February 28: Rome to Florence

I got a decent sleep last night-I think I only woke up twice. The alarm went off at 6:30 and we got ready and said good bye to our wonderful roommates by 7. We waited in the help line at Termini for awhile, just to make sure our tickets were right and we knew what to do. The train we wanted was leaving at 8:45. We waited till 8 for the grocery store to open to buy bread and cheese for lunch, and an apple for me. Then we tried to find our train, but it was really confusing! Thank goodness we stopped a nice-looking fellow with a bit of English for directions, or we would have been entirely wrong. Thanks to him, we found our train just in time. We had booked the "slow train" that makes lots of stops, but I loved watching the countryside roll by, especially the pretty valley and hilltop villages, the sheep, cows and chickens roaming and scratching away in fields. I even saw one small sheep herd guarded by the big, fluffy white dogs they raise with the herds to think they're a toothy sheep. The morning was a bit damp, with some light rain, but it had cleared up nicely. I read through my wonderful new Frommer's guide to Florence, planning our visit. We ate our bread and "Edamer" cheese and got to Florence's Santa Maria Novella Stazione right at 12:45. We found our hostel easily, but I can't say I'm at all impressed. Amanda had specifically emailed them about using credit cards to pay (he'd said of course) but now the machine is mysteriously "broken" for this week. BS. He just doesn't want to pay the merchant fee, but what can we do? Good thing we got more cash yesterday. The bathrooms here are communal and gross. The one communal computer he'd advertised online is, of course, broken. Our room is barely serviceable, and our view is of a very sketchy-looking grafittied no-man's land. The curtains on the window are see-through, and the door is not at all sound-proof. I'm actually pretty sure it magnifies noise. Darn. I have to spend 3 nights here! Nothing I can do now, though. We haven't met our roommate yet, but at least their suitcase and shoes are here, and the shoes are pink pumps, so hopefully it's a girl!

After dumping our bags in our room, we thought we'd explore a little. We walked past the big Santa Maria Novella Church to the really famous Florentinian church, the Duomo. From the outside it sort of looks like a giant white, green, and pink wedding cake. It's quite pretty, in a very unique way. I've never seen anything like it. Outlined against the bright blue sky and fluffy clouds, it was even more impressive. Inside, though, it's pretty bare. My book calls it the "inside-out" church. The interior is really just plaster with a few statues and frescoes. The inside of the dome is nice, though, brightly painted with a scene of Heaven.

The Duomo

Inside the Duomo

Palazzo Vecchio

Inside the Palazzo Vecchio

Next, we decided to find Santa Croce, to the south of the city. On the way, we stumbled across some pretty sculptures in the Piazza della Signoria, outside the Palazzo Vecchio (a sort of "town hall" building, where the David originally stood). Now it's an outdoor statue gallery, with quite a few sculptures of classical and Biblical stories displayed under a roof. We decided to walk along the river to find Santa Croce, which was a good decision, partly because our maps aren't nearly as detailed as our Roman ones were (we had stopped by the Tourist office by the Duomo on a tip from my guide so at least we had maps, since the hostel had none). The sun was out, it was warm, and the birds were singing, so the walk along the river was a nice one. I saw entire rooftops literally lined with pigeons sunning themselves. We found the Santa Croce church, which is a very famous one, and paid for our tickets into the museum attached (5 Euro-ouch). Inside, we saw the tombs of Galileo Galili (Where his bones were moved after he was un-excommunicated after his death), Michelangelo, Dante Alighieri, and a monument to Niccolo Machiavelli, as well as lots of other famous tombs. Many of the paintings and statues were done by famous artists (Gaddi, Giotto, Michelozzo and Donatello), which was fun to see, but honestly, I'm all church-ed out at this point. I have seen so many religious scenes in the past week and now they're all blurring together!

Tomb of da Vinci

Galileo Galili

 

Michelangelo

Dante

Cimabue's famous cross that was damaged in the horrible flood of 1966

By then it was 4:30 but we were dying of starvation, so we went to the Piazza del Signoria and found a good-looking place where we each got a Margarita pizza for 4 Euro. They were heavenly, hand-tossed and baked in a wood fire oven in front of us. It was just what we needed to make it home, with a stop at a grocery store on the way for bread, blood oranges and nutella for breakfast. It got really cold here as soon as the sun went down. Now the plan is to just relax and turn in early in the hopes that it will be quiet enough here for sleep.

PIZZA!!!

Oh wow! Just as I finished this, I heard a sound like a zillion chirping crickets, so I opened the rickety window and there were literally thousands of little birds flying overhead! Really! I could never even imagine something like that! THey were flying in little rivers or waves with the wind currents. The whole sky was balck and the air was filled with chirping and flapping. There's a pine tree out our window that lots of them landed on, I don't know why. There were so many, the tree (kind of looked like a cedar or juniper, with upward-facing limbs) creaked and groaned. They looked like bunches of moving grapes hanging off the branches. The whole tree wiggled and writhed. Every once in awhile a bunch would fly off an the flapping sounded like roaring waves on the ocean. It was so much fun to watch them! They stayed at least 20 minutes, as the dusk got darker, then all of a sudden the last batch flew off and they were gone. Such and amazing sight! That alone made this trip worthwhile!