Day 20: Onward to Florence

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Sunday, July 10, 2011

Deja Vous
I caught the early train out of Vernazza in the direction of Florence. It took three trains, the last of which was extremely crowded, and four hours to reach my destination. Since Florence was my connection out to the Cinque Terre, the trip flew by in a familiar blur. And it will again later this week, when I go back to Pisa for the day. At least Florence makes things accessible.

Locked Out
The hostel was extremely easy to find, being a block away from the Duomo. Florence’s center is very tourist-friendly and you can find brown signs pointing in the direction of major attractions. All I had to do was follow the signs, see the giant church, and turn left. Unfortunately, I had arrived during lockout hours. The staff stowed by suitcase for me and politely requested I return at 2pm. I had the whole afternoon to see the town, in 95F degree heat. This was by far the hottest city I’ve been to. A couple of University of Washington students were seated in the shaded courtyard of the hostel, and I joined them until the doors were opened. There was actually a whole group of UW students staying in the hostel for the weekend as part of a study abroad program. More Seattle people – of course!

Siesta Hour
Siesta does not necessarily mean to sleep, but to rest. So I rested in the luxury of the air conditioned common room through the hottest part of the day. I was the first person to check into my shared room of four, so I didn’t know who my roommates would be. The lockers are big enough to hold my entire suitcase, which was a huge plus. Lots of honest people stay at hostels, but you still need to lock up your things. The hostel offers free internet, so I spent the afternoon chatting with my parents online and checking the hours of museums and galleries.

When I returned to my room, I saw that the other three beds were assigned to boys. No one was in the room, but the haphazard way their belongings were strewn about made it obvious. Yeah, girls are messy too, but boys have a certain method of making their gender known when leaving detritus around. Hopefully they are not the nudist types; I don’t know them well enough to see so much of them. The turned out to be two boys from Montreal who spoke “French,” and a very tall, very cute boy from Brazil.

Leonardo Museum
Leaving the hostel in the “cool” afternoon, I was blasted with a wall of 80F degree air when I walked outside. I made a mental note not to be lazy in the mornings here, because that’s the only time I can happily walk around outside without wanting to crawl out of my skin. On my way to the museum I passed another exhibit, this one was for serial killers and gruesome horror movies. The admission was a steep €10, so I didn’t go in. But my sister would have made me if she was here.

There are two Leonardo Museums in the Duomo area. The one I was going to was described as having exhibits similar to the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, where you can touch or play with mechanical models. Before the ticket counter was a Mona Lisa portrait with the face cut out, so people could stick their own faces in the portrait. The fellow tourist photographer who took my portrait was not skillful and the image did not turn out. But there was also a mini David, who was just my height. Maybe naked guys aren’t so bad if they’re accessible.

Inside the museum were four rooms, all with excellent English descriptions. One room was more like the Bodies exhibit, intending to illustrate how Leonardo studied anatomy in great detail so as to portray the human form as lifelike as possible. The other three rooms had models of some of his inventions, many of which you could play with, and sketches of the machines from the artist’s notebooks. They seem rather avant gard compared to technologies now, but I bet they were the pinnacle of science for their time. Other models were not to be touched, like the display of the war machine and the flying contraptions. For €7 it seemed a little anticlimactic, but it was fun to actually be able to touch the exhibits, a welcome relief to “touch with your eyes, not your hands.”

Social Hour
The hostel doesn’t exactly encourage drinking, but the beer in the vending machine makes it pretty clear that alcohol is OK here. Each evening the staff prepares snacks and set out a carafe of wine so travelers can congregate and socialize. One of the UW students sat down at my table and we chatted about the possibilities of working internationally. More and more it sounds like a cool idea, though I have no idea how those logistics would work. Vacation is not the time to think about those kinds of details.

After the UW students left for a pre-arranged dinner, I struck up conversation with an Australian lady traveling solo. Even though I’d met loads of Auzzies, she hadn’t met any so far on her trip. We finished off the wine and discussed the benefits of single travel. She was going on an organized tour and blitzing through the major cities of Europe, but bookending it with more relaxed travel to other cities not on the itinerary. That seemed like a really wise way of doing things, combining efficiency with independence.

I asked why Australians, in general, do so much traveling. It’s much more in depth than wander lust. She described that it’s just a done thing that people under the age of 30 go out and explore. And since they’re spending so much money to get somewhere, they might as well take a couple months to go where they want to go. It’s also a regulation that all working people in Australia receive four weeks paid time off, and on top of that, employers are more flexible about taking additional time off in one chunk.

She also described that it’s relatively easy for Australians to get two year visas to the UK, with the ability to work in the UK for 12 months within those two years. This sounded familiar, since I’ve met Auzzies who have either lived and worked in the UK or were visiting someone else who was. The international work location also serves as a great jumping platform to travel to other destinations. All of these factors combine to allow Australians the freedom of extended holidays.

Fin.
By the time we were done chatting, the wine was gone and it was already dark outside. I decided to stay in and organize my Florence schedule.

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Photos

Italy has dollar stores!
Maybe they are called "euro stores" but it will cost you $1.50 USD