Firenze-Florentia-Florencia, etc. etc. etc.

Whenever we go to Europe we always take the train somewhere. Whether a day trip or if transferring from one city or country to another it always needs to be a part of the plan. Eurail is a joy to ride. Some are high speed trains, some not. The service is old fashioned;  they bring newspapers, magazines, drinks, snacks all with the price of the ticket. If you're in first class it's sparkling wine and a meal, better than flying I would say. There's also and old fashioned bar car, and it's hard to beat the scenery. Both Frank and I had heard a myriad of awful Italy train stories: Somebody else was in our reserved seat and the conductors did nothing, we couldn't find the platform and nobody helped, we bought a sleeping berth and people were in it and the conductors did nothing, we found another berth but it was bunk beds and that's not what we paid for, nobody helped with our luggage and we had to sit next to it so it wouldn't be stolen, the conductors are rude and inattentive, blah blah blah blah...So after climbing into a very crowded waterbus (it was rush hour and people were going to work!) in Venice to make our way to the very lovely Santa Lucia train station, where after four days I was shocked to see cars as the bus station is across the canal, we were ready for our first horrifying Italy train ride. Other than the fact that it was 45 minutes late (another in the mountain of complaints) and having to lug and store our own luggage (which we've done every other time by the way) everything was peachy keen. We had very comfortable seats, newspapers so we could practice our Italian (per the conductor's suggestion) snacks, salty or sweet?, and a small bottle of wine. It was a high speed train, the ride from Venice to Florence was a bit over an hour so we arrived at the bustling station, Santa Maria Novella, somewhere before noon. We had walking directions from the train station which seemed pretty direct and short of distance so we pulled our luggage into the very crowded streets of Florence and pushed through. Again we were in the center of everything, a mere two tiny windy blocks from Il Duomo, a magnificent structure

with very long lines to get in, and just around the corner from Piazza della Signoria with the Palazzo Vecchio, the fake David

and a passage to the famed Uffizzi museum. The crowds were massive and what I remember most is the tour groups with their umbrella holding guides coming at us in tides. Aaaaargh! On a narrow cobblestone street with no sidewalk and the only car traffic allowed, yikes!, we found our lovely little B & B, Badia Fiorentina,

the only bad thing being that we were on the first floor (European translation, 2nd) and being a very old house, no elevator and these were the stairs.

Bienvenuto a Firenze! (Florentia-Florencia, etc. etc. etc.) 

After carting our luggage up and getting the grand tour from the lovely girl at the desk who we never saw again and a map with all the highlights we ran out to explore, as is our wont to do. We quickly found the elegant Uffizzi just around the corner,

pushed through the crowds in the plaza waiting to get in and walked towards the very adorable Ponte Vecchio,

and crossed to the other side.

Where we found lesser crowds, just as much beauty and our go to lunch place for our time in Florence.

Signorvino! 

A view of the bridge across the Arno and the rowers from the rowing club across the way!

The Florentine adventure begins.

Perso a Venezia - tre

Everybody kept warning us about two things, constantly.

Number one: you WILL get lost! Hence, the titles of my posts about Venice. I suppose though that I should change that now to "Non ha perso a Venezia!", because we didn't get lost once. As I mentioned earlier, Venice is small, so you really don't go too far. We kept our bearings always knowing where the the lagoon and the basillica were and with our trusty map finding our way through the maze was simple. After our first experience finding our way to La Fenice in a snap on our first night we had no problems finding our restaurants in the Castello district every other night. Every place was practically a 10 minute walk.

We crossed the Grand Canal to Dorsoduro, walked to San Polo, Santa Croce, parts of Cannaregio...always knowing exactly where we were going, even while wandering about, and how to make it back easily. Getting lost was highly exaggerated.

Warning number two (and the one that people seemed to revel in!): "Oh the crowds everywhere, you're going to hate it!" After our initial shock of the wall to wall people in the semi flooded Piazza San Marco, and thinking "Oh boy those well wishers (ahem) were right :(" that warning also went out the window. First I'll explain the flooding because the following morning, even though it had rained that night, it was gone completely. A gondolier explained, it is attributed to high tide, so if the tide is high that day it comes through in certain spots if not then no flooding.

Now on avoiding the crowds. Venice has museums but they're nowhere near as famous as the ones in other parts of Italy. Maybe it's because Venice itself is such a piece of art, I don't know. There are no lines or crowds at the museums (at least not in mid-September) but the Basillica of San Marco, the Doge Palace and the Campanille which are all in the Piazza San Marco seem to be the BIG tourist attraction and the lines are endless therefore wall to wall people covering the square. This is during the day. A lot of the tourists seem to be earlybirds because here it is at night.

Beautifully lit up and practically empty. It is also like this early in the morning.

When we were doing our research on Venice I read an article in Food and Wine which suggested a website called From My Dining Table by a British woman who has lived in Venice all her life. In it she has a section called "Secret Venice". We chose a few places to go from here but what I remember most is that she says once you move in a couple of blocks from the big tourist attractions, i.e. Piazza San Marco, Rialto Bridge (which wasn't bad at all) you could find yourself on empty streets.

It seems the crowds were also highly exaggerated.

Ciao bellissima Venezia. Grazie mille.