We arrived in Florence on Sunday at around 12.30 pm after a 2 hours train ride on Italo 9912 (Italo is a privately run train system, (Trenitalia is govt. run). The train ride up north was very comfortable, we were in coach and paid just 60 Euro for 4 of us. I thought that was really cheap on a fast train that reached a peak speed of 260 kmph. Book in advance and you can get great deals.
I had to exchange some dollars to Euros. I did this at the train station. After the bad experience at Rome airport, I was ready for them. The woman at the counter told me that the fees was 19 % and if I exchanged more than 500 bucks, she would bring it down to 15 %. In which other business do you get 15 % commission for a cash transaction?? I managed to negotiate this down to 9 %, which I think is still very high. I needed the Euros !!
The hotel was a short cab ride from the station. Florence like Rome was very very hot and humid. Our hotel Berchielli was a bit of an unknown. I booked based on good reviews on TripAdvisor. It was a little expensive, as are most hotels in Florence.
It turned out to be a very quaint, exclusive and one of the oldest hotel in Florence. We got the rooms on the top floor. We discovered later from hotel literature that the Picasso had stayed in the room that we were in, Room 514 at the Berchielli. That was amazing !! Complete coincidence. The room had windows that opened to a beautiful view River Arno (that flows all way to Pisa and beyond) and a lovely view of the Ponte Vecchio bridge ( the oldest bridge in Florence).
Florence is the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is a city museums, cathedrals and Palaces. There are so many of them here. It is considered the birthplace of renaissance. It was the hub for business and trade and one of the wealthiest cities in the region. It is small cozy city, with a population of less than 0.5 M. Small narrow streets, even narrower pavements. most streets cobbled with stone. Very nice feel to the city. Tourism is the biggest business here, cultural & religious tourism is huge.
Our first stop after lunch was at the Dumo(Dome). It was a quick 5 min walk from the hotel. We were told that the cathedral was closed, but we could visit the museum and go up the Dumo and the bell tower. We visited the museum on Sunday. It was focused on the works of Michelangelo and the construction of the Dumo. The story of the construction of Dumo was very interesting. The construction was spread out over several decades and under the guidance of different engineers. An interesting fact to know that Michelangelo was inspired by this Dumo to build a similar one at the Vatican.
After this visit, we went to Piazza Michelangelo. This was recommended as a spot for sunset viewing. We got there by taxi, a 9 Euro ride from the Dumo. There was not much to see other than a replica of David by Michelangelo and a beautiful overlook of Florence. We got some pictures here, enjoyed the sunset over a glass of beer and some wine and cabbed back to the hotel.
I continue to be very impressed with the taxi system/ service in Italy. They are very easily available, drivers are courteous, they charge by the meter and don’t cheat.
We got some paninis to go for dinner (a break from pasta and pizza). Some where in between all of this we got our daily dose of Gelato. We have several learnings about Italian food, but I will address that later. Talking about food, it has been 8 days since we had Indian food. The last was at Jaipur in Cologne on July 3rd. I am craving for biryani, masala Dosa and other Indian food. The kids seem to be doing okay.
We watched Portugal win the Euro Cup final and drifted off to sleep in la casa Picasso @ Berchielli.
Day 2 – Monday
After a late and awesome breakfast, we went to the Dumo. Amu and Usha wanted to get some rest and save their energy for our visit later in the day to Pisa. Prerana and I made the short walk to the Dumo. We had to decide between climbing the Dumo and the Bell Tower. The Dumo was higher and many had more steps. The wait for the climb to the top of the Dumo was 3 hours Vs 1 hour for the Bell Tower. The Bell Tower won !! We stood in line for about 45 min before we started our climb. It was a climb of 414 steps. For our tired legs, it felt like we were did much more than that. A few stats on the Dumo and Bell Tower;
– Construction of Dumo started on 1296 and lasted. 140 years.
– Bell Tower is a part of the cathedral / Dumo in Florence. Conceived by Giotto who was an eminent painter and architect
– Project started in 1334. Giotto died in 1337 and the project was completed in 1359
– 82 m high, the Dumo in comparison is 96 m high
We were exhausted after the climb. A bottle of Powerade and lemonade later, we caught up with the rest of the crew and were on our way to Pisa.
