Firenze, Ciao a tutti!

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The travel from Milan to Florence was one of our shortest travel days, but ended up being our worst experience thus far. To start off we settled into the train in Milan Central Station for our 2 hour train ride and we were rudely asked to move our stuff not once but twice because of the so-called seat reservations which were completely unmarked so it was impossible to know where to sit. We finally found a spot of 4 seats with a table between them. We were then joined by an Italian guy that was apparently unable to bend his legs and took up the entire area. And then…about 20 minutes before we got off the train we were asked for our tickets and were told that we had to pay an extra 36 Euro for seat reservations after we had been traveling for almost 2 hours already.

Once we arrived to Florence we maneuvered through the busy station and went outside to find our bus. After searching and waiting for our number we were told that it didn’t pick up there like the directions to the B & B had indicated. We found the bus, moved about 2 blocks and then stood still for about another 20 minutes while the bus driver took his break. We traveled through the city and completely missed our stop because we were unable to see the names of the signs. There was no announcement of the stops and it was so crowded we couldn’t even look out the window most of the time. As we seemed to leave the main part of the city I asked the bus driver if we passed our stop and he indicated it was really far back. We waited as the bus turned around and started its way back towards the city. The bus driver told us to get off, that it was the stop I asked about. Finally! We get out and look around as the bus drove off. It was not our stop. It wasn’t even close! We walked for about 25 minutes with our heavy bags and had to catch yet another bus. Untrusting of the driver we got out where we thought our street was and finally found the street. Shortly after we found the B & B Colori that we booked, even though it was completely unmarked and hidden in the back of an apartment building across a big courtyard. Phew… we made it! The bed and breakfast was a four bedroom apartment, the owner lived upstairs and rented out the other bedrooms, it was a little weird but quite nice and very colorful.

We dropped our stuff and left to explore. The city of Florence was beautiful and quite a difference from the bustle of Milan. We walked all through the tiny streets and over the main river with a bridge made of jewelry shops. There seemed to be a lot of people out enjoying the beautiful Halloween night, Halloween had become popular in the past 3 years especially in Germany, Switzerland and Italy. The children have seemed to spur the celebration liking the idea of dressing up and getting free candy and treats and of course it gives the adults an excuse to party.
We soon found ourselves hungry and stopped at a little place called Pop’s Café, a vegetarian restaurant recommended to us by the Happy Cow website. It was early, only about 5:30p and they didn’t serve food for another 2 hours. We found out it was a free buffet when you buy drinks so we stayed, drank several beers and enjoyed the music. Finally the food was served and it was well worth the wait, lots of veggie food options and not too many people to gobble them up. We filled up, finished our beers and merrily headed back to our room where we crashed after a long day. The next day we walked around the city for hours while we took many pictures and waited to catch our 6pm bus to Paganico, north of Grosseto.
We left at sunset; it was quite beautiful and peaceful over the main canal. It was sad to leave such a beautiful city but we walked around so much we really felt like we were able to experience Florence in the 2 days that we had. We headed to El Sorgenti, our first Wwoofing farm, where we would spend 3 weeks and help with the olive harvest starting November 1st. Time to get to work!!

Sorry no pictures for this installment. Our external hard drive has ceased to function, Damn Technology!

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