The First Major Excursion: Train Trip to Florence

28.9 Friday afternoon we all gobbled down sandwiches as soon as the girls got home then headed out to Fidenza. The train left 15 minutes earlier than I remembered (I had confused the outbound with the inbound, erk) but fortunately we got there just as it was pulling in and managed to scramble aboard. Mamma was really frightened by the speed of the train, though it was just an interregionale, a local basically, and never went all that fast. I’d be surprised if we ever got above 80 mph. The Frecciarossa fast train from Bologna to Florence was MUCH nicer – and frankly went way faster, but because it was more of a Mercedes to the interregionale’s Ford Fiesta, Mamma was much calmer about it. We actually experienced a minor miracle on the Frecciarossa: I didn’t realize that we had assigned seats in an assigned coach, yet somehow we managed to get on at our coach next to our seats! Mirabile dictu.

Got a cab from the station to our little hotel. It apparently used to be a hostel and is still pretty bare bones, but the room was clean and big enough for 4, which is all that mattered. Added advantage of being 2 blocks from the Duomo and 4 from the Uffizi, our primary points of interest, and in the middle of the pedonale shopping area. This is a new development since I was last there – before you had cars racing around the Duomo piazza all the time. Now it’s just the occasional cab.

Mark Margolin had recommended a pizza place so we sought it out, and lo and behold it was, in fact, very good and not horribly expensive, so yay! This being Italy and us being Americans, we went out way too early for dinner so all the shops were still open, so we did a lot of window-shopping as well. May have to look for some clothes in Firenze – both Elise and I are kinda diggin’ Italian fashion.

29.9 Got up betimes today to head to the Uffizi. The lines were CRAZY. This weekend is Patrimonio, a weekend when all museums in the country are open for free. You still have to pay if you want to reserve a time, but the actual admission is zero. I had reserved, and a good thing too: the RESERVATION line was over an hour. Free admission/no reservation line was over FIVE hours. (You can usually anticipate at least 2.) I want to see the stuff in the Uffizi but damn, five hours in line is so not worth it. Mamma had made a list of the things we especially wanted to see, and we got to all of them: the Duke & Duchess of Urbino, the Botticelli room, the Pearl room, a comparison of a Giotto Madonna triptych panel and an earlier one to see the jump in perspective and color usage, the Bronzino portraits of Eleanora di Toledo and Princess Bia, and the Titians. The place really is overwhelming. You need about 4 days to take it all in. And a guide. And possibly a wheelchair. We were exhausted after 2.5 hours. I had thought about trying to get to David at the Accademia in the afternoon, but I didn’t actually make reservations and now I’m glad. We couldn’t do it.

We found a pizzeria to have lunch in just off the square by the Palazzo Vecchio, a lunch of pizza and fresh pasta which was quite delicious, then went back to the hotel and napped. After an hour or so we went out to look at the Duomo piazza and at the Baptistery doors though we couldn’t go in as they were already shut. There are 3 sets of doors, just no one ever talks about the other two sets. Admittedly, they’re not as impressive (and as such, not as well cared for either – the Bernini doors are polished like gold, where the others are left to turn black with pollution and tarnish).

 Marcello Napolitano had recommended a place just a couple blocks from the hotel for dinner, but it was reserved until after 10, and we went out at about 7. Uh, no. So we ended up back at the Osteria dei Peccatori (whose name I actually took note of this time!) for dinner, and had another great meal. I hadn’t really looked at the tab all that closely at lunch, but at dinner I realized that they didn’t charge a coperta, and I hadn’t left a tip. Very bad. We had the same waitress for dinner, so I got up at one point and went to her and put a 20E note in her hand, which for the two meals together was not even 20%, not at all unreasonable for someone who remembered that Rose wanted ketchup with her fries and brought it without our asking, and that Mamma liked red wine and asked right away if she’d like another glass. Seems Italians don’t tip much: she all but started crying, and hugged and kissed me and made me promise we would come back again. When huge amounts of food and awesome service for four people and two meals costs less than 130E, yeah, I’m good with planning to go back there!

After dinner we walked up to the Duomo just to see it lit up. Even at 9:30 at night it was still thronged with people. Rose went to look at one of the vendors who had one of those LED toys. This one was a little slingshot that shot an LED-equipped arrow really high in the air (if you can do it without chopping off your thumb, which I can’t). She watched him for a long time, then he showed her how to do it. She fired it a couple times, and then I said, time to go. She wanted one, of course, but I have enough junk in my life so I said no. We walked away. Then the vendor (Indian? Pakistani?) ran up to us and handed Rose the toy. I said no again, but he said, “No. Regalo.” (It’s a gift.) Sigh. Okay, fine. I pulled out 2E to give to him, but he wouldn’t even take it. “No. Regalo.” He sort of bowed and walked away. The Power of the Rose.

Elise got annoyed at something (she and Rosie fight a lot) and decided to walk ahead of us back to the hotel. Only she didn’t. We got to the hotel and she wasn’t there. She didn’t turn up after about 15 minutes, so I went out to look for her. After marching around the shopping area for about another 20 minutes, I went back down toward the Duomo. I knew she wouldn’t have left the immediate area, and indeed, having realized we were gone, she had returned to the Duomo steps and just watched the eddies and swirls of humanity go by. Mamma was convinced she was kidnapped, raped and killed, but as I walked around I knew she wasn’t: there were loads of kids not a lot older than El sitting around chatting, eating ice cream, window-shopping, alone or in pairs. She was safe. She was scared, which was good, but nothing worse. Maybe now she won’t take off without us.

30.9 Had hoped to see the inside of the Duomo today, but it was not to be. However, Elise and I did get up early enough to make it to the top of the Campanile next to the Duomo. She was really excited about that. She kept pointing to things: “What is that? What’s over there?” No idea. Clearly, we have to come back! We found a graffito under one of the telescopes, “The Millers 2012.” So kind of someone to have graffito’ed for us so we didn’t have to! (Took a picture of it, naturally.)

After breakfast we walked to the Perfume Museum, a tiny little (one room) museum near the station, which has been in business since 1550 and made the first to-order perfume, for Catherine de Medici. I smelled it and it wasn’t very nice in the bottle (though they had a wide variety of things that were lovely in the bottle), but after a few minutes on it was beautiful. It was also 65E a bottle, which I wasn’t willing to pay at the time, but now wish I had. We walked by Sta Maria Novella but couldn’t go in (again, Sunday morning).

By this time it was nearly noon. We went back to the hotel and asked for a nearby lunch recommendation. The concierge sent us around the corner to a place that was PACKED and had no space for at least 3 hours. Since we had to leave in 3 hours this would not do. But the beauty of Italy is that there’s another trattoria of some sort next door, no matter where you are! So we went to the next place and had a really amazing lunch of sautéed spinach and mutton cooked in some sort of sauce. Mutton turns up a lot on restaurant menus but is very difficult to find in the grocery store. Not sure why that is.

 On the way back to the hotel we saw a little clothing shop that had some lovely things in the window. Stopped in and found a blouse for me and 2 sweaters for Elise (who continues to need winter clothes). Then quick march back to the train and home. Car was in the station parking lot, unticketed. Life is good.