Yes, we had another early wake up call this morning at 6:15 AM. Stephanie and I thought we were on vacation, oh yeah, we are. Today, we are traveling from Pisa to Venice, with about a five hour stopover in Florence to see a couple of the sights.
We were trying to make a 8:00 AM regional train for the one hour ride into Florence. With a problematic piece of luggage, a 15 minute walk to the train station, and the possibility of fighting some crowds, we wanted to make sure we could get packed and eat breakfast with rushing too much.
We planned to give ourselves 30 minutes to get to the station from the hotel, and we actually made it out a little ahead of time. When we got to the station, we saw the train platform for the train we had planned to take. However, after going down the stairs to the “subway” that goes under the tracks, and then back up the stairs to that platform, we noticed on the electronic train monitors that there was an earlier train on another platform that was also going to Florence. So, we headed back down the stairs, then back up the stairs to Platform 1 and on to the early train. The only problem was that platform 1 is the one closest to the station, and had we noticed that earlier train was available on platform 1 when we forst got to the station, we could have avoided all the up/down stairs. Always fun when you have 45 lb. plus suitcases and a backpack. Great exercise at 7:30 AM in the morning, just what we needed!!
The Duomo in Florence
Once we got on the train, everything was fine, of course, but only after we cooled off. It seemed warm to both of us on the train, I do not think there was much a/c. Some people had their windows slightly open, but we were sharing some seats with another man, and he was next to the window, so we did not get to open ours to cool off.
It took a little over an hour to get to Florence, and once we got off of the train, we headed to the luggage storage area inside the train station, and checked three of our bags. Seems like it is a little expensive at Euro 4 per bag for 5 hours, but that is the standard cost at all of the train stations.
Climbing Stairs Inside the Dome to the Top
We left the station and headed over to the Duomo, which is the main Cathedral in Florence to look around. The Cathedral itself was not yet open, so we decided to go ahead and climb up to the top of the dome, which was open. It is supposed to be about 455 steps in total to the top. After paying Euro 8 apiece for the “exercise” and lugging up a backpack full of camera equipment, and some other stuff, we finally made it to the top. We were both sweating pretty good, it was a fairly warm morning, and a little humid, but really sunny and clear. We spent about 45 minutes walking around and taking pictures before heading down to the bottom.
Top of the Duomo Dome Overlooking Florence
We then walked around the outside of the Cathedral, which had opened while we were climbing up to the dome, and headed to the entrance. We went inside and looked around. It is not as beautiful inside as many of the churches in Italy, but it is fairly impressive due to its size.
After that, we headed over to Santa Maria Novella Cathedral, it contains a lot of artwork from the 15th century. Unfortunately, we could not take any pictures of the inside, it was not allowed. There were some really special construction techniques used inside the cathedral, the floor and ceiling get closer
Santa Maria Novella Cathedral
together as you go toward the front of the church, and the columns get closer together, front to back, as you go forward. All of this was to give the church a perspective like you would expect to see in a painting, to give it a look of depth, which was the rage of paintings done during this period.
We got a bite to eat for lunch and afterward, it was time to head back to the train station and retrieve our luggage. We had a 2:30 PM departure time for our ride to Venice. We boarded our train, this time a Eurostar Train, which is a higher speed train that the regional trains we had taken in Italy so far. The biggest problem was finding space for our luggage. We had to put it in the luggage racks on the next car since the ones on our designated car were already full when we boarded. Luckily, the racks are on the ends of the car, so they were right next to each other. The train was full, so some of the people had to put their smaller suitcases under the seats, but ours were too big to fit there. The train was nice, each seat had a power outlet, so I was able to plug in the computer and work on the blog.
Our Train at the Venice Santa Lucia Station
It took a little over two hours to get to Venice. Most of the people on the train departed before we got to the Venice Santa Lucia Station, which is the train station on the island of Venice. The other station for Venice , Venice Mestre is on the mainland.
Once we got off the train, we exited the station and headed over to purchase multi-day Vaporetto tickets. The Vaporetto is the local “water bus” in Venice. We took the Number 1 Vaporetto to the San Silvestro stop, and then started our walk to the hotel. We only had a little difficulty navigating to the hotel using the directions we had gotten off of the internet. There just is not much signage on the building telling us it was the hotel.
We checked in, and headed to the room. It was on the second floor, and has a view out onto a courtyard. After doing a little unpacking, and washing some clothes in the sink, we headed out for dinner. We asked for a recommendation from Marco, one of the hotel proprietors, and he directed us to an Osteria, which is the Venitian equivalent of an Italian trattoria, or small restaurant. It was called La Patina, and the food was very good.
Small Quartet Playing Music in St. Mark’s Square
After dinner, we wandered around the city, looking in some stores, and just trying to get our bearings. We headed over to St. Marks Square, and listened to some of the small concert bands that play at night outside some of various restaurants around the square. The various establishments set up tables outside, and then charge exorbitant prices for everything they serve. For example, one bottle of just average wine is about Euro 49. You can see the impact of the economy on these establishments. From past trips, we know that there used to be at least six or seven different bands set up around the square, now there are only three. Several of the other places that used to be on the square are closed down and the buildings vacated. We did like most people do there, just stood outside the designated seating area and listed to the music. That way, you can alternate between the bands as they take thier breaks.
We headed back to the room for the night, and that is when we discovered the only issue with our room, it appeared the air conditioner was not functioning. It does not seem to blow any cold air. Not having air conditioning is mostly a problem in the early evening, the room gets a little warm from the sun during the day since room faces to the west. Also, there are no window screens, so there are some mosquitoes to deal with in most places in Venice after the sun goes down, and inside the room if we just leave the windows open. The hotel is more like a bed and breakfast, and the owners are only here until about 8:00 PM each night, so we did not discover the a/c issue until after they had left. We will ask about it tomorrow. Everyone staying here just comes and goes using the front door key for access to the building.
Tomorrow, we plan to go and see some of the churches and parts of the city we had not visited before on our last trip here.