New Thing #65 - Italy, Day 9 - Florence to Venice

Friday, March 17, 2011

Thought for the day: leggings are not pants. They should not be worn as substitutes for legitimate pants. I don't care how skinny your legs are or how miniscule your butt. Don't do it.

I will explain that a little later.

Woke up this morning to gloomy overcast skies. Great, more rain. At least it was our last day here and we had seen pretty much everything we wanted to see. We packed up our suitcases again and left them with the front desk while we set out to do some more shopping. Since it was Unity Day today, we weren't sure what would be open and what wouldn't.

The weather was getting a bit ridiculous. First it was warm and muggy out and I started to sweat. Ten minutes later, it was cold and blustery and I was frakkin' freezing. It was kind of miserable. It reminded me of our last day in Rome. Like that day, at least it was our last day and we had been able to get everything else out of the way.

We spent most of the morning trying to find the adidas store we had seen about 1000 times in the previous few days, and stopping in all the shops along the way. Nikki wanted to try to find something for her boyfriend. At first it didn't bother us because we were able to look in lots of different leather shops, stationery stores, clothing stores, you name it. But, after awhile it seriously started to get obnoxious. I know we had walked by it so many times, so we tried to retrace our steps from 3 days of walking. That was nearly impossible.

We also tried to go to the Mercato Centrale, a large food market, but because of Unity Day, it was closed. Since we didn't know about all the closings, and pretty much Unity Day itself until yesterday, we were pretty bummed that we missed out on this fabulous market. (Seriously, in alllll of our research for this trip, not one of us ran across anything about this celebration.) Nathalie had told us all about it, and that we would be able to find some much less expensive, but just as delicious, balsamic vinegar to buy.

We walked to it anyway, just to see for sure, and found that yes, it was closed, and that it was located in a slightly less upscale part of the city. It seemed fine during the day, but not somewhere we'd want to wander around at night. Close by there was a sandwich shop Nikki's boyfriend had told her about, so we stopped in to get a sammich. Nothing really caught mine or Brenda's eye, but Nikki grabbed a bite. B and I were able to grab a sandwich at another shop not too far away. It was just a simple caprese type sandwich of mozzarella, tomatoes and basil. This was the only meal I didn't take a photo of, because I was too busy trying to walk and eat at the same time. It wasn't as good as some of the pastas I had had for lunch, but the price was definitely much better than sitting down!

We were cranky at this point, mainly because of the crappy weather, but also because the market was closed, we were tired of walking and we had pretty much seen and done everything we wanted to do. However, we still had a good 5 hours to kill before our train left for Venice. We decided to go on the hunt for an Irish Bar we had also seen once before. (You would think we would have learned our lesson from the adidas store. Which we did find, by the way, and were completely disappointed by.)

We again walked all over creation trying to rack our brains on where we were when we saw it. I knew the general area - over by Santa Croce - but we couldn't get the exact street down. We eventually gave up due to the cranky pants slowly creepin' on and asked for directions. Lo and behold, we found the damn thing. About damn time. Our feet hurt and we were aching for some nice Irish beer. It was St. Patty's Day after all.

Sucessssss!!

Salvation!

We walked inside and I immediately felt like an old maid. Everywhere we looked, all we saw were young coeds enjoying a nice day off from school. At least I think they were college kids. They looked about 15 to me. I think every single person in the bar was an American student studying abroad. We could tell this two ways. One by the conversations we overhead, and also by the clothes. At least the clothes of the guys. Typical American college boy look. The girls on the other hand were trying out the leggings as pants trend and I wanted to smack every single one of them. In no way, shape or form should leggings be substituted as pants. I don't care if you're in Europe. It's dumb. And it's especially dumb when you don't have the figure to wear leggings. I wouldn't be caught dead in leggings, whether I had something over the top of them or not. Of course, I'm not 19 and I have more sense than that.

Moving on.

There's nothing like watching ice hockey in an Irish bar in Italy on St. Patty's Day!

We got the feeling this was a pretty popular bar for American students based on the amount of American college t-shirts and graffiti on the walls.

It only took the purchase of 3 Guinesses to get those snazzy hats.

Cheers!

