A morning in Florence & an evening in Pisa
I can not say that I awoke on Sunday morning feeling the most rested ever…between the slight wine headache and the apneic snoring of my Italian roommate, I was a bit tired. I quickly got dressed and ready and went out to the hostel kitchen to check out the free breakfast. They had some packaged pastries and crackers, yogurt, juice, and some muesli and milk. It was enough to start the morning. My new friend, David, was also up and we ate one last meal together before parting ways. He was off to beat the queue at the Uffizi Gallery and I had a date with the real David!
My hostel was called Academy because it was right down the street from the Accademia dell'Arte del Disegno, which is really famous for housing Michelangelo’s David sculpture (made in 1501-1504). On the way, I stopped for a quick cappuccino to stave off the caffeine headache that was sure to join the wine headache. I was happy to arrive and find that there was absolutely no queue outside of the museum as it can be horrendously crowded. I walked right in, forked over my €6.50 and entered the museum. Before you even get to the David, you walk through galleries of other renaissance and medieval religious paintings. They were really beautiful but I have to say I was anxious to see if this David guy was all that he’s cracked up to be. Finally, there he was, standing in the middle of the building, under a glass dome and surrounded by a Spanish school group. He was much bigger than I had expected! In fact I later read that he stands 17ft tall and made of a single piece of marble. The level of detail in the statue is really impressive. In his hands and feet, each nail is outlined, every vein and tendon carved in such a life-like manner. His hair, although made of marble, gives off the impression that it might be soft and flowing if the wind were to blow, or you were to run your fingers through it. It truly just expresses the notion of strength and male beauty. I felt as if some of the proportions were a little bit off, but wasn’t sure if that was just my point of view in looking from below. It was interesting to read that when the David was on display in England, a plaster fig leaf was placed over David’s twig & berries so as to make him more modest when the Queen came to view him. There is a glass barricade around the base of the statue that was placed after a crazy artist guy attacked David’s toe with a hammer!
When I left the museum, I saw a line at least 50 people long waiting to see the David. I was so thankful that I made it my morning priority to visit the Accademia. From there, I wandered through the sunny morning streets of Florence. It was a bit less crowded as I guess the tourists were still sleeping in. I found a tiny piazza with a small flea market and I sat down and watched the locals buzzing about. From there, I noticed the green patina of a copper dome in the distance and decided to find out what it was attached to. I stumbled around until I finally found it…it was a Jewish synagogue! I didn’t really expect to see that, as Italy is such a catholic nation, but there it was, the Jewish section of Florence. It only lasted for about 2 blocks, but it does exist!
I followed my nose to the smell of leather and perused through a few shops. They had some beautiful items: boots, wallets, coats, purses, high heels and so on. The items were not wildly expensive, but certainly not a discount. In another store, they also sold cameo jewelry. I find cameos to be so beautiful and classy, and not something one sees every day. They had rings, necklaces, earrings and brooches, and even a few lamps! They even had blue cameos which were pretty. They were all out of my price range, but it was fun to look. Apparently Italy is known for its shell cameos, something I never knew!
After lots of window shopping and noticing the increasing crowds of tourists coming out of every street, I crossed the Arno again into the Oltrarno neighborhood which is much quieter. I wanted to go up the hill as far as I could and see what the view was like. It gets quite steep in the area across from the Ponte Vecchio. Eventually, I found myself at one of the entrances to the Boboli Garden. I was a bit shocked that they charged €7 to visit a park, but I told myself, try everything once! The park has some beautiful views of the Arno, Florence, and the mountains beyond. It is very impressive to see how the Duomo (cathedral) dominates the entire city as it is the tallest building. It was pretty quiet at Boboli so it was a peaceful experience with the birds chirping in the trees. The Palazzo Pitti is also located in the gardens and I believe my entrance fee granted me access to the interior, however I realized that time was running out as I needed to get to Pisa with some daylight left!
With out rushing, I meandered through a few more streets in the Oltrarno and then crossed back to the area closer to my hostel. I was quite hungry at this point, and wanted to try some real Italian pizza. It was surprisingly harder than I thought it would be to find a quick pizza places. There were plenty of sit-down pizzerias, but not too many where you could grab a slice and go! In fact, most of them were right near the Piazza del Duomo, which is what I wanted to avoid. However as time was of the essence, I gave in and followed the other tourists. I tried a slice of mushroom and a slice of salame. The pizza slices were rectangular without a large crust like we have at home. There was also far less cheese on them too. I sat outside of the Duomo, admiring it one last time before I would leave Florence. After my pizza, I treated myself to another serving of gelato. This time I tried cantaloupe and vanilla flavors which were delicious. After that, it was time to be on my way!
