First, we’d like to apologize for not having posted anything in a few days. Our days have been full and our mortal bodies tired, and we haven’t had access to wifi for a few days. Below you will find a very long blog about that past few days, but first, a shoutout to Tamsin Woolley back in the states : HAPPY 25TH BIRTHDAY TAMSIN!!! From Italy
From Florence
From our friend Ayoib in Venice
Our straps digging deep into our skin, rubbing back and forth, our breath hurried, little beads of sweat start rolling down our face. The sun is beaming down on us as we run to catch our bus 246 to the metro from camp Roma. As we enter the bus from the back we’re greeted by a young minister sitting down smiling, you can see a glimmer of laughter in his eyes, but we made it. In our rush we passed another backpacker- only to meet him again at the metro. I guess we didn’t need to run to catch the bus because the next one came right after. He was slender with fair features typical for a German. He told us of a hostel he recently stayed at in Florence right off Michelangelo (our next destination). He mentioned that it was cheap and in a beautiful location, so we made it our next stay to spend the night.
We arrive at the termini or main train station only to be confused by more jibber jabber, we haven’t picked up as much Italian as we’d like. We get lost in a sea of people waiting for their ticket number to come up on the screen so that they can purchase their tickets. It took an hour wait for us to finally decide to skip the line to purchase our train ticket for Florence. I was somewhat disappointed in our purchase of the eurail pass because the train was not free although discounted, it cost 10 euros each. I’ m beginning to wonder if there really is an advantage to buying the eurail pass.
When you see Roma, it is not what you envision Italy to be, it’s crowded, there’s a lot of history but not much character, lots of tourist, there’s no magic in the city, no passion. But Florence, Florence is exactly what we thought Italy would be, lots of character, and romance, the people had a little more laugh to them. The buildings looked vintage with lots of browns and beiges, the streets are narrow, and all the cars are small, ranging from the size of a smart car to a Toyota yaris. Street parking seems to be very difficult as there are very few spaces available due to the many cars parked on the side of the road. There’s so little space that they have cars parked on the bridge, going the length of the entire bridge.
We catch bus 12 from the train station to our camp Michelangelo where we are greeted by an amazing view of Florence from the top of the countryside. We immediately cross the street captivated by the view and forget to look both ways and almost became a bug on a windshield. We took a few pictures and we both instantaneously said this is the Italy we imagined in our dreams. After we sat quiet for a few more moments taking in the breathtaking scenery we started our walk to our campsite. With a little trepidation when we arrived at the campsite we decided to go with the more cost effective option, only by a few euros, and pitch our own tent. If it was up to me I think I would have spent the extra money and stayed in a tent they provided. For a simple tent it seemed to be a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. The tent only came with 3 parts: the tent, the poles that support the tent, and the stakes to anchor it to the ground. It took us an exhausting hour to figuring out how to make our tent stand. The camp grounds were filled with rocks, which did not make for a very comfortable sleep as the stones kept poking through the underbelly of the tent. And the bugs, especially the Mosquitos, in Italy are relentless. After we finished pitching our tent at 18:20 we decided to venture out and see all that Florence had to offer. We hopped on the first bus we saw and decided to get off on a random stop. We ended up getting off close to the the center of the city and decided to see the Boboli garden and Piazza Pitti. After getting lost a few times and then stopping to decide which restaurant to dine in we arrived at the gardens, only to our disappointment that it closed just minutes before we arrived. We tried to sneak in the back way, but the security caught us at the last possible moment before we were inside. We were only able to catch a glimpse of a piece of art that we snapped a quick photo of before being shooed out. We then sat outside the garden on a sloping hill that was picturesque of Italy. We laid talking for about an hour before our stomachs started to join in on the conversation . On our way in we noticed a place that was relatively cheap and could fit our penny saver budget, samosas and gyros for dinner.
As we lay in our tent to rest our heads for the night we are surrounded by a barrage of noise, if it wasn’t the music coming from the club Flo right next door or the cars driving on the road ten feet away from us, it was the metal clinking of some construction going on near by. Our rest not the most peaceful, but we woke the next morning with the knowing ache that we were leaving this beautiful city for Venice.
Tid bit for the day: When I have good ideas, they’re bad ideas, but then somehow my “bad” ideas become her good ideas an hour later.
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