Under the Tuscan Sun

Written 7/12

Maybe I didn't like Rome. But Florence? I am a fan of Florence. It's one of the beautiful Italian (maybe European) cities. I spent two days walking around just enjoying it...in the scorching heat.

July 9

The train strike threatened to hamper my plans of having three days in Florence. Well, actually it did but it turned out fine. I managed to get a train to Florence only a couple hours later than I had planned. I got to Florence around 1pm and planned to do some exploring. When I checked into the hostel, they told me about a wine tasting/medieval fair/Tuscan country side tour that only happens once a year and that one time was tonight. 40 euro later I was signed up. I had to. The day before I was lamenting that I was not going to see the Tuscan countryside. *geography* Florence (Firenze in Italian) is a city in the region of Tuscany. Actually so is Pisa. So I was technically in Tuscany, just not the countryside. *geography*

I'm so glad I went on the tour. It was a really fun evening. We left around 3pm and went out to the country to have a wine tasting class. The "professor" was very funny and a very big flirt. The wines were impressive and so were the snacks they had. The school had this truffle olive oil that was divine. It was only rivaled by the 35 year balsamic vinegar we also tasted. Just thinking about it...*sigh* After the tasting, we did some more driving through the countryside. We stopped for a photo op in front of a fortified town. I can't remember the name but I know it was one of the only towns in the area that Florence had never occupied during their wars with Siena (in case you wanted to know). It is also supposed to be very beautiful. After the photo shoot, we and made our way to Montmaggiore, another tiny little medieval town on the top of a hill. As we changed our Euro into little medieval coins, I ended up joining some other solo travelers (as usual). We enjoyed our evening drinking moonshine wine from terra cotta cups and eating big hunks of pig shoulder wrapped in foccacia and watching the people dressed in Dark Age garb perform. We left the fair at midnight and got back to the hostel by about 1. I made plans to meet one of the girls for dinner and the sunset at Piazza Michelangelo the next evening and then called it a night.

July 10

I had a long breakfast/lunch since the hostel had a 5 euro all you can eat buffet until 12. I planned my walk for the day and ate plate after plate of bacon, eggs, cereal, yogurt, bread, coffee and oj. Then I spent my day from 1 until about 6:30 just exploring the city. I'll let the pictures tell the story.

I went back to the hostel for my 7 o'clock meet-up. My new Brazilian friend and I set out for Piazza Michelangelo for sunset viewing and dinner. But since the last time I had eaten was my long brunch (I did have delicious gelato, chocolate orange and lemon cookie), dinner took priority. I had gotten a recommendation for a traditional Tuscan resturant from one of our wine country/Middle Ages tour guides but somehow I lost the paper. We found a restaurant near the piazza that wasn't too pricey and had a menu in English and that was enough for us. I finally got my prosciutto and melon. It wasn't as I had planned. It was in a barley salad but it was pretty delish either way. By the time we finished dinner (and chatting), we had missed the sunset. (Luckily we caught a few very picturesque minutes of it on Ponte Vecchio on the way to dinner.) But the sunset is not the only reason to go to Piazza Michelangelo so we climbed the steep slope to the top of the hill. The city was beautiful from the high vantage point. And of course it was lit beautifully. We took pics with the bronze David and just hung out.

In all my walking that day, I was given a flyer for the Fish Pub and we decided to go, especially since it was pretty close to the hostel. It was a little dive-y. They had great drink specials and good music. But it must have been the pre-party spot because it cleared out by about 1. We tried to find the party around 2 but ended up at this smoky disco (and I mean disco, they were playing the oddest old school 50's/disco/dance mix ever). We cut out fairly quickly and went back to the hostel.

