Culture and Kleenex

Our original plan was to head up to the Lake District.  There was a campsite right on the edge of Lake Como that I had been envisioning forever.  The idea was to take the train to Lugano, right on the edge of Switzerland, and walk across the Italian border.  I was in Switzerland back in 1995.  Having never made it to the Italian canton, I really wanted to explore this region.  The Google Images of Bellagio and the like had me all dreamy eyed for this section of our trip.  However, a few horrified looks at the weather forecast and the dream began to subside.  Snap decision--we'd head to Florence instead and get a room at a hostel.

We boarded the train in the early morning.  We had purchased tickets and were issued assigned seats.  It was unfortunate, because it meant waking up an entire Italian family that was asleep in our assigned cabin.  There were kids sprawled all over the seats, and in our presence they had to be shifted.  The mother now had to hold her son on her lap.  Chris and I felt very guilty, but the ticket man was on our side.  Indeed the seats were assigned to us.  The husband sat directly across from me, and I was sure he glared at me for the entire three hour ride to Pisa.  I was very happy to get off that train.

Unique Much?
Chris wanted to visit Pisa.  I told him it's basically a bunch of tourists standing around trying to photograph themselves holding up the Leaning Tower (or pushing it down, or kicking it over, or any other variation that has them posing in odd ways).  Sure enough, PIsa is just that.  It was when I went back in 1996, and it still is.  The only thing missing was the gypsies.  I had warned Chris that the gypsies gather at the ticket area, crowding around the tourists and distracting them while picking their pockets.  When I was there before, I saw a man from our tour group get pickpocketed right before our eyes.  I told Chris to wear his money belt as this was a risky part of our trip.  I must have sounded quite daft telling him all this.  There were no gypsies.  There was also no line for tickets.  We could walk right in to 'The Avenue' as they call it.  Some things do get better over time.

The Leaning Tower is just as I remember it.  It's still leaning.  Tourists are allowed in, which I don't remember from before.  I was also suprised to learn, from reading the info boards, that the Tower dates back to the 12th century.  I had always thought of it was a Renassaince piece.  I was becoming more and more impressed with it, but as we walked on, we experienced what Pisa is really about.

The tourists here are insane.  They're all tripping over one another to get just that right Pisa shot.  Most of these tourists, I might point out, are Asian, and they take this photographing challange seriously.  Some people, like me, are content just to stand on one of the pillars surrounding the green; a little swivel to the side, a hand raised ridiculously into the air, a smile plastered to their face, telling their partner to hurry up before they fall.

It's really a exercise in teamwork, mastering this infamous shot.  The person taking the picture has to get just that right angle, all the while instructing the other person how to pose.  The person on the pillar has to practice patience, as they smile stupidly, fully aware that they look like a idiot.  The pillars are round and not exactly easy to stand on.  Many a poser fall off, like my hubby, who banged his leg up pretty good in his attempt.  This task is not for the faint of heart.  In fact I wonder how many relationships have ended right on this green in Pisa.

Surrounded by tourists falling over themselves to get this shot, Chris and I decided to escape to the green where we laid down for awhile.  The sky promised rain, but graciously held off for us.  We we were entertained by a group of boys playing rugby on the green, a bit shocked in fact by how terrible they were.  In the entire time we watched them, not one of those boys caught the ball.  Not one.  The ball came dangerously close our heads a couple of times, and I don't even think that was their plan.  The game was suddenly interupted by a pudgy guard who came and took their ball away, thus sparing everyone around.

Chris and I decided it was time to head back to the station.  We stopped for lunch along the way, and had the most fantastic pasta, sitting outside under an umbrella, watching the rain start to fall.  Our luck with the weather had run out.

Rest in Florence

My cold had moved from a sore throat to a more serious stage-- a fever with chills.  I needed a bed.  Fortunately our hostel in Florence was very nice.  We had a private room with an en suite bathroom.  This would be my place of rest.

