Our trip to Florence the next day was my first real introduction to visiting Italy. Since it is a holiday season it is exceptionally busy. I cannot say whether or not the crowds of people are always there, but for us on our trip, they were there. Goodness there are lots of people everywhere. People bumping into you and the threat of one of those people being a pick pocketer makes you really aware of just where everything is in your pockets all the time.
The markets here were huge. Just big markets everywhere we went. It was really cool. Walking through one of them Michael and I got called Tom Cruise and James Bond because we were wearing our sunglasses and they wanted to get our attention. We then had a lengthy discussion about who would be who. We both just decided we would be different James Bonds. In Germany I don't think we can be as easily spotted as Americans. In Italy we stick out. Especially me. No one here is tall and blonde. Besides that, unlike Germany, no one here wears backpacks. They pull along the rolly suitcases instead of carrying things on their backs. Apparently backpacks are not the latest in fashion. Oh well, practicality is the new hot in Germany. It's also naturally quite convenient imagine that.
Day one in Florence was spent exploring the city around our hostel. This meant the giant cathedral there. It was super cool and one of the most ornate buildings I had ever seen. (Naturally going to Rome this has changed.) It is still really ornate and really big. In our time walking through the city I learned that traffic laws are really ambiguous in Italy. It doesn't matter where you are, sidewalk, crosswalk or tucked away in a corner you could die from a vehicle…or so it seemed. I almost got taken out by a bus while standing by a bike rack. Fortunately I pay attention to my surroundings and I moved out of the way.
The second day in Florence was really cool too. It had been raining quite vigorously through the night and early morning so when Michael and I got out everything was really wet. This was okay for me, everything was naturally more saturated in color so that made the pictures just that much easier. We went through the city, going in the not as populous regions. It was prettier there I think, probably because I could see things other than masses of heads bobbing in a giant crowd. We went to the Pitti Palace and wandered through the grounds there for several hours. We eventually left and met up with the others where we went up to a big hill overlooking the city. It is a hill built in dedication to Michelangelo. Naturally this is a fantastic place to view the city. I turned around to look at the hillside and was surprised to see a Ferrari California parked by a fountain. Apparently if you pay the company enough you can drive one around the city. I did not, because I could not, but I enjoyed the view. Twenty minutes later I saw a Ferrari F430 parked in some random backyard and decided then and there that Italy wasn't a bad place. Not that I was concerned it would be.
We moved on from Michelangelo Piazza and headed out to the countryside. Even in a beautiful city I like to see the country some times. I was not saddened when I saw the Tuscany countryside. One thing that we saw a lot of was olive trees. They are everywhere. Since we were walking around, we had time to think about olives and their strangeness. For example, who in the world figured out that they were good to eat. If you have had an olive directly from a tree you no longer want to live life. They are horrible. But somehow, once they are soaked in salt water they are delicious. People have weird ideas to come up with food but I am okay with that because most of the time they are fantastically delicious. Ahem, I speak to you Italy. Exhausted from days and days of walking through cities, we headed back early to take a much needed rest. We felt pleased with our time in Florence so we were okay. We were heading to Rome the next day anyways, so we got ready for that.
The day to travel to Rome arrived and we met it head on. We were at the train station a little early and waited for our train. When you live in Germany, there are several things you start to take for granted. Organization of public transportation is one of them. Not to say that the German trains are ever on time, but you know what's going on most of the time. While watching the board for train arrivals and departures we formulated the theory that there was an Italian man in a booth somewhere moving trains to various places frantically hoping he doesn't mess up and get two trains in the same place. We could imagine him saying "This'a train goes'a here, and this'a train goes'a here…Oh no! I already a'have'a train a'here!" It looked just short of chaos. Our train was of course delayed so I had some time to watch the marquee and subsequently learn a little Italian. I Saw that a specific train was delayed an hour because of something to do with a single person...I saw the word retardi...not implying anything, just saying what I read. Another theory is that maybe the train was hijacked my a single musician and was driving the train too slowly. I don't know.
We eventually got on our train, and I died a little inside when we could smell Italian food the whole trip. I don't buy food on trains, my wallet would probably commit suicide. Fortunately my misery was brief as was the trip to Rome. The cool thing about Europe is that trains aren't a thing one just ships coal on. People actually use it to travel (a novel concept I know), so they are good at traveling. They go like the clappers. I saw it going roundabouts 150 miles per hour (It was in kilometers per hour so the conversion was not exact). In Rome we began part 3 of our Trip through Italy. Stay tuned for the next blog: Trip Through Italy Part 3: When in Rome...