July 11

Since the last two night had been so late and filled with more than a little alcohol, I slept in a bit. I also didn't have much else to do. I had seen just about all of the city with the exception of the inside of the huge Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore and that Tuscan restaurant (the wine/countryside tour guide was happy to give it to me again). I left the hostel around 1 and decided that I would go to the cathedral and depending on how long the line was for the Uffizi museum I would spend my afternoon there. The cathedral was huge inside too but not nearly as extravagantly decorated as the outside (I still can't get over all the marble). The line for the museum was about 2 hours long so I vetoed that idea and ended up just walking around seeking out more churches that I could visit free. It was pretty rewarding. There were some very beautiful ones. Of course with no real purpose and the multitude of stores and shops lining the streets of Florence, I also ended up doing more than a little shopping. After gelato around 4:30, I went back to the hostel to cool off and do some travel planning for the next country (UK). It took me a bit longer than I would have liked and I didn't end up leaving the hostel until 8pm, an hour after my originally planned departure time. I would not be making it back for the final match so I hoped the Tuscan restaurant was showing it. When I got to the restaurant, I realized I would be eating like a local in Florence too. The staff spoke very little English and the menu was all in Italian. (So glad the tour guide lady wrote down what I "had to have"). I sat outside since there were no TVs inside. Good choice. Soon they started projecting the match onto the wall of the building next door. Viva Espana! But even more importantly, vive Florentine steak. My dinner was DELICIOUS. It was the biggest, juiciest, thickest, most flavorful (and also rarest) steak I have ever had. It was topped with fresh Parmesan cheese and sat on a bed of peppery, fresh spinach. *note on Tuscan steak* It is served rare. Ordering it any other way is just considered rude. The outside is grilled up nicely but there was all sorts of bovine cries as I sliced into it.I knew this ahead of time. I also knew that it would be a tasty treat, which is was. *end note* After dinner, I returned to the hostel and packed up since I would be leaving the following day in the morning.

July 12

Turns out I assumed wrong. It is just about noon and I had planned to be in Venice by now. I don't know why (I think I'm getting a little sloppy on the planning) but I did not buy my reservation yesterday and when I went to purchase my 9:30 ticket to Venice, there were no more and the next available reservation was at 12:30. I'm a bit disappointed because I only have from 2:30 until 8pm in Venice. I take an overnight train to Paris for fireworks! (Bastille Day). But one must repeat the backpacker mantra, "It wasn't meant to be." (the other is "It will all work out...somehow") Since I would not be leaving for 2 and a half hours, I went to a caffé and had my first cappuccino (Oh my! yummy. I wish it hadn't been so hot all these day so I could have drank more of them). I have been here for about two hours of those hours, planning my whirlwind Venice tour and then of course catching up on my blog. And I think I will make my way back to the train station to make my 12:30.

*Some hours later*

Venice is BEAUTIFUL! I love it. Four hours was not enough time to explore the way I like but it was enough to see the city and fall in love with it. After checking my bags at the train station, I hopped on the waterbus and took it all along the Grand Canal to Campo St. Marco. But I didn't go there first. First I explored a bit of the Castello neighborhood. Then I made my way to Campo di St. Marco and the Basilica of the same name. The ceiling of the basilica was covered in mosaics, which was so impressive. From the basilica I tried to make my way to another church in the Santa Croce neighborhood. I can check "get lost in Venice" of things everyone does in Europe. (I swear the street names on the map do not match up with the actual street names half the time. The city is really not that big. Definitely not big enough to be lost. But getting lost in beautiful Venice is not such a bad thing.) I eventually made it to the church and then made my aim the ghetto. I really wanted to see some synagogues since I had been seeing cathedrals and basilicas for 11 days. Oddly enough, the synagogues were not listed on the map...curious. I sat out on Foundrie Novella (New Foundry, i.e. where they forced the Jewish people of the city to live during WWII) for a while as the sun started to set. As 8pm approached I made my way back to the train station. Walking through Venice at sunset was the best. GORGEOUS. I stopped to get a pizza for dinner on the train. It was supposed to be "margherita." It was not. It was cheese and cheese alone. I was not entirely disappointed. Not because it was delicious (it was average, and by average I mean it tasted like good American pizza) but because I got it from a chain of sorts so I wasn't expecting too much (especially not after Baffetto).

I picked up my luggage and sought my train and compartment. A French couple was already seated and we chatted in French/English as we ate dinner in the car.

Commentary:

*Too legit* So I found the motherland of the hammer pants...ITALY. Not only are they all over the stores, people are actually wearing them! In fact, in H&M I heard an American girl trying a pair on. Luckily they did not fit. Wouldn't want those things smuggled into the States and multiplying. *please quit*