Wednesday 30th April

Florence ( still Leon)

Alorra, up at six am this morning as we had to get down the hill and on the train by 8.00 am, now you may think that two hours is a long time to get up and travel 3.7 K’s to the station, but then you have to add the inevitable parking hassles and almost certainly an impromptu game of charades to buy the three tickets for our train Journey to Florence.

We parked the car near the Police station that also shared the train station building. Tickets were purchased from the Tabachi/Bar next door to the station and needed to be validated in the machine on the platform, this all went fairly smoothly with minimal charades required, though we were to discover the validation machine to be il rotto (broken) so we were unsure what would happen there after, all of the info sources stressed the need to validate prior to travel and the fines that may follow if you fail to do so. The train arrived dead on time and our first encounter with TrenItalia was on some of Italy’s smallest and possibly oldest rolling stock, it was a two carriage rail motor, but was comfortable and thankfully well heated, the ambient temperature outside was a frosty nine degrees and quite brisk for a gaggle of North Queenslanders on an adventure to Firenze (Florence). We all made it to our first change of train’s station without incident and managed to validate the tickets at Lucca. Our next train was a modern intercity electrified outfit, and was about fifteen carriages long, the total Journey was to take 1hr 45 min’s according to Trenitalia’s schedule, and after a short delay we were off to our final destination Firenze. About half way through the trip the train stopped at a station and went from being partially full to completely overcrowded and busting at the seam’s, we had just acquired a large gaggle of German oldies. In Italy it seems that personal space does not exist at all, and sundry were pressed up hard against one another. Having recently travelled on Hong Kong city trains we were accustomed to full trains, but this was beyond ridiculous, and as it turned out the train itself agreed, as at the next station it was also il rotto and refused to go on, after much looking underneath and gesticulating by the conductor and the guard we were all ushered off the broken train and directed to a new one waiting a few platforms away.

Possibly because we did not have a clue what was going on, it took us a little time to relinquish our comfy seats and head across the tracks to our new non il rotto train, and to our dismay this train now resembled the one we had just broken, as it now had its original passengers plus all of ours. We walked along the platform and were greeted by the crush of passengers packed in tight on both train and platform, I noted that way down the other end there appeared to be know one so we lead a charge to the back end of the train and surprise, surprise! the last two carriages were nearly empty, we secured some very nice comfy seats and watched the rest of the losers gradually filter down and take up the standing room available. We arrived, Firenze Santa Maria Novella Stazione about 1 hour late.

Our first port of call was a quick visit to the stations tourist info office, and armed with our map and my pocket lighter by one Euro, we were ready to hit the big smoke, we stepped out of the station to a cold bleak looking day but thankfully the rain was patchy and light when it happened at all. Belinda was keen to visit a Pharmacia that had been peddling its wares for a few centuries from the same spot and is world renowned for its beauty products and in particular moisturizers and fragrances typical to Tuscany.

We got our bearings and went on the search, of course we were looking for a big brassy shop front with windows displaying the wears, but, what we found was more akin to a gallery, with the main shop located behind very formal looking doors, at the end of an elegant palazzo. Upon entering, one is greeted by a huge chamber with a large ornate, beautiful antique counter, and the walls lined with antique, floor to ceiling display cabinets that appeared they would be at home in any stately mansion or regal palace across Europe.

We wondered the rooms which consisted of a museum and library and also herbalist and fragrance chambers. It was so over powering and formal that we left with a copy of the bill of fare, as we felt too intimidated to even ask how much things might cost, we left and decided to return when we felt braver and considerably more cashed up.

We wondered down the street and headed in the general direction of Ponte Vechio (the gold bridge across the river Arno). Florence as we are discovering is like all Italian cities that has a centre, that is the oldest section, that consists of the main Piazza and the Duomo, Piazza seem to be built wherever a building is, that was essential to the day to day life of the cities inhabitants, for instance a piazza will be near the Cathedral, a market or the municipal office most of which were formally the monarch’s seat in days of old. We found Ponte Vechio and noted that a few thousand other tourists had managed the same feat. When you think that Florence was one of Italy’s most visited cities, I guess we were not doing too bad to be able to visit with only a few thousand instead of the usual crush that the locals speak of. We wondered up and down the bridge suitably dazzled by the bling on display, I made a mental note to return soon for the purchase of a pinky ring, which was on my personal tick list of things to do in Italy. It was my little heart’s desire to indulge in a bit of bling for myself and I was hoping for something typical of Florence and hopefully a one off handmade piece. (one is allowed to dream;-) We went in search of lunch and dined in a Turkish establishment just near the bridge that served micro zapped Italian cuisine but very good bread less Kebab’s!! Food is proving to be a bit hit and miss and seems to be expensive for the quality of food served in most instances.

We left the bridge and headed in the direction of Piazza Della Signora, we strolled along the front of the Uffizi and were sharing the space with statues of the great masters including the likeness of Leonardo Di Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti to name just a few. The piazza at the end is home to some of the icons of Florence, including a copy of Michelangelo’s David, in the same spot where the original stood until the mid 1800 when it was sifted for preservation purposes.

Strangely I kept losing sight of Belinda in this piazza, but I could always find her gravitating towards the same spot gazing up at David and his allegedly perfect form! Charlotte’s only comment on seeing these famous statues was ‘Thank goodness they invented clothes!’ Belinda was in hysterics!!! Several photo’s later we left Piazza Della Signora and went in search of the Duomo, all one has to do to achieve this is to look up or follow the biggest throng, like migrating salmon we seemed to be swimming upstream towards our goal, Florence’s Duomo gives new meaning to the word detail. The plans for the Façade were submitted by Michelangelo and it is mind boggling to see the amount of work that was done to complete the work, and at a time when one could not reach for a handy Bosch power tool to help things along.

It was getting late and we had to start back toward the station for our trip home to Ponte A Moriano. The trip home was uneventful by comparison to our earlier one and we made it home around 8:30pm and collapsed after what proved to be a fairly big day for us all.