to the main cathedral (Duomo) & have a look inside it. On the way we got these yummy paninis for breakfast on the main street, & tested our basics in the Italian language with the shop owner. The cathedral really was just so massive. We waited in a big line for quite a while, but at least it was free to get inside. It was just as amazing inside, with art adorning all the walls, & incredibly detailed stain glass windows. We looked around for a while in there, & I think even Vaughan was quite impressed with the size of the interior as well. From there we wandered around some of the areas we had been to the night before, & bought some knick-knacks. We headed over towards the silver & goldsmiths to see what they were like when they were all open, but it seemed to be the main tourist area of town & the streets were so crammed (especially by large tourist groups) & you couldn’t even walk - it had been so pleasant the night before in comparison. It was horrible & we decided on a different course of action for the afternoon to get away from all the people.

We made it back to the main train station where there was also a bus terminal. We quite enjoyed Florence in general as it was very cultural, but not too big - everything was within walking distance (pretty much), & it had some smaller town charm that a lot of the larger cities were missing. At the bus terminal we caught a bus up to the hills, where there was a large lookout over the city. The Duomo looked amazing from up there, & at the top of the hill there was also a copy of Michelangelo’s ‘David’, looking out over the city & countryside - the real version is also in Florence, down in one of the museums, where there is a 1 ½ wait to see him! After a bit of a look at the view & some photos we jumped back on the bus & went back towards town, then up onto the hills on the other side, to a suburb called Fiesole, where the view to the city was a bit blocked, but you could see all kinds of countryside & olive groves in the back hills - awesome! Unfortunately at this point Vaughan realised that the mosquitoes that had infested our room (& infested all of Florence in fact), had bitten him quite badly, & he remembered that he was allergic to them. His ankles were especially affected & they swelled up out over his socks & went purple - it looked extremely painful & I felt really sorry for him. We went back into town & made it to a chemist to load up on all kinds of repellents & medications, & Vaughan started to feel a bit better. We went out for dinner in the main square, but it was a bit mediocre compared to the night before, so we headed back for Vaughan to rest his legs.

Day 7 - This morning we had a plan to get a local train (for free with our train passes) out to Pisa to see the Leaning Tower, before journeying off to Rome in the afternoon. We made it in time & had about 1 ½ hours to look around Pisa before heading back again. Pisa was much smaller than I had anticipated, & so was the tower!! It was quite short compared to even the buildings next to it (it sits on it’s own but has several other important buildings just a few metres away, which of course you don’t realise when you see postcards of it & stuff). Heaps of people were milling around & getting their friends to take photos of them with their hands out, looking like they are holding up the tower. We bought some knick-knacks & slushies (ice drinks) & headed back to Florence in time to pick up our gear that we had stored & catch the train to Rome - this all went off without a hitch & we made it to Rome safely.

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