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Published: March 19th 2014
Time is going quickly. This Saturday we will have been here 4 weeks. That means we only have 2 weekends left to visit the sights we want to see while we are here. Tomorrow, Thursday, we will go to Pizza, Friday we will visit the Accademia Museum in Florence and Saturday a trip to Lucca a town about an hour from Florence. Lucca is a fortress city with an intact city wall, is not a popular tourist attraction and is reported to be very pleasant. Next weekend we will travel to Venice for a two day visit (Thursday & Friday) then on Saturday visit the Uffizi museum in Florence. That will complete what we planned to do while we were here. As you can tell from Ann's recent blog she appreciates the cultural aspects of our trips so much more than me so, I'm sure she will be much more to tell about the museum visits. We will have one more day, Thursday, April 3
rd, of the following week, to make any last minute visits.
While Ann enjoys the art, I'm more into the ordinary everyday sights and events. I am amazed by the different means of transportation here. The
Electric Car
Look at the design of this car! Isn't it great!cost of a gallon of gas is about $9.00. So, affordable transportation choices is the name of the game. In a previous blog I had photos of the scooters, motorcycles and bicycles. In this blog I've included some more pictures of additional types of transportation. Of course, there's always walking. And, right up there with the different types of transportation are the pastry and gelato shops. If you don't know what a gelato shop is ask Christian or Maddie. 😊
We have settled into our routine of teaching Mon-Wed and sightseeing Thu- Sat. Sunday is church and then an open afternoon. The weather continues to improve and we are now having milder sunny days with temperatures in the mid 70's during the day. This has made walking a lot more enjoyable.
The other day I had a student cancel their appointment so I suggested to Ann an impromptu trip into Florence. My idea was to take the trolley in, since we hadn’t ridden it yet, go see one sight I was interested in and come back. As we passed the bus stop on the way to the trolley the bus we normally take into Florence pulled-up. So I
decided that to save time we should take the bus instead of the trolley. After we paid and sat down the driver turned off the motor and there we sat for 20 minutes. Ok, not too bad. When we arrived in town we expected the bus to make a U-turn at a round-about, they are a popular traffic design here, and pull into the terminal, our stop. However, that didn't happen. The bus continued on straight to the far end of the line and then back to the terminal. That was a hour in travel I hadn't counted on. However, we did get to see parts of Florence we would have missed. Have you ever noticed how all neighborhoods look alike from a bus window? Later, we stopped to have lunch and picked the worst pace we've been in to date. The service was very slow and the food passable. After this I got the feeling it was not my day. On our way out of town we usually stop at this little bar and have a pastry and coffee. Today, I should have known better, I told Ann we should try a different bar. You're right, not another bar
Bomboloni
A giant donut like pastry sprinkled with sugar or filled with cream. Served hot at the Sat market So good! on the way back to the bus that had what we were looking for. The ride back to the school was uneventful.
I'm doing well with my students. I'll usually have a couple of cancellations a week because of their work or other commitments. The reading and studying is going well but I still find it a real challenge to try and explain a word or phrase to a student when I can't speak Italian. But we are muddling through it.
Until next time......
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Taylor
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Good Photos
Thanks for the update, Mike. I like the ordinary stuff too -- especially the things that are ordinary in their native context but not so ordinary in our surroundings. Good pictures or the various transportation vehicles!