We settled in and enjoyed the show as drunken students celebrated in style. Eventually we decided we should head back to the hotel and get to the train station. It was sad to be saying goodbye to Florence, but I was really looking forward to escaping the rain.

One of Nikki's many scarf purchases. This one she said she'd only wear on St. Patty's Day in memory of our trip. :)

The concierge at our hotel insisted on taking a bunch of photos of us before we left.

So, before I get to the journey to Venice, I have to recap my time in Florence.

Best historical site: Michelangelo's David with the Duomo a close second

Best pizza: I only had one pizza in Florence, but it wasn't really a favorite.

Best pasta: Rigatoni alla melanzana from Acqua Al 2

Best gelato: Frutti di bosco (even though it did cost me 12 Euros!)

Best dessert: The cheesecake wedge from Acqua Al 2

Best overall experience: Dario's

One of my least favorite things about Florence was the smell. I could not believe how pungent the sewer smell was at times. I'm not sure if it's always like that, or if it just had to do with the rain, but it was pretty gross. I'm thinking it was the rain, because there were always street sweepers cleaning the streets and shop keepers cleaning up outside their shops. It was a pretty clean city. Except for the smell.

And back to the train station.

Train station in Firenze.

We were starting to take the "duckface" photos a bit far...

We were determined this time to get on the train with no help from any so-called helpers, so we made it to the station a bit earlier. Unfortunately, they didn't have a platform assigned to us yet, so we couldn't stake our claim at the beginning of the line on. We waited not so patiently as the minutes ticked by until the number finally appeared.

We made a bee line to the platform weaving in and out of all of the foot traffic as if we were fighting for the last piece of cake. Being in Italy for one week and we were getting fearless about dodging impatient travelers. We rushed to the stop for our car on the train and tried to stake our claim at the beginning. We knew that there weren't many spots on each car for luggage storage and there was no way we'd be able to heft our suitcases in the upper storage racks above our seats.

I heart high-speed trains.

We made it on the train in record time and were able to get our suitcases in with only a few beads of sweat and one hernia. Our seats were close to the front of the car and they were arranged differently than our last train. Only two seats on each side of the aisle, rather than 4, and they were all facing the front. On the last train the four seats all faced one another with a little table in the middle. This train also didn't have any money-grubbing greasers trying to earn a coin or two.

These seats reclined and had foot rests in the seat in front, so they were pretty damn comfortable.

Told you we're can't stop.

For the last week we had seen billions of commercials for this stuff called Crik Crok. Ryan had told us it was kind of like bugles, but Brenda was determined to try it out for herself. Don't be fooled, they were straight up Lays Potato Chips. No joke. There wasn't anything special about them, other than the trippy name.

Our train ride was rather uneventful, except it was blazing hot in the beginning and then got rather chilly. It wasn't a full train and we didn't have any chatty Texans along for the ride. Everything was great until I tried to use the bathroom. I tried to hold it, but I didn't know how long it would take to get to our hotel once we arrived in Venice, plus, there was no telling what public bathrooms would be like.

I think that bathroom visit was one of the most traumatic ever. Of course, no seat, so there was no option except to hover, which I've discovered is incredibly difficult on a moving vehichle. Trains have more turbulence than you think they might. I couldn't read the wording, so I couldn't figure out where the flush was. I spent precious minutes just trying to get the water to dispense after I had eventually found the soap dispenser. You laugh, but it was a weird setup. I thought maybe I would be stuck with soap on my hands and no water, but I eventually managed to finish up like an adult and get outta there.

It was good that we went on the train though, because when we arrived at the terminal, the bathrooms were via payment only. Yeah, you had to pay to even get into the bathroom. No telling if you had to pay for anything once you were in there. With our luck, we would have hd to pay for each square of tp. It also looked kinda dirty, so I'm glad I dodged that bullet.

Fortunately, the train terminal is right on the Grand Canal where the vaporetto buses have a stop. Brenda had done some research and found that the vaporetto passes were the cheapest way to get around the main waterways of Venice. And buses were exactly right, just floatable busses. We opted to get a 48-hour pass so we'd be able to use it all the way up until we needed to catch our flight. It was definitely the most economical way to go instead of paying per trip.

