A Date With David, The Boticellis & Some Really Aggressive Pigeons

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DAY 1: VERNAZZA - FIRENZE

What's happening?  I feel strange.  Could it be?  No.  Am I turning into a "Morning Person"?  I think I am.  Oh no, what will people think?  Will they shun me?  No offence intended towards you early risers, I just never have been.  All joking aside, we are turning into early-birds here in Europe.

We got most of our things ready the night before so we wouldn't have to use our brains too much so early in the morning.  Up and at'em! Loaded down, we headed up the hill to Il Pirate for the best pastries in the history of the universe.  I cannot describe the divine smell that hit us as we stepped into the warm cafe out of the windy chill of the morning.  Upon entering, we were told which pastry to have (the panzerotti) and that we would have a ten minute wait as they were in the oven.  The mere thought of this set my stomach to growling in anticipation.  I left Johnny to wait while I went and got the train tix for Firenze and validated them.  I got back to a cappuccino and a hot Panzerotto.  A divine cinnamon sugar coated, ricotta stuffed pastry. YUMMY !.  It put yesterday's stale pastry to real shame.  These panzerotti were so good, that we each got an additional one to go for later.  While we waited on the windy platform for the train Johnny couldn't resist devouring his second pastry already.  Boy would he be jealous later when I ate mine.

Johnny in the Boboli gardens.
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In Pisa we had to change trains.  All prepared and waiting at the track, we heard an announcement in garbled Italian.  Soon after a number of people, presumedly Italians got up and ran downstairs, through the tunnel, and up onto another platform.  We decided the smart thing to do would be to follow them.  Good thing we did because the announcement stated that the train was now coming to a different track.  This was our first experience with this, but it would not be our last.

Fountain.
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We made it to Firenze in good time.  This is always a good thing when you have reservations for museums that you had to make a month in advance from home, not knowing how long it would take you to get from your previous destination.

We checked into our apartment, which left much to be desired.  We don't care if it is a bare room with just a bed, & lamp, but it must be clean.  The shared bathrooms were anything but.  Oh well, we would just wear our shoes as much as possible.

Rub my belly for luck.
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We headed off to our reservation at the Accademia Museum for our date with David and some Prisoners.  As we approached the museum, we were thrilled that we had the forthought to make reservations.  We were told by some people close to the front that it had taken them nearly 2 hours to get to the front.  It felt really good to just walk past them all and right in. David is stunning.  I cannot describe the feeling I had standing at his feet and gazing up at him.  Yet another "pinch-me" moment.  It is very hard to walk away from him.  Sorry guys no photos allowed to be taken in the Accadamia not that they would do him justice.  Although many people were, we chose to respect the rules and not take any.  A postcard would have to suffice.

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Hungry, and still early for our Uffizi Gallery reservation, we headed to Piazza Della Signoria for a quick bite.  Little did we know how difficult this would truly be.  Not to find food, but to eat it.  You see, in Firenze the pigeons, like the taxi drivers and street vendors, are very aggressive.  They quite literally hovered in front of my mouth, trying to grab my panino while others swooped at our heads trying to distract us.  They were hunting in a pack like wolves.  This was so disturbing to me that I completely lost my appetite.  The statues in the piazza are wonderful.  Unfortunatly Neptune is missing his hands due to a stupid drunk tourist who decided to climb up his arms on night a couple of months before.   To take our minds off of the whole pigeon experience we decided to see if we could get into the Uffizi early.

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Success!  Once again we breezed by the 4 hour line of people waiting outside and straight in.  I completely lost track of time in here.  I cannot tell you how long we spent in here.  I know it was hours, but how many?  My personal favorite were the Botticellis.  Once again, and for good reason, no photos folks.  But I've got the memories and some postcards.

