Note: Pisa and Rome are in the wrong order... the correct order is Pisa, Rome, Florence.
So we got into Florence a bit late as it was. Then came the rush to find our bus tickets to the airport Monday morning. We were leaving at 3:30 and wanted to make sure we bought those in advance. We ran to tourist information but there was a very explicit sign on the door stating that if you needed bus or train info you should go to the window at platform 5. So we did. Along with everyone else. And got in line to wait. And wait. And wait. See there were 15 people in line and one person at the desk. And like an Italian, he was taking his time because there was no rush for him. So we waited. And waited. And waited. And finally an hour later (I should note that we were like the 6th or 7th in line when we got there), it was finally our turn. I asked if he spoke English. He said a little. I explained we needed a bus at 3:30 am to the Pisa airport (I had done my research… I knew this existed). He gave me a 5 am train that got there 30 minutes before we took off. I shook my head. I said “bus”. I said “3 am”. He shook his head. He gave me a 12 am train that got to the airport at 2 am. Our flight left at 7 am. I shook my head. I repeated the bit about the bus and wrote the word down. He explained in half-Italian that we were in the wrong place and needed to somewhere else for bus tickets. Then he grabbed my paper and attempted to draw a map of where we needed to go. It was a very confusing map. It made only a little bit of sense. But we took it and left and randomly happened upon the bar he had told us to go to several blocks before we were supposed to get there. We enter. It’s a bar… but there’s a booth selling bus tickets. We walked up and I explained that I needed the 3:30 bus to the Pisa airport. He asked when the flight was in English. I told him. He gave us three tickets for the 3:35 bus and told us where to meet. It took 5 minutes. The entire ordeal had taken almost two hours. Thanks, Italy…
Due to all of that, it was already 5:00. We booked it to the hostel (a twenty minute walk) and found out, with great disappointment, that we had booked a hostel without air-conditioning in Florence as well. The rooms were miserably hot. Still, we dropped off our stuff, grabbed a map from the front desk and set out to explore. On the way we grabbed calzones for dinner (yummy) and then, since the churches all closed at 5:30 and it was almost 6, settled for going around the city. We found the city hall and the main plaza. It’s right next to the Uffizi Museum (one of the most famous galleries for Romantic art) and as a result there is an “outdoor gallery” as well right on the square. For those of you who I have taken around Munich, you surely remember the place where Hitler famously took power right across from the large yellow church. If you remember, I said that Ludwig I (the culture king) went around the world, saw things he liked and had them rebuilt in Munich. Well, that famous place where he took power (which I keep calling it because I don’t actually remember what it is called) is the thing he took from Florence. It’s a copy of where all these famous statues are at the main square. The main square also has a Neptune fountain and a copy (smaller) of Michelangelo’s David , that we were pretty sure most everyone thought was the real thing by the way they were snapping pictures. We knew better.
Anyway, from there we stopped by Dante’s house and then ended our night with gelato (if you haven’t caught on yet, we had decided to eat it every day… and Florence is even easier for that then Rome. There is seriously a gelato bar every other store. It is insane.) We walked around the river a bit, ending up by the Boboli gardens (which were closed and cost 10 Euro to get in anyway) and the Pitti Palace which had a nice square in front to sit and hang out until it got dark. Then we went back to the hostel to look up the sites we needed to see in the museums the next day. We had bought our tickets to the museums in advance to skip the lines and as a result got to choose the time we wanted to go. We opted for Uffizi (romantic art gallery) at 9:15 (earliest we could get) and the Academy (where the actual David is) at 2 in the afternoon. Then we headed off to sleep in the still hot and stuffy rooms. (By the way, Florence is considerably more humid than Rome or Pisa. This felt like St. Louis). The next morning we headed off to see art. The museum was pretty impressive, though not air-conditioned like I had assumed it would be. The famous works include Spring and The Birth of Venus by Botticelli (You’d recognize them if you saw them). We were out by 11 and used the time to go into the city hall (which had closed before we could the day before and was pretty cool) and grab gelato for lunch (yes, we know it wasn’t the healthiest but it was so tasty). I wanted to go in the massive Duomo (main city church, which also has a baptistery and a bell tower… must be an Italian thing) but there was no sight-seeing on Sunday, just mass. I had assumed we would try to go in right before the mass started to look around and then walk out. Unfortunately I thought mass was at 12:30. It was at 12:00. So when we showed up at 12:25 this was not an option. I still wanted to see the church though, so while Traci and Kristina went souvenir shopping, I decided to attend the second half of Italian mass. Ironically the inside of the church itself was not all that impressive though it did have a pretty cool dome and mosaic floors, and of course, was huge.
Anyway, afterwards we walked over to the Medici house and chapel. The Medici family was the “ruling” family in Florence (or at least the ones with the power) and largely responsible for the start of the Renaissance, which was born in Florence. Then we headed up to the Academy to see David and were ushered in even though we were 20 minutes early. Wow. That’s all I can say. We had been told David was bigger than you expect. He was. He’s like 20 feet tall. They have a photograph in the atrium when you walk in that they took candidly of the hall where David is. Everyone is just gaping at him. It was pretty impressive. Unfortunately, that’s pretty much all there is in the museum. There is a hall of other Michelangelo works but they are all his unfinished projects. The only other highlight was the room of statues being restored. There were probably over a hundred in there. They mostly just needed touch ups but it was cool to see. In all, we spent about 45 minutes in the museum. I would say it’s not worth it in general, but we had gone to Florence to see David and David probably was worth it.