We did venture out that night, soaking in a few sights.  I've been to Florence before so I kind of knew the main things to see.  The Duomo of course, and the Ponte Vecchio.  We meandered the dark ancient streets and came across the Duomo, which is unlike any Duomo I've ever seen, in Italy or elsewhere.  It reminds me of a giant elaborately decorated wedding cake.  It looks delicious, I'll just tell you that.

Studying the map, I pointed us in the supposed direction of the Ponte Vecchio, the famous bridge crossing the Arno River.  I was so confident, after all I had been here before.  We ended up at the Academia, which is the complete opposite direction.  I was stunned.  How had my sense of direction gone so wrong?  I was starting to realize this on our trip.  I no longer possessed this power of direction that I once had.  Maybe it's the kind of thing that starts fading in your 30's.

We had to retrace our steps back to the Duomo to reassess things.  In the end we found the bridge, but before that, we hit the Medici Palace, which frankly I had forgotten about.  Wow, what a square, full of statues and amazing energy.  The palace was open, thanks to it being Culture Week (all the museums were free that week).  A drummer's circle was performing in the square and Chris and I joined the crowd there and rocked out.  Already we were enjoying the energy of Florence.  There were a lot of young people there.  Not just backpackers.  A good number of them were there to study art.  They were everywhere--sketching and painting and whatnot.  There was a good vibe in Florence.  It makes one feel cultural, even just standing there.

Chris and I decided to splurge on gelato.  We had had it elsewhere in Italy, and it had always come relatively cheap.  It was our own fault.  We hadn't asked the price.  We were charged 10 euro for two cones.  That's nearly $13.  I don't care where you're from--that's a lot of money for ice cream.  Anyway, we tried to enjoy it as we walked along.

We came across a guitarist playing in a square.  He was playing the theme song from Romeo and Juliet on an acoustic.  It was just lovely, and dare I say, romantic. The sun was going down and the lights were coming on around the square.  We could feel the culture all around us, as if the statues had come to life and walked among us.  Chris and I stood there, just smiling, then returned to our hostel, glad we had experienced this bit of Florence.

For me, that was about it.  The whole next day I spent in bed.  Actually I attempted to spend the morning with Chris.  Seen as how the museums were free, I thought we should visit Michelangelo's David, the reason why most people come to Florence.  The rain was dreadful as we slumped our way through it.  We stopped for breakfast, and I told Chris that was as far as I could go. I desperately needed a day off.  Chris was on his own.

I would like to say that I slept most of the day, but in truth I spent most of it on my Kindle Fire.  The  hostel had free wifi, and this to me was a complete luxury.  It was a day for catching up on things, not only with emails and such, but with discovering what was happening in the rest of the world.  Everyone needs a day off to do completely nothing.

When Chris came back we decided to do laundry.  This meant hanging around the bar for an hour drinking Bacardi Breezers and playing pool.  Almost everyone in the hostel was American, and it was nice to hear my language spoken all around me.  We ran into a guy in the laundry room from Dallas.  He gave us lots of advice on Denver, the place we plan to settle in when we return to the States.  So far I haven't heard anything bad about the Denver/Boulder area, so that's encouraging.  At least we have something to look forward to when this trip is over.  A whole new life in a whole new place.

Fleeced

The next morning I was feeling a tad better.  I was going to give David a go.  But the line was around the block and then some.  Chris and I decided on breakfast.  Chris said he had seen a cheap place just down the street.  Perhaps there was a cheap place, but we elected to go to a take-away stall we thought similiar.  Again, our mistake was not asking about prices.  Well, there were prices advertised, and we may have trusted them, but when the bill came it was three times as expensive as we figured it would be.  Eighteen euros for breakfast.  That's nearly $22.  And this was just two breakfast sandwiches, a coffee, and a bottle of water.  Wow.  That nearly knocked us on our arses.  Turns out we had decided to sit outside under a tented area.  The privelege of doing that meant a huge increase in price.  We clearly got fleeced.

Chris and I decided it was time to move on.  Florence is great in it's own way, but can be very expensive, as vendors look to take advantage of the tourists.  At the end Chris and I were a little wiser to their game.  A little too late though. We had a train to Venice to catch.