Starving by now, we headed back towards our nasty apartment, and a meal.  We found a Rick Steves recommended restaurant, (all of which had been fantastic up until now) which shall remain nameless.  It was a small "family run" place.  Typically in the past this had meant a fantastic meal, but as we would soon find out, not in this case.  We were the first people to arrive. As the door was brusquely opened, we suddenly got a feeling that we were not welcome.  Ignoring this (in hindsight we shouldn't have) we entered and sat.  After being tossed menus, we began to peruse them.  After a brief discussion, we decided to stretch the food budget a little that night.  Thus far throughout our trip we have been eating and drinking whatever was the regional specialty.  Since we were in Firenze, I was dying to try the Fiorentine Bisteka. It was 18 Euro, and as any of you have been to Italy know, that does not come with anything else.  As always we ordered 'house wine'.  The restaurant was soon filled with people all toteing Rick Steves' Italy book.  When it came, it was the size of my dinner plate and thick cut as expected.  However, instead of being tender and delisioso, it was so full of gristle that I could barely cut it, let alone chew it.  Plus it was raw inside, not rare, raw.  Not one to send food back, I had to on this occasion.  While waiting, Johnny finished his minescule and expensive lamb shanks.  He was still hungry and ordered a tomato salad. (I was still waiting for my steak, all the while hearing banging and pounding coming from the back).  Johnny's tomato salad arrives. I say arrives, it was as ever in this restaurant tossed onto the table without so much of a word or eye contact.  It is quite literally nothing more than a tomato sloppily sliced on a plate.  That wouldn't have been so bad if the tomato wasn't the ugliest, un-ripe tomato we'd ever seen.  Johnny begins eating his lovely tomato, and finally my new steak arrives.  I can tell you that the new one looked much better, but was actually worse.  I took a few bites, but this one had more gristle than before, and to add to it, it tasted of non-stick frying pan on the outside.  Oh and did I mention that this was the only place that we could not drink our wine?  What, not drink our wine?  Yes, it too was disgusting.  I think it had gone off.  We paid and left.

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With me still hungry and with the tast of bad wine and non-stick pan on my tongue, we headed off into the night in search of the Vivoli Gelateria .  Search we did for Vivoli.  In the dark in a big city.  We should have gotten a taxi, but somehow you always think it will be right around the next corner.  Finally after many wrong corners, we turned the right one and found it just before closing.  We were so glad that we made the trek.  It was the best gelato we have ever had.  We also tried their semifreddo desserts too.  Everything was so delicious.  We ate as much as we possibly could of their dolci because we knew that they were closed the next day.

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We walked and ate our desserts all the way back to our apartment. When we opened the door from the street and entered the long hallway leading to our front door, we noticed this very strong smell.  It can only be described as 'Raid' bug spray smell as if it had been heated up.  The strange smell grew stronger as we approached the door leading into our apartment.  Once inside we saw one of our flatmates stirring something in a pot on the stove.  Not wanting to be rude, and not knowing what to say Johnny blurts out "That smells good. What is it?"  I almost began to laugh, but somehow restrained myself.  I couldn't believe my ears.  She explained that it was some sort of tea that she was making for her husband who had a cold.  She must have boiled this "tea" concoction for about 2 hours.  She kept shuffling down the hallway to stir it periodically.  Our room happened to be the closest to the kitchen, and the smell permeated everywhere.  We would only later learn how much.

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DAY 2: FIRENZE

With our scheduled sightseeing out of the way, we had all day.  Perhaps not a good thing in a dirty city, when your accomodations are under par, and the weather is cold.  Oh well.

We did have some shopping to do, and Firenze is a wonderful place to shop.  Also, we still hadn't decided where we were going to spend the next 2 days.  Toscana or Umbria were the 2 choices.

After a bit of leather shopping, we made our way to Boboli Gardens.  Far from the maddening crowd.  It wasn't very busy.  I think in large part because the palace was closed.  We just walked and enjoyed the peace of the gardens and regained some of our sanity.

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Hungry once again, we scoped out I Fratellini which is quite literally a hole in the wall.  You place your order for your panino and vino at the window, and stand on the sidewalk and eat right along side local business people.  They have little wine glass shelves on either side of the window where you place your wine until you're ready for another sip.  It is fantastic.  The panini were so good that we indulged in 2 each (and 2 glasses of wine each too).

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Full and feeling good we found the local internet place.  We had decided to go to Umbria, Assisi in fact.  We would leave the next morning (early).  We made reservations at a lovely small hotel there.

Early to bed and early to rise so that we could just get out of there.  We were on our way.