It took us a minute to determine which route we needed, but we quickly made our way onto the docking platform to await our next ride. I quickly realized I'd need to get my sea legs pretty quick or I'd be getting a bit woozy. The docking platform was out over the water and it's gentle rocking was starting to put me to sleep.

The vaporetto pulled up shortly and we hopped on to enjoy our trip down the canal. We had been sitting for a few hours, so we opted to stand on the deck and enjoy the scenery.

I need to get a new jacket. The neon landing lights on this one are getting a bit out of control in pictures.

The trip down the canal was very serene and peaceful...a nice change from the fast-paced week we had had so far. We were all pretty tired, so we just kept quiet and enjoyed the moment. Venice is beautiful at night. Unfortunately, I didn't have the big turtle out, so I didn't get any good photos. But it was so surreal. I couldn't believe how peaceful it was. Not to mention that people just tied their boats up right at their front doors.

This the best that the baby turtle could do.

The ride wasn't long before we pulled up to the Rialto Bridge stop and we hopped off to make our way to the hotel. Based on the map we had, it seemed like it was a little ways away from the canal. Nope. It was ridiculously close and incredibly easy to find. That may partially be due to the fact that we weren't dodging cars, motorinos or impatient locals. The atmosphere was so different than anything we had experienced before. Because it was late, there weren't many people out and about, and from what we've read, Venice isn't a super hot bed of activity at night.

Hotel Serenissima popped up, and we checked in. There wasn't a lift, but they did have very helpful young men who carried our bags up the two flights of stairs to our room. We gladly tipped them! This room looked more like the one in Rome, except that the decor is something my grandma would have used in her 30s.

Double bed. I didn't get a photo of the single.

Shocker. Another bidet. (I'm not quite sure whey I felt compelled to photograph all the hotel bidets...)

Sometimes your hotel hairdryer looks like a 1970s vacuum hose.

This painting was next to our bed. Click on it to really look at all the detail. Then you can have nightmares like we did.

Dinner was pretty much first on our minds at this point, so we got a few suggestions from the concierge. I didn't end up using the map though because Venice is ridiculously walkable and very difficult to get lost in. We just started walking and actually found one of the restaurants without even trying, Da Mamo.

The waiter started the meal by bringing out some kind of little potato pastry thing. It wasn't bad, but I wasn't really sure what to think of it.

And OMG, REAL ROLLS!! They were moist and fluffy and delicious! Hooray!

We started with an appetizer of bruschetta. I heart bruschetta. I've had it back home, and I've always liked it, but I have a bigger soft spot for it now after this trip.

I ordered a pizza, shocker, with ham and mushrooms, shocker shocker. But what I didn't expect was how big this pizza would be. All the rest of the pizzas have been about the size of a medium pizza in the states. Easily finishable. This one was more like a large and didn't even fit on the plate they brought it out on. I thought it was going to slide right off onto the floor when the waiter came up with it.

But man, was it good.

So good, in fact, that I pretty much ate the whole darn thing. I'm a champion.

I really tried to finish off the crusts too, but I just couldn't make it happen. (Hey, I had a potato pastry, bruschetta and a roll before the pizza even came!)

No wine with dinner tonight, which was the biggest shocker. I think we were just too tired for a wine buzz, and plus, we had already gotten our alcohol quotient in at the Irish bar.

Off to bed. We only have one day in Venice, so we need to make tomorrow count.

(I've realized since writing this that I don't mention gelato. I know we had some. I apparently just didn't write it down. :(

New Thing #65 - Italy, Day 8 - Florence

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Ugh, more rain. It wouldn't be so bad if it just decided to effing rain. But, we would get a little spurt, enough to need our umbrellas, and by the time we'd get our umbrellas in the full upright and locked position, the rain would stop. I'd wait a few minutes and wrap my umbrella up in my pocket and the drizzle would begin again. Very funny, Mother Nature.

