Tuscany excitement
Day 5
Today was our last day trip out of Rome. I make it sound like we were always off some some exotic adventure when really it's just us wandering around the streets of Rome with our tourist map looking for something exciting or a metro stop.
One thing I haven't mentioned is the water fountains. The ancient Romans were far more advanced than modern Romans. Our tour guide in Pompeii mentioned that people in Pompeii willing and able to pay had running water in their homes, where when he grew up in the 70's they had no option for running water in their homes, they had to go to the fountains for water. But they still have the old aqua ducts and while there are few public bathrooms there is ample cold running water at fountains spread across the city, and even in Florence. And the water was delicious, and not all chemically like our water tends to be here. I miss it a little.
But today we ventured out on our own to Pisa and Florence. As soon as I said Pisa to my Mom she was sold. We did successfully book train tickets and conquer 3 different train stations! And we even splurged for better seats so we had a lovely, relaxing few train rides.
I did learn that there isn't much to do in Pisa aside from the Leaning tower complex as I shall call it. Technically the tower is the church bell tower. So the church is still there, and they've built a museum as well. It was about a 20-25 minute walk to get to the tower from the train station. And people are cheap so it was us and a few tour groups that actually climbed the 294 stairs at our allotted time. Or maybe 296 steps if you go up the other side according to the internet. Which confused us as there was no "other side".
We also toured the cathedral on the site. Mostly because it was free but it too was incredibly ornate like all the churches we've seen now. There was also a museum but I'd rather look at things for free than walk around and look at things I'm not as interested in while paying for it.
We didn't spend a lot of time in Pisa but I'd say it was worth it for the novelty factor alone. It was a little surreal that while we were hoping we were going the right direction all of a sudden the leaning tower appeared. It's also funny because all the pictures make it seem like it's out in a giant field all alone, but it's not. There is a little bit of grass but the entire complex is within the city and it did take some effort to find it.
After Pisa we headed east to Florence. We conquered the regional train there. Fortunately a lovely man helped us figure out how to validate our tickets on the platform. It's a little funny, but now that we've made it to Tuscany, home of Florence we've seen 4 different regions of Italy, including Venice from a previous trip. There are some differences, although not as distinct as the different regions here at home. But they were all quite lovely.
It was a simple trip there. Once we arrived in Florence we headed towards the Duomo. Fortunately in Florence all the tourist sites are in easy walking distance from the main train station so we didn't have to depend on cabs or the nonexistent metro system here. The Duomo is the big church in Florence. I was amused at how ornate it was on the outside and then it was rather plain on the inside.
Once at the Duomo you have some options. You can climb up the cathedral done to the cupola. Or you can climb the Campanile (the bell tower), or if you're a sucker for punishment I suppose you could do both. We decided on the tower as it's less showy so less people climb it, and then we could have views of the dome. Also, in retrospect it was shorter than the dome. And only had 414 stairs up and down. Not sun. And even less of a great idea after climbing the Leaning tower in Pisa.
But we made it to the top and back down. The views were quite lovely. It was crazy to see the architecture. As far as the eye could see, everything was the same. The same terracotta rooftop, and all the buildings were one of three colors, cream, beige and a light yellow.
We were incredibly ahead of schedule. I had thought that we would only get to see a very small fraction of the city. We headed off to the museum to see David by Michelangelo after lunch. It's a small, obscure little museum with little to see aside from David. The statue is in a place called the Accademia Belle Arte. It has a few other statues and a random room filled with a disturbingly large number of marble busts just stacked on shelves along the walls.
After talking with people I had braced myself for a bit of a wait to get in. People on our Pompeii tour waited 1.5 hours. Mom was persistent and managed to buy reserved time tickets for entrance in 5 minutes. And they even let up in early. So we waited about 15 minutes. David was quite spectacular. The attention to detail was incredible. How you could give a marble statue veins I'm not sure.
If you aren't wanting to spend your days in museums and art galleries I wouldn't really suggest Florence for anything more than a quick trip. We did find some other interesting things to do. We hit the Central Market, which is basically a simple fresh food market surrounded by booths on the streets around it. Only 99% of the booths sold "leather" belts, "leather" purses, suitcases, ties or random, slightly odd collections of souvenirs. And the booths were nearly identical with prices and displays, it was obviously one person who ran them all. A bit of a waste but we saw it anyways.
Once we were finished with that we consulted our stolen map. Mom found a dropped map in the Campanile and someone had circled the main points of interest for us. We kept the map, why waste it when we didn't have one! She also said it was finders keepers.
So we headed south towards the Arno River for the Ponte Vecchio bridge. Along the way we passed a lovely little piazza, the Piazza della Signoria. It had a fancy carousel and a few museums, one museum with so many statues they had a bunch on a balcony you could get onto and look at for free. It was a little strange.
The bridge was really strange. At some point people built all these little buildings along the side of the bridge. And then you go over the bridge to realize that they are now all high end jewelry stores. Just past the bridge was another piazza, with a building with 6 museums in it. After all the this we headed back to the train station for our return trip to Rome. We really went out and got business class train tickets. Which included a drink service and snacks. Better than the plane. Air Canada doesn't even serve snacks on flights across the country anymore.
