The American Italy

We are now in Salzburg, after a nightmare of traveling from Florence.

With our Eurail passes, we were able to reserve seats from Florence to Munich for 9 euro each, having failed to book beds in time. But we thought it would be an adventure anyhow and went ahead with it. It’s not like we would have had an alternative night’s stay anyway.

Before I get too ahead of myself with the night train, though, I have yet to blog about Florence.

Florence, Florence, Florence, what can I say? As with any tourist-y place, it definitely had its beautiful parts – hills, beautiful, old architecture, and a flowing river to spice up the atmosphere.

But I’ll be honest. When we stepped out of the train station, I wasn’t all that impressed. Tiny streets lined by even tinier sidewalks, American accents drowning out all other sounds, and just grungy building after grungy building on our way to our B&B. Under my sweat and horrible journey from Venice I was desperately hoping that Florence would offer more than what I saw.

Fortunately, our B&B was quite pleasant, with owners who kindly gave us a map and some suggestions about where to go. So we gave Florence another chance. After all, it wasn’t as hot as we feared it would be, and the city was apparently gelato heaven, as we had passed by numerous little gelaterias along the way.

In the city we walked through many piazzas and passed many cathedrals. The Duomo is quite stunning in it majesty, and the oldness of the city is very impressive, I’ll admit.

Then…THEN…we came out to the river, conveniently at sunset.

GORGEOUS!

I remember gasping as I saw the pink and purple tints of sunlight on the hills and bridges as we stepped into Arno riverside territory. Beautiful! I couldn’t get enough of that sight, dragging Alan along until the sun set.

I won’t detail every small thing we did – I’ll just mention other highlights.

On the second day there, we went out for an early run around the River Arno, which was not bad. Florence is not the greatest place to run, but it was kinda nice to get away from the main tourist-y areas and run amidst real Italians. I just can’t say that much about the air and the room and the pavement for runners.

Michelangelo’s David sculpture was indeed something. The rest of the galleries in the Accademia weren’t very impressive, but you do get a wow-factor when you step into the hallway in which David is standing at the end. The detail of the body was so meticulous and the entire thing to the eye is magnificent. You really don’t think “OMG there’s a naked 9-foot man there!”; you can only stand there in awe of Michelangelo’s work.

On our last day we went to the Duomo dome to climb 463 steps to the top of the dome, rewarding ourselves with a lovely panoramic view of the city. It was also nice to get out of the sweltering heat, even though we were climbing endless steps, the stone walls do a nice interior cooldown.

Other than those things, it was not the easiest to enjoy Florence. I’m glad I went, I did love some parts of it, but in general, it was crowded, hot, overpriced, and gimmicky. As much as I already miss having mint chocolate gelato twice a day, I am glad to be out of Italy.