I was feeling better today though. Whether it was the rain or the Italian drugs I bummed off of Brenda, my allergies were finally starting to cease and desist. Nathalie told us yesterday that a lot of foreigners have a reaction to the cypress trees, because we don't have them in the US. Fortunately, a lot of our activities were indoors today, so the rain was tolerable. We first headed to the Uffizi (pronounced oo-feet-sy) Gallery, a famous art museum that houses hundreds, maybe thousands, of Renaissance art. One of their biggest attractions is Botticelli's Venus. If you're not familiar with it, you may well have been born under a rock. It's been reproduced on nearly every type of product you can possibly imagine. Unfortunately, we weren't able to take any photos inside the gallery, so you'll have to google it if you don't know what it is.

We made reservations ahead of time to beat the long lines, but when we got to the office to pick up our tickets, I think we would have had better luck just standing in the regular line. Only two people were in front of us, one at each window, and both of them took a good 10 minutes to get their tickets. What the hell were they doing? Good grief. We finally picked up our tickets and headed into the actual gallery entrance. Great, now we're stuck behind an Asian tour group. A sea of tiny Asians. I don't think I'm freakishly tall or anything, but in the middle of this group, I felt like g-damn Godzilla or something. These little old ladies didn't look to be over 4-1/2 feet tall, and I thought I might step on one of them and break something.

And none of them understood the security line they needed to go through. We weren't allowed to use our cameras, but we could at least bring them in. Well, security had a tray you could put your camera in while you walked through the metal detector. It felt like it took 3 hours for all of them to get their cameras off from around their necks. Wait, I had a big camera around my neck too. Did I look like that the whole time I was there? Shit.

Don't answer that.

Eventually, they had all removed cameras, purses, jackets, you name it and placed on the xray belt. But, then, they didn't understand the concept of one at a time through the metal detector. I could not stop giggling as 3 of them would try to go through at the same time (they were damn small enough), and the Italian guard would try to explain one at a time. While he was trying to reroute them, another one or two would walk through thinking it was their turn. I didn't think we'd ever make it through security. Then, when we did go through the metal detector, we got a little wink and a "lovely ladies" from the guard. Thankyouverymuch. We made a mad dash for our purses and snuck in front of the sea of Asians so we could make a bee line for the stairs.

Okay, finally, we can actually start the tour. Like any other art museum, it's chock full of paintings, sculptures and mosaics, some famous, others not so much. We had no real idea where to start or what to see, but fortunately Brenda had downloaded a few podcasts by the famous travel writer, Rick Steves. He was able to guide us through rooms full of drawings, and the dozens of rooms of paintings until we finally made it to Botticelli's Venus. Wow.

I remember spending at least one full class period in art history on this piece. What we learned, I can't remember to save my life though. But, Rick educated us on the finer points and it was pretty cool to behold. We meandered through room after room taking in all the art, including a Michelangelo painting, but I have to admit, after awhile, it all started to look the same. I never fully appreciated this style of art in my art history classes, so once we had gotten our fill, we decided it was time to hit the road. But, not before Rick, on the podcast, suggested a rest in case "our uffizis were getting tired". Oh Rick, you're so witty.

A view of the Ponte Vecchio backside from a window in the Uffizi.

That just looks dangerous.

Since we had gone to the Ponte Vecchio on Monday and a lot of the shops were closed (they like to close a lot of things on Mondays), we headed back in that direction to see if there were any other shops besides jewelry. Nope. Just pricey jewels. Dangit. It was about time for lunch, so we said a little curse as we passed the gelato lady and found a little out-of-the-way restaurant that was kind of trippy, Caruso's. They called themselves a Jazz Club & Restaurant and were playing all kinds of American music. Yet, the waitress didn't quite understand all of our English.

I ordered a margherita pizza with tomatoes and mozzarella. It wasn't my favorite pizza of the trip, but it was still good. I will still never fully grasp the idea of cutting my pizza with a knife and fork.

More pizza!!

Time to head up in the Duomo, so that meant another sweaty workout today. Considering the humidity in the air from the rain, I was going to be real perty when I reached the top. We immediately headed for the line to the cupola and found that the door was locked and no one was around. I guess they're on lunch break! So, we took the time to head inside and see what beauty lies within. I have to say that the inside wasn't quite as impressive as the outside. Maybe that's because I had seen quite a fair share of churches by now. But, don't get me wrong, just because I say it's not as impressive as a church I've seen before, it's still beautiful and inspiring.