I gathered up my belongings from the storage room at the hostel, opened my map, and navigated my way to the train station. The path that I took, led me through a busy market, which turned out to be a tad frustrating as I was in a rush to get to the station knowing that the next train would be leaving shortly. I also wished I had more time to stay and see what they had to offer! However, I did recall that Ali and I had spent time in this market back in college when we backpacked through Europe, so at least I hadn’t totally missed the experience! The train station was packed with people coming and going. I bought my ticket to Pisa from an automated kiosk for just €5.60 and I ran to the train as it was leaving in just 5 minutes! After my little sprint, I found 2nd class train car and settled in. I later realized that I really didn’t need to rush so much, as the train sat on the tracks for another 15 minutes. I think Italy runs on “Italian time” to a large extent.
My ride was some what uneventful and I arrived in Pisa and just one hour, around 3pm. Unfortunately, the weather seemed to have changed in that time and now the skies were grey and overcast. I used my travel guide map to find the way to Hotel Bologna, my last bed in Italy. It was a nice three star hotel and it seemed almost deserted. It was a nice break from the hoards of people in Florence. My room was tiny, but very cute, clean and even with a plasma screen TV.
After dropping my bags, I set off to make the most of the last few hours of sunlight. I walked on the Corso Italia, which is the main shopping area in Pisa. There were a lot of people in this area, it seemed to be mostly locals. There were groups of little children in costumes, dressed as princesses, animals, knights, and so on, basically like Halloween. They were throwing confetti in the streets, and I presumed it was for Carneval celebrations. There wasn’t much in the way of shopping to do since it was a Sunday afternoon, so I kept going so that I could check out the Piazza del Miracoli (the Leaning Tower of Pisa).
I have to say that the pictures were a lot nicer from our stop in Pisa on my first day in Italy. With the overcast sky, it wasn’t as special, but nonetheless, it is fun to just look at the crazy tower. It really leans in several different directions! It probably would have fallen over by now if they hadn’t secured it with wires and also solidified the ground below. Apparently it’s basically just sand under the entire Piazza so the other buildings are also on somewhat of a lean. When I had my fill of the Piazza del Miracoli, I wandered through some of the other piazzas and narrow streets of Pisa. It is really a pretty city that most people never explore outside of the Leaning Tower. I found it to be a lot like Florence, but with less tourists and less graffiti!
I decided I would try to get an early dinner since I had a 6:30am flight the next day. I wanted to try this restaurant that my guidebook recommended and I even found the place easily! I walked in and the women inside told me something in Italian, basically that they were not open yet. I had no idea what time to come back, but then saw they had a menu posted outside. They would reopen at 7:30pm. Now I had some time to kill…I walked a bit more and then settled in at an internet café to call home. Finally it was after 7:30 and I headed back to the restaurant. It was already quite full but I had no trouble getting a table. I ordered a calamari and polenta dish for my antepasta, and it was delicious! Then I had linguine with clams and pomegranate for my main course. I never would have thought to put those two foods together but it worked really well!! When I finally left the restaurant around 9pm, there was a wait to get a table. Pisa was like a whole new city when I emerged. There were people everywhere: eating in restaurants, drinking in street cafes, and socializing in the street. It was quite a contrast to how dead the town was earlier in the evening. Across the river on the way to my hotel, there was also a band about to play on a large stage, likely for the Carneval celebrations.
I was looking forward to finally getting a nice rest in my bed before starting the week back in the hospital. I watched some BBC news, to catch up on the real world, and then settled into bed. I probably slept for about 2 hours when I woke up with stomach pains! Now I was regretting eating all of that shellfish! I tossed and turned for awhile, and then on top of the pain, felt nauseated. Well, let’s just say that I got that dinner out of my system and pomegranate and clams didn’t go so well the second time…Unfortunately my night went on like this until I had to get up at 4:30. I probably slept 2 hours tops as I was in and out of sleep with pain and nausea. I was not a happy camper when I trudged out to the van for the airport. The ride to the airport was less than 10 minutes, and I was disappointed to see that I had to wait in line behind 50 hyper Italian high school students to check into my flight back to London. It was all I could do not to just collapse and as soon as I checked in, I made a beeline to the café for a croissant to at least put food in my stomach. Then I went to security where I was informed that I was only allowed to bring ONE bag onto the plane with me. This is certainly not the norm on any other airline, and when I flew RyanAir to Pisa, I was allowed two bags. Apparently they do it differently in Italy and this was causing quite a commotion in the security line as everyone tried to consolidate their bags…I got through eventually, and was happy to settle into the plane and head back home. When I arrived in Stansted, it turned out to be a good thing to enter as a non-European Union traveler since basically the entire plane was from Europe, there were only about 5 of us outcasts waiting at the non-EU border control. I had to deal with a battery of questions from the immigration officer, not just the usual where did you come from and where are you going, but every last detail about what I do in England and he even wanted to know what was the date of the first time I ever visited England and exactly when did I plan to leave. Nonetheless, I was happy to be back “home” in cloudy London and made my way to the hospital to start the day!
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