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Published: March 10th 2007
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Florence
Oct. 21- 24, 2006
Saturday
We woke up at 5am to leave San Gimignano and Tuscany for Florence where we would drop John and Pam at the train station. We got lost in the maze of Florentine streets before finally finding the train station, afterwards going to return the car to Europcar. We arrived at Europcar’s office at 7:45am and although Europcar didn’t open until 8 we were lucky to find a parking space right in front. Seconds after parking the caribinieri came to tell us to move or they would ticket us. The streets are confusing so this is not a place you want to circle around the block for 15 minutes. We drove a couple of blocks and then parked again to wait about 10 minutes before heading back to turn in the car. After parking a guy trying to park told us we couldn’t park there (and not in the friendly “you might get a ticket” way but in the “get out of my parking space jerk” way) before a plainclothes person came by to tell us the same thing as she was writing out tickets. So we headed back to Europcar and saw
a garage with a tiny sign indicating where we could return/park the car. Consistent with Europcar’s service, they hadn’t told us (nor anyone we talked to in the return line) about the garage option, preferring that their patrons get tickets or abandon their vehicles. After walking into Europcar we heard a loud annoying New York accent shout “We’ve lost our place in line. Kids, we’ve been waiting”. While we enjoy being referred to as kids, we won’t miss some of the Americans we have encountered in Italy (although to be fair we talked to a couple of really nice guys from Indianapolis in line as well).
After getting rid of the car we walked to our hotel arriving shortly after 8 and we were overjoyed to find that a room was ready for us. We spent the day alternating between sleeping and catching up on the internet while also enjoying both lunch and dinner at McDonalds. Yes, we were actually Italian fooded out. At McDonald’s we were told that they were out of cheeseburgers and Big Macs and only realized later that that just meant you had to wait 10 minutes for them to cook. Can you imagine a
McDonald’s in America telling you they had run out of food? While dining at McDonalds we were struck by how many American college students there are studying in Florence. We were also struck by how many of the women in Italy dress as if they are trying out for a Whitesnake video. Paris it is not.
Sunday
We spent the morning looking for a sporting goods store. The first one we went to was closed. On the way to the Duomo (near where the second store was located) we stopped to eat at Leonardo self-service restaurant (Via de Pecori 5) which was an Italian cafeteria. Although the choices were limited the food was pretty good and cheap and cafeterias are fun no matter what country you’re in. After lunch we went to the second sporting goods store and realized sporting goods store was a stretch because it was geared more to style than utility. There was nothing related to travel or the outdoors (or at least nothing you would wear off the catwalk) but they did have a decent shoe department. We were surprised though when we were kicked out at 1:27 (they wouldn’t even let Roger take
a quick look at the shoes before leaving) for lunch and told to come back at 3. We walked around looking for other sporting goods options but most of them looked good from the outside but after walking inside you quickly realized that the outdoorsy thing was just marketing and not actually something they actually tried to stock. We attempted a little more shopping and then went to Piazza della Repubblica where we listened to a good folk band before heading to Piazza della Signoria. The Piazza contains the Uffizi Gallery and although we skipped it we really enjoyed the beautiful sculptures in the Piazza. Amy wasn’t feeling well so we came back to the room and rested until dinner time. We went to a pizzeria near our hotel where the pizza was ok and the service was surly although our waitress appeared to be quite friendly to other Italian speakers.
Monday
We got up in time for our free breakfast this morning and realized our instincts had been right and that the sleep was more valuable. After breakfast we headed to the post office to pay our parking ticket from Lucca. It was a shockingly easy process
thanks to the man at our hotel front desk who explained the ticket to us and helped us fill out the form. He explained step by step what we needed to do at the post office and probably saved us at least an hour.
From there we headed to a comic book store the same man had told us about. We arrived at 12:15 just as the proprietor was leaving for lunch but Roger determined through the windows that all of the comic books were in Italian anyway. We went to the train station to buy our ticket to Cinque Terre and then looked in our guidebook for a place to eat before heading towards one in the market. It was a cool food market that John and Pam would have really enjoyed but we discovered it too late. John spent much of his time in Italy trying to get his hands on a tripe sandwich and as luck would have it there were plenty of places serving it at the market (we personally were not tempted to try it). There were three “restaurants” in the market. One was packed with Italians and people were squeezed into tables or
standing and eating. We could have gotten by with the menu (it’s surprisingly easy to understand a menu in Italian thanks to all of the Italian influence in America) but we were more concerned about where we would sit. As much as the other two restaurants were eager to accommodate us, they were both packed with tourists and no Italians and so we passed.
Striking out on the restaurant we headed out and passed a Mexican restaurant, an odd enough site that demanded we investigate - and the food was great. It took us awhile to get our food because everything was freshly made (including the tortillas) by one woman. The small place had a pretty good crowd but we could not tell how many people were customers and how many were just friends hanging out and mooching off of her. After lunch we walked back to Vestri for more chocolate gelato (for Amy) and chocolate with chili and milk (2 flavors for Roger).
We passed through the Duomo area and spent a good amount of time watching the police hassle the African immigrant vendors selling purses. The word spreads quickly when a cop comes into the area
and all of the goods are gathered into bags but the vendors don’t actually leave. They just sit with their goods and wait for the cops to leave so they can set out their merchandise again. No one is actually arrested. The process happens over and over again. From there we headed to Piazza di Santa Croce and bought a painting of Florence for John from a vendor. After observing the purse vendors earlier, we talked to the artist about the situation of the various street vendors. We finally went to check out Ponte Vecchio a bridge filled with shops (mostly jewelry shops). We crossed the bridge and walked around the area a little bit before returning to our hotel. We spent the rest of the afternoon working on the computer and talking to our families. We went to dinner at a place nearby that was recommended by our hotel for being inexpensive and local. We were disappointed to find lots of tourists, fairly high prices and very average food.
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