Florence

From Nice, our trains hugged the coastline, giving us spectacular views before plunging us into the darkness of the tunnels. We had three more train connections, one of which sat on the tracks for 30 minutes, so we did not catch the train to Florence from Pisa until 10pm (2200). It was the most surreal type of experience. We were the only people in the car, and when the train made its stops along the route, the engine stopped and you could literally hear crickets, it was so quiet.

Once we got into Florence, it took awhile to find our hotel – which was three floors up. Now when I was booking this room, I figured three floors, would be American floors, with 8 foot ceilings. Silly me. In Italy, the ceilings are often a good 10+ feet. One flight of stairs felt like 1 /2 flights in the US; there were seventy steps up to that room. Granted it was a lovely room, with private bath; quite large by European standards, but those steps seemed to go on forever – just like those train rides.

The morning greeted us with drizzly rain, which cleared up in the afternoon. I’m not sure exactly what it was, but Florence did not meet my expectations. You heard more English spoken on the streets by tourist, than Italian by the locals. The streets were dirty with potholes. The tour groups from the world overran the monuments. It just was not what I expected.

We did check out some of the sites. We went to the Palazzo de Medici, the Cathedral, Santa Maria Novella, Uffizzi Gallery and check out the Ponte Vechicco.

(To my students of the “Architects of the Italian Renaissance” class. Ok, I’ll fess up. DH and I were walking around in the evening and there was a palazzo. An important one done by some important architect, because I remember putting it on a review sheet for an exam. I just started at it, “Oh.. it’s that one… with the cross-thingy… in reaction to Alberi… crap…” I was standing in front of Palazzo Rucellai and I couldn’t ID the damn thing. Not one of the prouder moments of my life – I’m blaming the wine.)

A lovely couple from Spain took our photo on one of Florence’s bridges over the Arno River:

Maybe missing a day in Florence for some time in Nice wasn't a horrible thing.