Los Dos Dias en Florencia!

The bell tower
Originally uploaded by davidnmartin98

Well, not Italian, but I was feeling the need to write another language. So that will have to suffice!

Well, by the time you read this you will likely have read all the other posts! Yes, we found an internet cafe that didn't want to charge me a fortune to plug my USB stick into! So you have had pictures and words to look at. Now if I could just get the scratch and sniff blog up and running you could find what it is like after wearing the same pair of socks for 3 days...

So we arrived in Florence on the EuroStar. The ride was uneventful, after the first few moments anyway. You have to have a reserved seat on the EuroStar, and we did. Lo and behold, there were people in our seats when we arrived on the train. Seems that somehow some double booking had happened and a number of had the same seats. It was all sorted out amicably and we settled into the journey to Florence. We had a little heart stopping moment when the person sitting next to me told me that it was not going to Florence but to Venice. I pointed out that the first stop was Florence, but not until after a jolt of adrenaline gave me a buzz, as the train had already pulled out of the station at Rome! I was able to write the last blog on the train that you have, of course, read. The journey was a short 1.5 hours, and the only unfortunate part about it was that I spent the entire time typing, so didn't really get to see much of the scenery. Our train back tomorrow is at 10pm, so no more opportunities there either. See, the things your trusty blogfuhrer does for you......

When we arrived at Florence, we disentangled ourselves from the train, and did the ever present "we do we go now" question. We had reservations at a hotel called "Hotel Dali", and with a quick consultation to Lonely Planet (LP) we were on our way from the train station. After about 5 minutes of walking we rounded a corner and there before us was the Duomo, the main cathedral. What a sight! I took a few snaps of it from this point, but then realised that my camera was still set to 1600 ISO after taking pictures in the Pantheon, so they are really noisy. Still, that shouldn't detract from the fact that it was quite amazing to see. We came right up to it and then headed off on a tangent road to our hotel.

Heading up the stairs, we were greeted by the smiling owner, Marco, who had a grin every bit as big as his photo on his website. He checked us in, not even really batting an eyelid when he saw that the reservation was for a double bed, and showed us our room. It is great! Much, much nicer than the room in Rome. But then, Rome is the capital, so we had to work to a budget. Here we are paying the same! Still, we are just fortunate to be able to do all these things, so I will not grumble. After dumping our stuff we headed out to the Duomo. From the outside, this is totally impressive. It seems that the facade is actually 19th century, but is totally amazing. It's this sort of patchwork quilt effect of marbles and is really quite funky. I wonder what the people thought of it when it was complete? It is certainly very different from the austere front of the Vatican. Once we had gone inside, it was a big contrast. The inside is empty! The first thing that hit us was that there were no pews. Just this big, huge, empty space! The nice thing about it is that you can easily walk all over it though and really look at it from all kinds of different angles, which you can't do in most churches dues to the benches etc. We spent a pleasant 30 minutes in there, looking at the interior and the amazing dome. I'll post a picture I took of James inside to give you an idea of the scale of things.

After the Duomo, tummies were rumbling, so we headed to a sandwich shop that we had passed on the way to the hotel. We enjoyed a sandwich and Coke (which cost more than the sandwich!) and then headed on our way again. The next stop was an exciting one for me; the Galleria degli Uffizi. Armed with the list I had made from my art history book, I was so excited to see the works that, up till now, I had only seen in the book and as a slide on a projector. We arrived, paid our entrance fee, had a quick battle with checking my backpack into the bag check and rushed up to the gallery. The first main gallery we saw contained two of the pictures I was most eager to see, the Madonna and child paintings by Cimabue and Giotto. I won't turn this into Art History blog (heaven knows, ask James....he had to listen to me lecturing him about them being a summary of Byzantine art and the transition to Naturalism!), but it was totally amazing. For some reason I thought the pieces were really tiny, but in reality they were about 10 feet tall and suspended in mid-air. Your blogfuhrer was tongue - tied (yay thought James, most likely!) We carried on our way around the gallery and saw everything, with me being tour guide through my typed notes and lists.

After leaving there, we headed out to the local Lesbian and Gay store to see if we could find out any info on the local scene. We met two very nice people who spoke Spanish, so James was able to find out all the info on where we might be going for a drink later. After this it was time to find some refreshment. It is from this place of refreshment that I am now typing this, to be saved to the ubiquitous USB stick for an upload tomorrow. Can you guess where we stopped for sustenance? No, not McDonalds, not Taco Bell either but we found a WINE BAR! It's called La Cite and is a bookstore with two levels that also happens to serve wine and coffee. So here we are, with our first bottle of Chianti in a place that is a cross between the Tattered Cover in Lodo Denver, our favourite Wine Bar in Rome and the Student Union. James is browsing through LP Florence, and the local gay magazine from Rome, and I am typing to the masses. Next stop will be dinner! We have a strong recommendation from some good friends of James, Ann and Mike Milacci, to go to a restaurant called Da il Latino, however it may be out of our reach price wise today. James is busy researching as the good professor he is, so I am sure we will end up somewhere fabulous.

So I’ll sign off here and pick up when we get back to the hotel tonight!

Well, dinner was an experience I can tell you! We arrived at Da Il Latino and looked at the menu outside. We were surprised as it listed pasta dishes for around 7e, so we went inside. The place was really quite busy as the books had said. After a short wait we went to a table for four, and sat down. Within minutes some other people had also joined us at our table! A Belgian man, a French Man, an American Man, and an English Man were all sitting at a dinner table....surely someone out there can make a joke out of that one for us? Almost immediately a waiter appeared with a 1 litre bottle of wine and swiftly opened it before we could protest. I could see the bill going up beyond our reach at this rate. Water also arrived and we ordered a bowl of Minestrone each to start. I have never had Minestrone quite like this before...it was delicious! James then ordered Sausage and Beans and I ordered a Penne dish, both of which were great. All this was interspersed with very light conversation with our dinner companions. All in all it was a great meal and I would highly recommend the restaurant to anyone. When the bill arrived everything had been split into two groups and the wine was 50% ours. So it came to about 6e more than we had expected which was great! After that, a quick jaunt through the freezing night air back to the hotel where I am finishing this up! Tomorrow, we go to see David and probably just wander Florence some. We head out at 10pm on the EuroStar back to Rome, so I’ll catch up with you all then!

Love D&J