Florence Rest Day - Day 4

Friday - Today was a rest & recuperation day. Bridget was concerned about my cough and had a doctor come by the hotel room. I guess house calls are still the norm around here. He said I had bronchitis, not contagious, but aggravated by all the smoke in the narrow streets, restaurants, and shops. He prescribed some antibiotics and something for my cough. 

Not that I’m getting tired of Italian food, but yesterday, I had a burger and roasted potatoes. Today, we had dinner at a Thai fusion place and I had the ramen and gyoza. The chicken was dry and addition of tomatoes made it “fusion” but it was decent. 

Tomorrow, we catch a couple of trains to Civitavecchia, Rome’s seaport. There is a very short stop in Pisa and we need to switch trains there. 

Siena & San Gimignano

Thursday - We met out tour bus near the train station for an all-day road trip south to Siena and San Gimignano. I picked up a cold probably from the never ending crowds here in Italy and on the flight over.

The tour bus was huge relative to size of the streets and the driver didn’t seem to have any issues. It was a couple of hours to Siena and we wandered around the Piazza del Duomo for a bit. 

This was the one place I’ve heard about and it was very picturesque. It’s hard to see it in the pictures, but the plaza slopes up all the way around. 

It wasn’t too crowded today. The plaza is surrounded by restaurants and tourist souvenir shops like most of these places. 

We then ventured a short distance to the Siena Cathedral. Bridget is off exploring. Being the old guy, I’m sitting down on the steps. Back to the bus for San Gimignano. 

Another beautiful town though I needed to find a public bathroom. Hard to find and they charge money to enter. 

The historic part of town was located on a hill so you had stunning views of the surrounding area. It’s great for views but made for tough walking. 

It was several hours on a very comfortable and quiet tour bus. 

Florence - Day 2

Wednesday - We had breakfast at the hotel as we needed to be back near the train station by 9:45 for our city tour. No backpacks or large bags allowed on this tour. Plus, there is a dress code as we will be touring some churches. 

Some stress, for me, this morning as we weren’t sure how the public transit system works. It turns out that we just tap a payment card and we ride the bus. It needs to be a separate card for each person. We made the tour starting point and the walking tour guide, Matt, was great. He walked slowly and was conscious that he had about 15 people behind him. The carousel was just a convenient spot to regroup.

He provided lots of history and insight of the area. This church was, at one time, the largest in the world. We had “skip-the-line” tickets for all of the stops. 

The painting was incredibly detailed and the building was in daily use. Not just a monument and tourist attraction. 

We made lots of stops and walked around 10k steps in the process. Lots of marble statues, churches, and a few bridges thrown in to keep things interesting. 

The last stop was at Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze. The lines here were ridiculous. Even with our “skip-the-line” pass, we still waited about 30 minutes. Way better than the several hour queue with day-of tickets. 

The iconic statue here was Michaelangelo’s David. They controlled the number of people in the small museum so it wasn’t too crowded. I even found many opportunities to sit down. Arthritis is making it more difficult for me to stand up all day. 

The tour was fantastic and recommended. Just realize that a lot of walking is required. We stopped at a random place for lunch before taking the bus back to the hotel. Now that we know how it works, it was easy. My only problem is my phone battery was getting low and I didn’t bring my battery pack. 

Florence -Day 1

Tuesday - After breakfast at the hotel, we took a water taxi to the Santa Lucia Station to catch our train to Florence. The front desk made the reservation for us and the desk clerk led us out and pointed out the pickup location. Very nice hotel. 

We were the only ones on the water taxi so we could stand up at the open roof and gawk at the scenery. It wasn’t a really long ride but would’ve been a long walk hauling our luggage. 

The Chiesa di San Simeon Piccolo was across the canal from the train station, and we had a bit over an hour wait for our train. 

There is a long bridge from Venice to the mainland just for the train. The ride is very smooth and quiet. We have our luggage with us in the overhead trays. We have plenty of room though others with much larger suitcases seem to be having difficulty finding space. 

Florence is a zoo compared to Venice! It took us a while to find the taxi stand and it was a wild ride to the hotel. Very narrow streets, pedestrians, dogs, horse drawn carriages, people in wheelchairs, bicycles, and scooters. Then add in buses, double parked everything, plus tons of cars, and one way streets. Bridget is upset by the cab ride. She thinks the cab driver added time and distance to the trip.