Day 85-87: Florence and Pisa

Saturday, April 10, 2010- Florence, Italy

We consumed our last breakfast at the hotel before checking out and leaving to catch the bus back to Mestre Train Station. We took the train from Mestre to Firenze (Florence), a longer journey, but very nice!

First things first when arriving in a new place: check into the hostel! We walked down the long street to the hostel from the train station, following our directions, and arrived at Plus Florence around noon. This was a pretty fancy hostel- it had a workout room, saunas and day excursions you could participate it! We checked in and paid, but our rooms were not yet ready. So we stored our luggage in the luggage closet and bought an internet card for half an hour. We got updated on the comp with the rest of the world before heading out to explore Florence.

We were pretty hungry, so we searched for a cheap spot for lunch. We decided to eat at this small cafe that served yummy omelettes. I ordered a ham and cheese omelette and we studied the Florence map to see what we wanted to do that afternoon. We decided to first go back by this market that we had walked by on the way to the hostel. We finished our lunch and headed to the market.

Bali had mentioned beforehand that she wanted to get some Italian leather while in Florence, so we were on the lookout for that. We didn't have to look very long or hard, as half the stalls at the market were selling Italian leather goods. One of the first stands we came to we stopped at to take a good look at the leather. The man there asked where we were from and Bali said she was Indian. They promptly began speaking Hindi to each other while I looked at the merchandise. We were both eying the leather wallets, and Bali asked the guy how much they were in Hindi. She bargained a bit with him and we ended up getting two wallets, one each, for 35 euros! To prove they were real leather, the man pulled out his lighter and lit it against one of the wallets. I think my jaw dropped! I really wasn't expecting that, but it was really cool :)

We continued walking through the market and looking at things. We passed a reasonably-priced gelato place and decided that it was time for a snack. Another two scoops of gelato! This time, I got Peanut Butter and Cookies. While the cookies were not anything to write home about (however, apparently worthy of mentioning in the blog :), the Peanut Butter was one of our favorite flavors that we tried...delish!

We ambled back to the hostel to see if the room was ready since we were still closeby and were able to take our things upstairs to our 6-bed coed dorm. As of yet, we did not have any roommates....yay! We refreshed and prepared to head back out.

We began our tour of the city with our map from Plus in hand. We walked to the Dome, the Basilica, Cathedral of Saint Maria, Giotto's Bell Tower and the Baptistry. All were totally fabulous structures and we marveled at their height and beauty. And took pictures. We explored the innards of the city for a bit and made our way through the streets, stopping to take a look in some shops, buy postcards, and watch street art.

Next we walked across the city to the Arno River where we watched the sun set. It was really gorgeous, just as in Venice! Hearing our tummies rumble, we looked again to our hostel world guide to lead us to some place yummy for supper. We spotted a place nearby and attempted to find it with no luck!

So, we settled for a place just outside the Plaza della Signoria. We found a small restaurant called Trattoria de Benvenuto. It was kind of fancy, but the menu posted outside seemed reasonable and the pasta dishes looked tasty. We decided to treat ourselves to this nice meal, as we had been eating pizzas and kebabs a lot in the last few days on our trip. We settled into the seats at the table given to us. We each ordered a plate of the tomato and cheese risotto. It was well worth the wait and the money....so tasty!! We devoured our yummy supper and headed out.

Since we were across town and the sky was quickly darkening, we decided to go ahead and make our way back to the hostel. It was surprisingly easy to find our way back. We prepared for bed, still enjoying the room to ourselves. As we went to bed, two guys came into the room to stay as well. So much for a place of our own! By the morning, the whole room had filled up. Oh well, at least no one snored!

Sunday, April 11, 2010- Pisa and Florence, Italy

Today was a monumental day...literally! We had planned to take a short half-day trip to Pisa, Italy, home of the leaning tower on this morning. We woke up to the first day of gloomy skies and rain on the whole trip! Oh well, guess you can't have your way everyday :)

We got ready and headed out early for the train station. Since there wasn't free breakfast at our hostel, we stopped by McDonald's and got pan au chocolate and coffee. Yum! Then we crossed the street to the train station and boarded the train for Pisa!

We reached Pisa,which was even colder and wetter than Florence. We had been told that it was a short walk to the leaning tower from the Pisa train station, so we decided to walk instead of taking public transportation. We began to walk (without a map) and began to get colder and wetter....my umbrella was of little use do to the wind and blowing rain. We walked for what felt like ages before finally seeing a clearing. And there in front of us stood the Leaning Tower, in all it glory (okay, in the gloomy rain).

I wanted a nice picture with the tower, rain or shine, so Bali and I attempted to take pictures of each other without having our umbrellas fly away. We succeeded, more or less successfully and hurried into the nearby souvenir shoppe to warm up. I bought a nice factual postcard about the leaning tower and we warmed our bodies before crossing the street to check bus times, as we had resolved to take the bus back to the station instead of walking. This turned out the be an awesome decision, as we were much warmer on the way back!

