Blogs from Florence, Tuscany, Italy, Europe - page 186

Don't Go To Florence on a Monday Everything was closed - on a Monday. Who would have guessed. Well, the only thing I really wanted to see in Florence was Michelangelo's "David" and the Medici Chapel. The Chapel was open, but "David" was not, and since we stayed an extra day in Rome, we had to cut down our stay in Florence. Oh, well! I'll see David some other time.... read more

Well this all started out on a Friday evening in western Germany. We had just finished work around 5pm and were heading home to get our bags. It wasn’t long until we were off to the Old Dublin for some dinner and drinks. Figured it was the best way to stay up until the 1230am departure from Karlsruhe Hauptbahnhof to Santa Maria Novella here in Florence. The train station was surprising cold. It had been a mild fall and we had not seen any indication that snow would fall soon. After leaving the pub around 1130pm we arrived at the Bahnhof with about 30 minutes to spare. When we finally figured out which end of the platform our car would be at it was time to board. We were luck enough to have the coachette to ... read more

Geo: 43.7687, 11.2569... read more

Day 31 Thursday Aug 1, 1997 Staring at the ceiling. It was 6 something in the whatever. The Chinese dudes in the cots beside me were still asleep; their snores reverberating off the walls shook my cot. Once again, with the dawning rays of the sun I opened my eyes and immediately succumbed to the unyielding Venetian heat. No mas...I give up. I just couldn’t bear another day there. I couldn’t remain on that awful battlefield. The marauding tourist hoard was too challenging an enemy. There were just too many of them. Venice is a beautiful, ancient city with countless interesting attractions and a million reasons to stay. While I had merely scratched the surface by experiencing what the place offered, my sanity and serenity was too important. Trudging around town, hot as a sonofabitch, expending ... read more

Well this particular story should start onboard the boat. We had been at sea for about two weeks after our trip to Antalya, Turkey. We were all set to pull into Livorno when the weather started getting rough. This ended up resulting in the need to not pull in until the next day. We thought our plans were dashed as you can do somethings in Europe in seven days that six is just too hard. But we pulled yet another wonderful scam and were on our way off the boat that day in a helicopter that afternoon. You see, we had told everyone we were going to visit Mike's sister in Scotland that week and had an airline reservation. I love it when a plan comes together. So we finally arrived at the airbase/airport in Livorno ... read more