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.
I can empathize with Bridget, the fleecing of tourists is a universal constant in such cities. Someone tried to short change Martha in Rome, luckily that ended without too much trouble. Sad but not surprised to hear that Florence remains a zoo in terms of crowds.
ReplyDeleteIt turn out that the amount the driver charged is the lower end of n of normal, according to the front desk. The city center is blocked to everyone except actual residents of downtown. Everyone else he as to stay out and that includes cans.
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