The Crowds Come Marching In
Trip Start
Apr 12, 2008
1
14
54
Trip End
Jun 18, 2008
Florence,
Tuscany,
Italy
Friday, April 25, 2008
- Early start as we needed to catch the vaporetto back to the train station by 8:03.
- Went for a walk from Ferovia (train station) back to St Marks square... took 1.5 hrs to walk, enjoyed the sights and sounds.
- Turns out its liberation day today (or ANZAC day back home)... saw a little bit of the memorial talks and stuff... twas in Italian so we didn't pay much attention.
- Walk back to the train station was a nightmare as the streets were full of people heading towards the square. Turns out coz it's a public holiday and all the Italians have decided to go on holidays to other cities... urgh!
- Eventually caught the train to Florence... unfortunately, the city is packed full of people... even more unfortunate, many Italians on holidays! It's a nightmare walking around the city.
- Saw the "famous" church, the Duomo which has a huge dome. Went inside coz that was free... all the good stuff inside had been emptied out and chucked in the museum out the front for which you had to pay to get into... thanks! The "last judgement" by Vasari and Zuccari, which was painted inside the dome was pretty cool... I thought God forgives all... maybe not!
- The line at the Accademia (where Michelangelo's David stands) was too long... same with the Uffizi (ex-office used as an art gallery), so we had a look at the Ponte Vecchio (some crappy looking bridge) which is now lined with gold jewelry selling shops.
Brian enjoying himself
The Palazzo Vecchio was packed with people also, but looked pretty neat with a copy of Michelangelo's David and an assortment of other statues. - That the end of the highlights really... there's really way too many people here to enjoy the city... plus its way too similar to Rome... or maybe its crappy when you've just left the beauty of Venice.
< Lang's Extended Version>
Our last morning in Venice, started off with a 6.30am start. Claudete, the wonderful owner of the B&B, organized an early morning breakfast for us, as we had to catch our last vaporetto ride by 8.03am back to the train station with our gear or otherwise spend a ridiculous 5 Euros each for the privilege..
As our train didn't depart until 12.43pm, we had 4 hours to spare, so checked our bags in and went for a walk around. Funnily enough, our walk ended up in St. Mark's Square again!
A huge crowd had gathered here this morning for a parade of some sort as today is Liberation Day in all of Italy. They had a band going and people marching around. It's probably similar to our Anzac Day at home, which is also today..
We got out of there pretty quickly though, and decided to go to the Telecom Future Centre, as there is free internet access here, which is a change because all other places charge you like 4.50 Euro for half an hour.. That's almost $8AUD!!!
At around 11am, we thought we would head back to the train station, as we didn't want to get too lost..
One of the last views of a small canal
Boy, you should have seen the crowds by this time - there was literally a sea of people walking the streets, I think I was glad I was leaving today as I didn't want the crowds to ruin my wonderful impression of this city.. It took us a good hour to get back to the station, so we picked up our gear and then headed to board the train. Of course our carriage had to be right at the start of the train, so we had to carry our gear down 10 train compartments before we hopped on.
The ride took about 3 hours, and Brian's first impression of Florence was not that good - there were people everywhere and felt like we were back in Naples again.. I guess it didn't help that everyone in Italy was on holidays too.. Actually, he still hates it here!!
Anyway, we got out of the train station pretty quickly and headed to the hostel I had booked for our stay here, only to find that the door bell didn't work, so we went in search for a phone to call the owner. I saw a sign on our way over, so got Brian to watch over the bags while I went to phone up. A few minutes later, we were checked in and given the key to our room - which was very basic.
Rather than hang around in the room, we headed out to see how long the line was to get into the Accademia was - way too long for what we had liked, so left and headed to the Duomo. OMG, there were just soooooooooo many people around, we practically had to push our way through the crowds..
The Duomo was huge, and as a bonus, it was free and the line was ok, so we headed in.
Pizza
There wasn't a whole lot to see, apart from the feature dome which has a painting of the 'Last Judgement' done by Vasari and Zuccari. The outer roof of the dome was not built until much later on by Brunelleschi, as the technology at the time was not available. We headed towards the Ponte Vecchio after, stopping by Palazzo Vecchio on the way as there was a band playing and on the square, there were many interesting statues. However, we didn't stay too long as once again, we were pretty much swept with the crowd towards the Ponte Vecchio, which is a bridge lined with jewelry shops.
We stopped for a gelato before pushing our way across the bridge to see what the fuss was about - not much unless you had a lot of money to spend. So we decided to head back to the railway station to book our tickets out.. No, not for tonight.. =P We booked it for 3 days time for Pisa and then onto the Cinque Terre - a place that I'm definitely looking forward to!
Anyway, we headed back to the Hostel and rested for a while to decide what we wanted to do. Eventually hunger got the better of us, so we headed out to a small Italian restaurant followed by a gelato place that was recommended by our host. We called it a night after that.
Oh, one thing we've noticed so far at all of the places we've been to, is that there's no KFC around! We've seen Maccas and Burger King, even subway too, don't they like the Colonel's secret recipe here or something??