After David we headed south to the Sante Croce church which I’d also heard was worth seeing. Like all the churches in Florence it’s in the Byzantine style just like the Marie Maggiore in Rome. It was 5 Euro to get in though and half of it was under construction so we opted to just look at the outside. Then we headed to the Ponte Vecchio (Vecchio Bridge) which is the famous bridge with the jewelry stores up and down. Traci had brought money specifically to buy a piece there so Kristina and I hung out while she picked out a piece she liked. There are at least a dozen shops all next to each other and we figured they were all competing, making haggling worth it. As Traci found out when they took her inside, however, they all actually work together and share pieces. Who would have guessed?
Afterwards we went up to the Orsanmichele church and went in that for free, and then up to the Santa Maria Novelle church which we had passed coming from the train station the first day. That one was 2.50 but very worth it. It was gorgeous. It had black and white stripes on the ceiling (the zebra church, I called it) and frescos on the walls from the 1200’s. Some of them were pretty faded but you could still make out the pictures and the stories. There was pretty impressive ceiling work as well and of course, I love the mosaic floors of the churches.
We left that church just as it was closing and walked north to get a glimpse of the old fortress before deciding we wanted dinner. We decided to do a sit down pasta meal for the first time in Italy and weaved through the streets until we found a deal with liked. Traci went with spinach ricotta cannelloni, I went with spaghetti carbonara and Kristina ordered the special of a half salad and a half pizza. We left very satisfied, grabbed a final scoop of gelato on our way back to the hostel and then prepared for bed early. This meant we went to bed at 11. This was fun because we woke up at 2:30, pretty much mirroring our Day One. After checking out of the hostel, we walked through the quiet streets back to the train station to catch our bus to the Pisa airport. Pisa and Florence are an hour apart by bus, we figured out. We checked in at the airport, bought breakfast, cleared security, boarded the plane and instantly fell asleep. I woke up just as we were about to land. It was a Ryan Air flight so I nudged Traci and told her we were going to bounce. She gripped the seat tightly as we landed…. And bounced up again before actually landing. We’re wondering now if this has to do with how light the plane is due to the baggage restrictions… must ask a pilot. Anyway, it was actually kinda fun to bounce if you are expecting it. And of course we landed safely. From this point it was a repeat of returning from Barcelona. We stepped off the plane and instead of the 90 degrees and sun of Italy… it was 60 degrees and raining. Thanks, Munich. Glad to see you again, too… From the airport we took a bus to a train and then headed back to Munich. Kristina left us halfway to go straight to Augsburg where she is staying with her grandmother for the next few days. Traci and I headed straight to our hotel (which had the room ready early! Yay!) and took a nap. At 1:00 we went back to Olympiazentrum and I picked up my stuff from Jaakko and thanked him. Then I left Traci at the hotel and went to finish my business in Munich. This meant picking up my last two Scheins and figuring out bank account stuff. Everything was figured out. I got straight A’s this semester by the way the grades transfer. Yay! Transportation ended up as a 2.3 and German Lit was a 1.3! I turned my papers into Dr. Conrad who will mail the transcript back to U of IL, and then I met Traci and we headed out to dinner at a German place before turning in very early. We were exhausted. And I was also sick. I woke up at 2 am that morning with no voice… by the end of the night I had a cough, runny nose and sore throat. Ew.
Thursday we woke up after a full 9 hours of sleep. I was feeling slightly better so we headed to the train station for an excursion to Schloss Linderhof. This is the last of the 3 palaces that Ludwig II built and the only one he completed. It was kinda rainy but the tour was inside, luckily. It is indeed a very small palace. There are less than a dozen rooms, but they are all pretty amazing… covered in gold with 3-D embroidery and chandeliers out of porcelain and ivory and crystal. After the palace we walked around the gardens and headed up to his man-made cave. The man made cave that he put a painting in and hung porcelain roses in. Apparently he watched privately preformed operas inside. It could be heated to room temperature for him. He was a little bit off… also notable is that the palace was dedicated to the French kings (just like one of his other two palaces, Herrencheimsee which is a copy of Versailles… he was a little obsessed with the French) and the cave was based on a scene in one of Richard Wagner’s opera (Neuschwanstein, the third of his palaces was dedicated to Wagner… who was also apparently also a bit obsessed with).
Anyway, now we’re back in Munich at the hotel and it is Tuesday night as I am writing this. Shortly we will go to dinner (I’ve been stocking up on as much German food as I can so I won’t miss it as much when I get back). Tomorrow is my last day in Munich. I’ve been here over 300 days and now I have one left. It’s supposed to be nice so we will head to the Botanical gardens in the morning. They are in the gardens of Schloss Nymphenburg but it was winter when I got here so I have not yet seen them. Then I’ll show Traci around Munich and see everything for one last time myself. After that it’s time for the airport.
Do stay tuned though, as I have one more post planned to end this blog. This is, however, probably the last post from Germany.
Pictures:
Duomo
David
City Hall
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