We made it back to the hotel. No getting lost this time. Only to have the front desk seem really happy to see us. because apparently something was happening under our room and it needed to be fixed early the next morning. So they needed to move us only our stuff was spread out so they waited for us to get back. But now we have a bigger room with a shower instead of the tiny corner shower. It's a nice way to spend the last few nights.
Today was our last day trip out of Rome. I make it sound like we were always off some some exotic adventure when really it's just us wandering around the streets of Rome with our tourist map looking for something exciting or a metro stop.
One thing I haven't mentioned is the water fountains. The ancient Romans were far more advanced than modern Romans. Our tour guide in Pompeii mentioned that people in Pompeii willing and able to pay had running water in their homes, where when he grew up in the 70's they had no option for running water in their homes, they had to go to the fountains for water. But they still have the old aqua ducts and while there are few public bathrooms there is ample cold running water at fountains spread across the city, and even in Florence. And the water was delicious, and not all chemically like our water tends to be here. I miss it a little.
But today we ventured out on our own to Pisa and Florence. As soon as I said Pisa to my Mom she was sold. We did successfully book train tickets and conquer 3 different train stations! And we even splurged for better seats so we had a lovely, relaxing few train rides.
I did learn that there isn't much to do in Pisa aside from the Leaning tower complex as I shall call it. Technically the tower is the church bell tower. So the church is still there, and they've built a museum as well. It was about a 20-25 minute walk to get to the tower from the train station. And people are cheap so it was us and a few tour groups that actually climbed the 294 stairs at our allotted time. Or maybe 296 steps if you go up the other side according to the internet. Which confused us as there was no "other side". We also toured the cathedral on the site. Mostly because it was free but it too was incredibly ornate like all the churches we've seen now. There was also a museum but I'd rather look at things for free than walk around and look at things I'm not as interested in while paying for it.
We didn't spend a lot of time in Pisa but I'd say it was worth it for the novelty factor alone. It was a little surreal that while we were hoping we were going the right direction all of a sudden the leaning tower appeared. It's also funny because all the pictures make it seem like it's out in a giant field all alone, but it's not. There is a little bit of grass but the entire complex is within the city and it did take some effort to find it.
After Pisa we headed east to Florence. We conquered the regional train there. Fortunately a lovely man helped us figure out how to validate our tickets on the platform. It's a little funny, but now that we've made it to Tuscany, home of Florence we've seen 4 different regions of Italy, including Venice from a previous trip. There are some differences, although not as distinct as the different regions here at home. But they were all quite lovely.
It was a simple trip there. Once we arrived in Florence we headed towards the Duomo. Fortunately in Florence all the tourist sites are in easy walking distance from the main train station so we didn't have to depend on cabs or the nonexistent metro system here. The Duomo is the big church in Florence. I was amused at how ornate it was on the outside and then it was rather plain on the inside.
 |
| Duomo in Florence |
But we made it to the top and back down. The views were quite lovely. It was crazy to see the architecture. As far as the eye could see, everything was the same. The same terracotta rooftop, and all the buildings were one of three colors, cream, beige and a light yellow.
We were incredibly ahead of schedule. I had thought that we would only get to see a very small fraction of the city. We headed off to the museum to see David by Michelangelo after lunch. It's a small, obscure little museum with little to see aside from David. The statue is in a place called the Accademia Belle Arte. It has a few other statues and a random room filled with a disturbingly large number of marble busts just stacked on shelves along the walls.
 |
| David |
If you aren't wanting to spend your days in museums and art galleries I wouldn't really suggest Florence for anything more than a quick trip. We did find some other interesting things to do. We hit the Central Market, which is basically a simple fresh food market surrounded by booths on the streets around it. Only 99% of the booths sold "leather" belts, "leather" purses, suitcases, ties or random, slightly odd collections of souvenirs. And the booths were nearly identical with prices and displays, it was obviously one person who ran them all. A bit of a waste but we saw it anyways.
Once we were finished with that we consulted our stolen map. Mom found a dropped map in the Campanile and someone had circled the main points of interest for us. We kept the map, why waste it when we didn't have one! She also said it was finders keepers.
 |
| Ponte Vecchio |
The bridge was really strange. At some point people built all these little buildings along the side of the bridge. And then you go over the bridge to realize that they are now all high end jewelry stores. Just past the bridge was another piazza, with a building with 6 museums in it. After all the this we headed back to the train station for our return trip to Rome. We really went out and got business class train tickets. Which included a drink service and snacks. Better than the plane. Air Canada doesn't even serve snacks on flights across the country anymore.
We made it back to the hotel. No getting lost this time. Only to have the front desk seem really happy to see us. because apparently something was happening under our room and it needed to be fixed early the next morning. So they needed to move us only our stuff was spread out so they waited for us to get back. But now we have a bigger room with a shower instead of the tiny corner shower. It's a nice way to spend the last few nights.
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