Italy - Day 4, Part 2

 Ah, leaving Rome. Finally. I shouldn't say that but let's be honest, Rome didn't do as much for me as I hoped it would. Maybe my expectations were too high, maybe my head was just clogged with too much cigarette smoke, maybe I just wanted a real shower. No matter the reason, I am glad to be leaving Rome behind and moving on to the next city. I didn't do much research on Florence so I'm not sure what it's going to be like. We're going in blind on this one. Fingers crossed.

We left the Vatican around 12. I was hungry. Luckily, we had snacks. We munched away on almonds and walnuts as our theme song played over the bus's speakers. Hopefully we won't actually be walking 500 miles today.

Did I mention it was raining? Yeah. Thank goodness today (Monday) is a driving day. After a couple of hours, we stopped for lunch. At a gas station. No really, that's what it was. But you know, in Italy, the gas stations off the "interstate" are quite different than the gas stations back home. Actually all the gas stations are different. (Side note: in Rome, the stations were basically free standing pumps just off the road in the middle of the sidewalk.) At about $8 per gallon of gas (they actually measure it in liters), not a whole lot of people used cars as their primary means of transportation. This fancy gas station was actually about three stories tall with a real, genuine restaurant inside. Since Matt and I aren't real fancy people, we opted for the little food court on the second floor. We ate delicious pizza - very much American style pizza, fries, and fried olives. Say what? Yep, fried olives. Not as good as it sounds but we figured that we should give it a shot.


Then we got back on the road to head to Florence. I stared out the window (while sharing my ipod headphones with Matt and listening to Harry Potter) at this:

It's okay to be jealous. I understand. I got to see it. But hey, I'm sharing it with you!

 For several hours. Eventually, we made it to Florence. About 5:00 or so. It was pouring down rain. Pouring. The bus  wasn't allowed to pull straight up to the hotel so we had to unload several blocks away. Have I mentioned that Italy's sidewalks are made of cobblestone? And that I carried a suitcase on rollers? It's true. I'm not great at math, but cobblestone + rollers = fail.

And then I saw our hotel. And decided that Florence wouldn't be so bad after all.

 

Like Rome, we were lodging right in the middle of the city. But unlike Rome, this place was tucked a little back from the main street and looked charming. I mean look at it. Charming.  I couldn't wait to see the inside. Also like Rome, Florence is built on top of itself so we were on the second floor of the hotel. Not a big deal since we only had carry-on sized bags. Here was our room: 

 

Also like Rome, Florence only has twin-sized mattresses. What you see there is pair of twins pushed together. Unlike Rome, there was a queen-sized blanket over the top. I'll call it a coverlet. There, that sounds cozy. In reality, it was threadbare and scratchy. But that's okay.  There was also a third twin bed in the room. This room was clearly meant for at least three people. We felt like we had hit the jackpot! Especially compared to the size of the room we had in Rome. Guess what happened then!

We walked into TWO bathrooms! What?! I know. But it gets better - shower curtains and doors!!!! 



 This one was "mine." It had a toilet, a sink, and a tub with shower doors!!! I loved it. There was also a small window in the shower. Sometimes I opened it while I showered. I'm such a trollop.

 This one was Matt's. It had a toilet, a bidet, a sink, and a standing shower with a curtain! We were in Heaven.














 But no air conditioner. Turns out that threadbare coverlet was actually nice, especially with a sheet in between my skin and it.

After freshening up, we checked the rain and saw that it had stopped. We had to be back for supper with the group in a couple of hours so we decided to walk around a bit. The rain had cooled and cleared the streets so it was quite enjoyable. Once place we stopped in was the courtyard of the House of Medici. Let's talk about the Medicis. The Medicis were a large family that were kind of like the 12th century version of the mafia. Think money, power, and gold chains. Okay, maybe not exactly, but they were incredibly rich and so got a whole lot of power. The Uffizi, which we will go to later, is basically the Medici's personal art gallery. They lost it, along with the rest of their fortune, in the 18th century when the Coreleones stole their princess. I'm totally making that part up, but the Medicis aren't what they used to be in Italy.

The Medici courtyard. Look at the columns and ceiling! 

 After strolling for awhile, we met up with the group for a real spaghetti dinner. It was delicious. Then we had tiramisu for dessert and Limoncello shots for after dinner drinks. Fun was had by all.

Once dinner was over, most of the rest of the group went bar hopping while Matt and I kept strolling. The next day (May 1) was Italy's version of Labor Day so everything would be closed. To celebrate not having to work for a day, the city held their annual Notte Bianca (White Night). The shops were open late, the restaurants stayed open, there were street performances scheduled for every hour until dawn. People were everywhere and it was mostly Italians. Not a lot of tourists, but pure Florencians. I couldn't help but get caught up in the excitement. We got to hear a children's choir, see some great costumes, and watched some flamenco dancers pretend to start dancing about thirty times. It was pretty neat. Around 11, we went back to our hotel and tried to get some shut eye.

Did I mention that our hotel was in the middle of the city? Did I say that there was no air conditioner? Middle of the city means that we were smack dab in the middle of the White Night celebrations. No a/c means that we opened our windows. In short, we might as well have been back at Jackson Square on New Year's Eve. It was loud. We drifted in and out of sleep. I woke up about five and was about four seconds away from finding my nearest AK47 and blowing away the tap dancer outside our window. Seriously, I would have done it had I been able to find such an instrument of immediate destruction.

Next up: Day 5, Part 1! - we leave Florence for a side trip and wine tasting!