As we made our way from the train station to our hotel, the first thing we noticed is that people here are maniacs on the road. The second thing we noticed is that for every car on the road, there are 3 or 4 mopeds/scooters, entire armies of them, accelerating and swerving like bees in a hive. People screech to halts at red lights, drive in the gutters and on the sidewalks, and honk at anyone who dares to drive safely. The pedestrians are no less daring, darting into the street seemingly unaware of oncoming traffic. The tempo of Florence is *fast*. It was a bit much for me at that point in the trip.
When we got to our hotel, we found out why it’s called a Bed & Bed and not a Bed & Breakfast – not only is there no breakfast, there’s really no staff – just a guy who takes down our information, gives us some “coffee,” and leaves the building. Apparently “coffee” in Italy is just a shot of espresso in a tiny little cup – most of them drink it black this way. To have a cup of coffee the way we drink it, you need to order an Americano (which you can order at any café in the US). I never knew why an Americano was called this until I came here.
Our room came with a dedicated bathroom, which is a plus anywhere. There was no internet, which means these blogs are being posted far after they are written. At this point I figured I could find wifi somewhere to get online, but this proved to be a problem. More on that later.
Windows don’t seem to really shut here – they close but not all the way. I guess the weather must be good here year round. The window in our room opened to a kind of backyard/alley/garden, which is an amazing view and something you really can’t appreciate from the pictures. There were, for better or worse, a half dozen or so cats roaming around on the streets. They were cute, but they tended to fight in the middle of the night.
We ventured out into the city. The first stop was the Duomo, or the Dome. This is the essential feature of the Florence skyline, a large orange dome in the middle of town. We made it to the Dome in no time and got some photographs. We’ve been told the inside isn’t unlike most other churches, and we don’t have the energy to climb the steps to get the view from the top, so we didn’t go inside. Instead we wandered around toward the other city sights.
On the way we found an antique bookstore – they had amazingly old books and luckily their window display happened to be fairy tales, which floored Natasha.
We were hungry and found a McDonalds. I know we said we wouldn’t eat at places like this, but I think that trying it just once per cultural area is a good thing, just to see if there are any local quirks. The fries are just like they are everywhere, but the sandwiches are different. Here they were selling a thing called the CBO (chicken bacon onion), which was so-so, and a Crispy McBacon burger type thing, with an awful kind of orange sauce on it. The sizes on drinks and such had been smaller in Heidelberg and Prague, but in Italy they matched the US sizes.
One of the main attractions in Florence is the Academia, which is the proud host of Michelangelo’s David. Like most European museums so far, the place was teeming with Christian art from the 13th century onward. The David is a sight to be seen (I got a head rush when I first saw it). They also had a side room with lots of casts of 18th century nobles. Among them was a cast of the Machiavelli statue that rests outside the Uffizi Gallery.
Our next stop was the Casa di Dante, located in the approximate location of Dante’s home in Florence. I don’t recommend this museum if you aren’t a Dante buff, as it has mountains of information about the political scene at the time, family background, and other biographical miscellany that wouldn’t be interesting to someone unfamiliar with Dante. Nearby was the church that Dante went to, where he supposedly first laid eyes upon his beloved Beatrice.
This museum is where we got our first taste of the Italian “lunch break.” Apparently most Italians take a three hour lunch break and are not keen on punctuality around this point. When we were finished with the museum, we noticed that the gift shop was selling an exclusive poster with the full text of the Divine Comedy plus the entire Dore illustrations for 15€. The shop was closed, so we asked when it would reopen. They told us about 20 minutes, so we sat outside and waited…and waited. 40 minutes later they still weren’t open, so we asked again, and they said 15 more minutes. We waited…after 30 minutes we asked again, and were told just 10 more minutes. The original 20 minutes was now projected to be something like an hour and a half. No poster is worth that. We just left.
Back at the hotel, we had to fight with a mosquito that had flown in through the crack between the window shutters that won’t completely close. There was a weird string that makes a buzz when you pull it in the shower – I guess maybe the plumbing is shared and it lets the guests in the other rooms know not to flush the toilet or something? It didn’t seem to do anything but make a noise. At night, we heard some thunderstorms, but there was no rain…only fighting cats.
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