Hey - It's Italy :-\

That's what we've been telling ourselves on several occasions today.  I'll tell you about that in a minute.  First let me correct a mistake from yesterday...we did NOT have First Class Tickets on the train today from Rome to Florence.  Although we DO have them from Florence all the way to the Swiss Border on our next leg.

Now back to the "It's Italy" comment.  We bid farewell this morning to our nice Hotel Napoleon with Roberto Cioce and family looking after us very nicely.  We loaded up the tiny elevator SEVERAL times with all of our many luggages and gathered just outside the hotel entrance to assemble the troops for our short trek to Roma Termini Train station.

Mr. Margene navigated us to Termini where we again stacked our luggage and went out in search of snacks and drinks to take on our train trip with us.  I, on the other hand, went in search of a WC, a Loo, Toilette.  I walked the entire station from one end to the other looking for the sign but found none.  There was one small sign pointing to downstairs, but it required coins to open the doors.  So I ventured into McDonalds telling myself I’ll just buy something and use THEIR facilities – BUT THEY DIDN’T HAVE ONE.  All this to say we just paid almost 300 Euro Visitor’s Tax for our 2 nights in Rome, but finding a WC is practically impossible.  “Hey, it’s Italy”.

Our train finally arrives and our tickets include reserved seats in Car #4.  So off we set down the ENTIRE length of the train beginning with car 10, then 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 3, 2.  Get the picture???  Yep – somebody FORGOT to connect carriage 4 to the train.  Now how you forget an entire carriage is beyond me, but “Hey – it’s Italy” so you just have to expect those things.  Needless to say we just sat wherever there were open seats which included the 1^st class carriage and the Dining Car.  The conductor tried to tell us we had to move to all the way to the end of the train where he had officially found some seats for us.  Ha – Mrs. Mynatt convinced him we were fine where we were and there was no possible way we were going to relocate ourselves AND all of our luggage to a different car.  Period.  He reluctantly relented while muttering something in Italian.  Mrs. Mynatt can be pretty persuasive you know ;-)

Even though we were spread out all over the train we still made it just fine into Firenze S. Mario Novella on time and made our way to our new hotel with Mr. Margene’s guidance.  We quickly checked in, dropped our luggage, grabbed lunch at a fantastic sandwich shop and headed straight away headed for the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, Brunelleschi's Dome, Giotto's Bell Tower (climbed 414 steps to the top AND back) and an ice cream or two to regain our strength (courtesy of Mrs. Mynatt for a hard day’s work well done).

Mr. Margene led us from there to the Galleria del Accademia where we bypassed HUNDREDS of people in line (we had reservations).  We admired Michelangelo’s magnificent “The David” in person!  It’s really breathtaking.  Mr. Margene and Mrs. Mynatt took the moment to explain why why David picked up 5 stones when he knew it would only take 1 for him to kill Goliath.  That was a perfect time for some “Biblical Integration”.   The Accademia Gallery also has several unfinished works by Michelangelo which were almost as breathtaking in their own way…to see a creation emerging from a huge piece of stone. Of course Michelangelo died before they could be completed.

Back to the main square we went for some shopping time and down time before dinner at Trattoria Dilddarno with some really good and interesting food.  Note to self – just because a restaurant has an English menu doesn’t necessarily mean the translator was actually “proficient” in English.  We had some laughs and some gasps, but the experience was fun, the people were hugely friendly and we learned a thing or tow about Italian Cuisine.

Lastly tonight Mr. Margene and I went to the train station to purchase our 18 roundtrip tickets to Pisa for tomorrow.  Not wanting to use the automated ticket kiosk where about 72% of the words are translated into English ;-) we opted for the ticket window with the real live worker manned the desk.  We waited patiently for our turn, and when we finally ventured to the window and asked for our 18 tickets she said “No – you buy from Ticket Kiosk”.  Trying to avoid the 72% English translation I questioned why we could not purchase tickets from her.  She was rather perplexed as to why we kept pressing her as to why we couldn’t purchase tickets to which she finally replied “It’s past 9:00 pm”.  Oh – NOW I understand.  Yes, it’s true…just because a real live person is sitting at the ticket counter with the word “TICKETS” printed overhead you must SURELY know that 9:00 pm is the cutoff time and  after that she just continues to sit at the ticket counter so that she can tell you “NO TICKETS”.  So we shrug our shoulders, laugh, and tell ourselves “Hey – It’s Italy”.

The Accademia also has a Musical Instruments wing which, among other priceless artifacts, includes a REAL Stradivarius!