Pisa is well connected by train from Florence. About 45-50 min by a regional train will get you to Pisa. We took a cab from the train station to the Tower (flat rate 9 Euro). We had an appointment at 3.15 to go to the top of the tower. We had some lunch at one of the local trattoria near by. Fantastic pasta!! The local vino was good as well.
Security here was kinda tight at Pisa, there was much more security here than at the Dumo or bell tower. There was no security at the Dumo or bell tower, which was surprising. We saw some tough looking army types with automatics in many spots in Rome, especially in the Metro stations.
We had to deposit our bags at a cloak room, we were checked out with a metal detector, before we started our climb. This was 297, but it was not the number of steps that made this climb very interesting. The stairway was inclined (since the Tower is leaning to one side) and so you are thrown off balance. There were a couple of spots along the way to stop and catch your breath. The views were amazing from the viewing gallery at the top. You still get this very unsteady feeling as you walk around the periphery of the Tower. The climb down was in some ways tricker to navigate due to the inclined stairway.
After the customary pictures “trying to hold your arm against the leaning tower” or hug the Tower in my case, we started our way back to the Pisa station. The train tickets between Florence and Pisa were 8 bucks per head one way.
After some rest at the hotel, we went out for what will be our final “pasta” meal in Italy. We went to a trattoria Osteria di paccatori. I had some of the best pasta, spaghetti actually in the entire trip. It was fresh and very very good. We had a final round of gelato at our favorite gelateria on the way back to the hotel.
We were completely tired by the time we got to the hotel. Crawled into bed and drifted away into a deep slumber very quickly.
Day 3 Tuesday
I woke up early (as usual) and decided to take a walk along the river Arno. It was a beautiful morning, the sun was just beginning to come out. I walked onto the famous Ponte Vecchio bridge. It was about 7.30 or may be 8 am and there were already groups of tourists up and about. Incredible!! I walked across the bridge, got some really nice morning pictures.
This was our last day in Florence. We were on the 3.30 pm fast train from Florence to Milan. The only thing we had on the agenda was the visit to the Uffizi museum. Again we did not book in advance and had to book through a reseller site and managed to get a 11.30 am appointment. It was going to be tight. We get may be 2-3 hours at the museum before we come back to the hotel, pick our bags and head out to the train station. Of course we had a few things we wanted to pick up, gifts and some take back items.
We all know that Italy is famous for leather goods. We saw a lot of leather stuff on display in Florence, both stores on the street and showrooms as well. I was not very impressed, most of the items seemed very expensive, priced for tourists. The other popular items on shopping lists were clothes (Italians are well known for their fashion), wine (of course) and chocolate.
Breakfast at the Berchielli was awesome. They had a fantastic spread. Their coffee (Kaffe Americano) was the best that I had on the entire trip. It was just perfect !!
We got to the Uffizi museum, a short walk from hotel, in time for 11.30 time slot. The crowds were huge. Even with a reservation, we had to stand in line, to get tickets before we could go in. The Uffizi museum is known to be biggest and best museum on Italy and we were on a time budget. No way that we could do justice to this museum. We decided that we would do a very selective walk through of the museum, hitting the selected highlights in the museum. We had a list of art work which were the classics ( and artists who were famous. We saw works of painters such as Michelangelo, Bottichelli, Raphael, Leanardo, Caraviggio and famous paintings such as the Birth of Venus, Spring, Christening of Jesus, Annunciation, Madonna and Child, Battle of San Ramano. There were so many others that as beautiful and amazing. You can spend an entire day in this museum and still not do justice to it. Unfortunately we did not have that much time.
From the Uffizi, we left for the hotel, picked up our luggage and left for the train station. We grabbed some sandwiches / paninis for lunch and were ready for the ride to Milan.
The train ride was uneventful. We got to experience first class on Italo (first class was cheaper than coach). The train zipped through the country side of the Tuscan region at incredible speeds, through several tunnels in the Apennini mountain range and across fields of sunflower and several vineyards.
We arrived in Milan a few minutes behind schedule. We took the Malpensa Express to the airport and from there the airport shuttle to our our hotel. After dinner at the hotel and we end to bed early. We had to catch the 7 am shuttle back to the airport for our return flight to US.
A Italian holiday comes to an end…. A great vacation, several memories, moments that we will cherish forever.
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