Pretty floor.

This is the candle tree. Very pretty.

The dome.

Some of the detail outside.

We didn't spend too much time inside, probably due to how effing cold it was in there. I thought Santa Croce was bad, but I think the Duomo was even worse. I should have brought some hand warmers with me! We headed back to wait in line for the cupola and overheard that the reason it was closed was because there were too many people up top and they had to wait for some people to come down first. See, that totally makes sense. But, why couldn't there be a sign or someone there to tell us that? We went back to get in line, so we'd be the first ones up. We started a trend behind us, because it didn't take long for a nice line to form. Fortunately, it was only a 10 or 15 minute wait and they let us up. Great, more stairs. It was pretty similar to St. Peter's, although these were mostly stone stairs as opposed to some of the brick and tile that began in the Basilica.

I'm not gonna lie. It looks a bit haunted.

View of Florence through one of the windows in the ascent.

Thanks for the butt photo Nikki!

It was also broken up into two sections, ground floor to the bottom of the cupola and then the rest of the way to the top. Again, with the narrow, windy, Willy-Wonka-esque stairwells. It was ridiculous. At one point, we were going up a very tiny spiral staircase and we heard ourselves getting closer and closer to a group of people. They must be taking a break. I wondered how in the hell we'd get past them, when we realized they were coming down the stairs. What the hell? Did you chicken out? We tried to squeeze past them, but it was pretty damn impossible. The walls were damp, so I had nothing to really grab hold of if I fell.

View of the floor below from halfway up.

Up and up we went, getting more and more winded as we went. At one point the stairs were so steep I thought we were climbing a ridiculous ladder. Are we there yet? FML We also kept passing people and it was starting to piss me off. Do these people not know where the exit is? There was seriously no room for one person to go up, let alone two people to pass each other. It was one giant clusterf*ck. I can't imagine doing this in the summer when the crowds are bigger.

Little windy steps.

It's pretty damn exhausting.

WTF.

It's a bit difficult to tell by the photos if we're going up or down.

More steep stairs up!

We could see our breath on the stairs, but that didn't help to lessen the sweat sliding down my spine. I couldn finally see the exit sign to let us know we were at the top. Finally!!

Ahhhh....great views again! It wasn't as sunny as Rome was, but we were still witness to a fantastic view of the city. There wasn't a lot of room on top, shocker, but we took some time for more photo ops, including taking a photo of the attached bell tower (we decided one structure to climb was enough in Florence).

Florentine skyline.

Santa Croce in the distance.

Very pretty.

Viva Italia!

The bell tower at the Duomo.

Lookin' a little sweaty.

That's better.

Adorable!

And, back down we went. The beginning of the descent was pretty tricky because of the steep stairs, but we made it down. We ran into more people coming up, and I realized I shouldn't have been cursing those other people before. There was only one way up and one way down at certain points, so everyone had to cross paths. Oops. We had to reassure a few people they were close to the top because they looked like they were about to pass out.

Back down. I promise.

I told you, its almost as steep as a ladder.

We headed to the Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella next, one of the world's oldest pharmacies, and a pretty damn fancy soap and perfume shop. It had some antiques showing the history, but it seemed to be just an expensive version of Bath & Body Works. We were unimpressed and decided it was about time for our gelato ration. Stracciatella was my flavor of choice. We thought it was essentially a chocolate chip ice cream, but in doing some research, it's actually their sweet cream gelato, drizzled with chocolate that hardens when it cools. The chocolate is mixed in, to make it look like our version of chocolate chip. It was damn good. One of my favorites.

We spent our gelato time eating in a small park and tried not to get pooped on by the pigeons. I could seriously go the rest of my life without ever seeing another damn pigeon. These things were not afraid of anything, and would take off and fly ridiculously close to our heads. I think they were doing it on purpose to scare the crap out of us. I was not a fan.

Sky rats.

Bold move Mr. Pigeon. Bold.

It was now time for our afternoon relaxation, so we headed back to the hotel. America's Best Dance Crew was on, and we realized that Mario Lopez, the host, was just as annoying dubbed in Italian, as he is in English!!