We waited awhile at the train station for the next train to Firenze (Florence) and I warmed my hands over a cup of coffee left on a table in the train station cafe area. The train ride back was interesting. It was not a long journey (thankfully) as we sat across the aisle from this loud woman who was talking the entire time in this annoying accent. Bali and I were chuckling to ourselves about her the whole trip and were surprised that when we were about to get off, the man in the seat next to the woman leaned over to me and asked, "Do you know where you are going?". The woman promptly looked at him and said, "I think she speaks English". Then the man across from them said, "Aren't we going to Florence?". This conversation was too much for Bali and I who could not stop giggling about it as we got off the train!

Back in Florence, we had to walk back to the hostel in the cold with wet shoes. We stopped inside a small restaurant and grabbed a pasta dish each to-go. It was remarkable how much cheaper it was to take the pasta out than to eat in the restaurant. Our pasta cost 8,80 euro to eat in and only 4,00 euro to take out! We took it back with us and went up to our room. We sat on the bed and warmed up while feasting on our yummy and cheap pasta! We were soooo exhausted from being out in the cold all morning and from how much we had been doing all along on the trip so far, so we decided to take time out and nap. We ended up sleeping off and on for about 3 hours, in which we had new roommates come in and replace the old ones that had left from the night before.

Around four, we decided that we should get up and get out. We looked outside and saw that it was now sunny....motivation to get up and go! We went back out and walked through the town some more. This time we walked the opposite direction than we had taken the previous times to explore and see a bit more. We stopped for a quick cappuccino to-go to wake us up. Then we circled around and came back to the market we had been at the day before. We walked back through and Bali bought some authentic leather gloves and we went together and bought an Italian leather cat-shaped key-chain for Mateja for her kindness in hosting us in Slovenia. We then decided to head back towards this shop that we had seen the night before that sold really cute shoes. On the way there, we passed some great shopping and another Gelato place that we had read about in our hostel world guide, Festival of Gelato. We stopped for a couple of scoops. I had cheesecake and kinder this time. Yummy!

We found the shoe shop and Bali ended up buying a pair of flats. They did not have the shoes I wanted in my size (which is a recurring problem here in Europe), so I did not purchase any. We left and decided to walk to the Piazza Michelangelo and to cross the bridge over the Arno that we had walked by the evening before. This bridge is covered in shops, such as jewelers and other craftsmanship shoppes. We marveled at it and how touristy it was.

We made our way through the other side of Florence, across the Arno, to the Piazza Michelangelo, which is this park area on a hill that you can climb up and see the city from. At the top of the hill, we sat on the steps and watched the sunset. A peaceful end to a tiring day!

Afterward, we descended the hill and headed to the bridge again to cross back. We were looking for somewhere cheap to eat, and found a small kebab place on the other side of the Arno. We stopped here and enjoyed a massive kebab dinner. It was warm and yummy! Next door just so happened to be a gelato place, so we inevitably stopped in and got a final gelato for the trip. This time, I had After Eight and dark chocolate. Wow, really yummy!

We made our way back to the hostel, where we packed and got things ready for our early morning. We would be heading back to Pisa via train to catch our flight from Pisa Airport to Eindhoven.

Monday, April 12, 2010- Back to Tilburg

While we were sad to leave (and unhappy to get up so early!), we were ready to get back to the Netherlands and to Tilburg! We woke up super early- 5AM! After last-minute packing, we headed downstairs to check out and walk to the train station.  We arrived 40 minutes early to the train station, as we had left in ample time as to not miss our train/flight.

We both fell asleep on board the train to Pisa airport. I had gotten our ticket out at the start of the journey for when we got checked. Well, as we were asleep when the conductor came by to check tickets, we were surprised that when we woke up, the ticket had been punched! How nice was the conductor to not wake us up for that!

We arrived at the Pisa airport in plenty of time to check in, have a quick breakfast and go through security. We waited a bit before boarding the Ryanair flight back to Eindhoven. The flight was short, and we both caught a few more zzz's on the way back.

We landed in Eindhoven, thankful to just have one bus and a short train ride right home to Tilburg West.  I think we were both super-happy to finally reach Verbs!

Wow! This was a lot of blogging for this trip! But it was a super nice journey, with super nice friends! I saw and did A LOT! I will never forget this amazing trip through Europe and the memories that we made while traveling. It was truly a remarkable trip. I am thankful for the safety that God provided us on the trip, as there were so many things that could have gone wrong. But everything worked out perfectly!

Oh, and when I got back to Tilburg, I was still speaking in my broken Italian. I went grocery shopping that afternoon to stock up and I said "Grazie" to the cashier at Albert Heijn instead of "Danjewel". :)