We picked a restaurant out of our guide books for dinner, and I wasn't super impressed with it. Nikki and Brenda, on the other hands, had some of their favorite food here. I think it was just poor food choices on my part. The name was Baldovino, and it was very close to Santa Croce. With this being our last dinner in Florence, we wanted to get two courses again, and try to really enjoy our food and wine. We did have plans to meet Daniele later for drinks, but we figured we would have plenty of time. As much as we always tried to drag out our meals, we could never make them last more than an hour.

For my first course, I got an Italian salad of mixed leaves, buffalo milk mozzarella, pesto, sundried tomatoes and pine nuts. For my second course, I got galletto ruspante al mattone or free-range chicken marinated in oil, lemon, herbs and spices, grilled with a brick on top. It took forever to get our first courses, and I was uninspired by my salad. There wasn't much pesto or tomatoes to give it flavor, it was mostly just lettuce and radicchio, or flamingo meat as Brenda's sister teases. I added some olive oil to give it some flavor, but it didn't help much.

A bit uninspiring. I should have went with a pasta.

The waiter came and took our plates and asked us if we wanted any kind of dessert and we said no. We figured he was just asking early in case we wanted to order something that might take awhile to make. We noticed that another couple was completely finished eating when he asked them about dessert.

Um, did he forget about our second courses? We were starting to panic at this point, because we had to meet Daniele, and we had no way to contact him if we were running late. We tried to flag down our server, but in typical Italian fashion, he ignored us. We even told another waiter and he seemed to understand what we were asking, but didn't seem to convey that to anyone. Eventually our waiter assured us our food would be coming out momentarily. Of course, the one time we don't have all night to wait for our food, it's late.

Mine came out and it was two breasts and two thighs of chicken on a plate. The chicken itself was good, very tender and moist, but I'm not used to eating just a plate of chicken by itself. I need something to go with it. So, not the best food experience for me tonight, but you can't win 'em all.

We found out that tomorrow marks Italy's 150th anniversary of their unification. So, tonight, they had tons of festivals and concerts going on to commemorate it. They also opened all of their museums for free for the entire night. We weren't sure how busy they would be, so we had opted to go to the Uffizi early in the morning like planned. But, now we contemplated going to Accademia Gallery to see Michelangelo's David.

Festive!

They had music playing and people dancing about.

But we had to meet Daniele first. I got a little flustered in our rush to meet him and I took us down a wrong street, but we eventually made it to our meeting spot and found the infamous Daniele. He actually had the week off from work because he had to use up some vacation days. But, he wanted to meet Brendan's girlfriend, so he had set up this rendezvous for drinks. He wasn't feeling well, so we just went to a local bar called Rex where we had a few beers and got to know him. He was very sweet and very proud that he was 30 and living on his own (we all know how big of a feat that is there!) We didn't spend too much time since it was getting late and he didn't feel well.

Daniele!

Daniele insisted we go to see David since it was free. He said we had to see it before we left. Since it was free, we couldn't resist. It was only a block or two from our hotel, and the line was fairly short.

Waiting in line for Accademia, they decided it was time to smoosh my face.

Sick of seeing the teal scarf yet? ;-)

We were quickly admitted inside, and headed right to the hallway to see David. Again, no photos allowed, so you'll have to take my word for how amazing it was. First of all, photos and text books don't prepare you for how big it was. This thing was 17 feet tall. White marble, and incredible detail. The veins in his hand, the look in his eye. Michelangelo was effing brilliant. According to Rick, the head is out of proportion to the rest of his body, but Mikey defended his work saying he made it larger so it would appear correctly from the ground where everyone would be viewing it. Smart cookie. We spent a good 10-20 minutes slowly walking around and analyzing every little feature. We were standing in the presence of something over 5 centuries old. Wow.

We were ready to head back to the hotel, but I wanted to peruse a bit more before leaving. I mean, we were here and didn't have to pay, we might as well look at what else this gallery had to offer. We didn't spend too much time, but did check out some more sculptures, paintings, etc. But, it was well after midnight, and we were beat.

I can't believe tomorrow is our last day in Florence. But, I'm looking forward to Venice and its change of scenery.