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Florence and Pisa

Friday, December 26th, 2008

We took one of the trains to Florence just after we checked out of the hotel. We got to Florence around 3pm, dropped our stuff of at the hostel, and headed to Pisa before dark. After some gelato, we took some of those really cheesy pics of holding the tower up, leaning against it, and in my case, pushing it down. It really is cheesy, but it felt like I had to do it. Theresa agreed. After the pictures, I tried getting up to the top, but it had closed 15 minutes earlier. Oh well.

We realized we missed one of the trains, so we decided to get some dinner. Pasta and lasagna. We’re in Italy, gotta have that stuff, right? I was so happy to find out they had beer on tap, so I ordered a large just to find out that a large is 1L. The only other place I’ve seen that is in Bavaria. Even in Northern Germany a large is .5L. I was so happy, until I found out it was 12.50 Euros. The most expensive beer I’ve ever paid for. Oh well. It was good. Would have really sucked if it was some crappy beer.

We made our way back to Florence and checked out our magnificent hostel, PLUS hostel. If anyone is planning on going there, you have to stay at that hostel. 13 Euros/night for a 7 person dorm. Included is a gym, pool, sauna, laundry facilities, internet, a restaurant, pub, among other stuff. Each room had a bathroom ensuite. Definitely one of, if not, the best hostel I’ve ever stayed at.

Anyways, we set out the next morning to see the Ponte Vecchio, Dante’s church, a couple squares, and of course, Cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore and the Duomo. That thing is freaking amazing. While the inside of the cathedral isn’t anything spectacular (except for the inside of the dome, which very much is), the views after we made our way the 463 steps to the top, were fantastic. Later we made our way to get something to eat. Our fabulous map, provided by the hostel, told us that there was a Mexican restaurant close by. Our mouths started watering. We walked all the way there just to find out it was closed. Luckily there was a pretty good Chinese place around the corner. Chinese is another one of those ethnic foods you don’t realize how much you need them until you don’t have them anymore.

After dark we made our way to Piazza Michelangelo to check out a night view of the city and to check out one of the copies of David. The original, in the Gallerie d’Accademia, was closed on Mondays. We decided to take the bus, and since we were riding without tickets, after 45 minutes we got nervous, figured we were close, and got off to walk the rest of the way. We were wrong. We walked some of the way, but ended up getting on another bus. After taking in the views, we figured it was shorter to walk, so we headed back to the hostel to turn in for the night. Had to get ready for the headache that was the Italian train system the next day…

I’ll upload pics tomorrow when I do my Barcelona post…

Posted in Florence, General, Italy, Travel | No Comments »

Venice

Friday, December 26th, 2008

After my 16 hour train ride from Luneburg to Munich and finally to Venice, I arrived about 6:40am (Dec. 19th), just before sun up.  I had to wait for a couple of hours before checking into the hotel, so I decided to wander around.  Even before the sun came up, I could tell Venice would crack my list of Top 5 Cities.  I crossed the Scalzi bridge and wandered around Santa Croce for a while before finally checking into the Hotel Adua.  I got there and my room wasn’t ready, so some other guy who was there offered to let me stay in one of his 3 rooms, which were right around the corner.  On the way he asked if I wanted a big room or a small room.  I was kind of confused on the fact he thought he had to ask.  Before I could respond, he said “For you, Big room!”  Ended up finding out that it had two twin beds pushed together and 2 feet of room on all sides.  I would have hated to see what the small rooms were.

I ended up taking a nap before meeting Theresa, who was flying to Venice from Hamburg, outside the hotel.  We dropped her stuff off in our room and took off.  We knew the general direction we were going, south.  We figured we’d wander around and find stuff to see.  We were kind of right.  The alleys ended up being one of the favorites of the trip.  It was really fun.  We’d go down alleys that we were sure would be dead ends, just to find them lead to awesome squares or major canals.  We arrived at St. Mark’s Basilica after dark.  We decided to head back to the hotel after getting something to eat and stopping by an internet café. 

It’s kind of weird.  In Italy, there is a law, supposedly helping to protect against terrorism, pedophilia, and piracy, where you have to register and give a copy of your passport to use a computer with internet access.  Plus it is like 3 Euros/15 minutes.  Needless to say, internet access was kept at a minimum. 

Anyways, after we left the internet café we made a bet on how long it was going to take us to get back to the hotel without using a map.  I put the over/under at 3 hours.  Theresa thought it would be no problem, so she took the under.  It only took us an hour and a half of wandering to end up at St. Mark’s basilica, so heading directly back shouldn’t have been a problem.  Unfortunately, for an hour and a half, we somehow got turned around and ended up south of St. Mark’s instead of north towards the hotel.  To make things worse, we ran into our own little “Luxembourg Square,” which like our roadtrip in Luxembourg, had it’s own little gravitational pull from which we couldn’t escape.  We ended up in the square probably 5 or 6 times.  By then we were actually able to read the signs right, and found our way towards the train station and onto the hotel.  We ended up at the front door at 3 hours and 2 minutes.  I won! : )

The next day we headed back to St. Mark’s Basilica.  On the way we found an outdoor food market, so we got some clementines, bread, cheese, bananas, and some chips.  Then we ate our feast in St. Mark’s square while being harassed by pigeons.  Fucking things wouldn’t leave us alone.  They were climbing all over our bags and even Theresa.  They wouldn’t even leave us alone when we hit them with the bag of peels, so we hurried up and went inside the basilica.  Got to check out the altar where St. Mark’s bones are supposedly beneath.  The story says that his bones were smuggled out of Alexandria, Egypt by boat and brought to Venice a barrel of pork.  Unfortunately I have no pictures because they weren’t allowed.

We spent the rest of the day wandering around.  This time, since we were able to read the signs right, we wandered in a much less lost way.  We also sampled some delicious gelato.  For anyone in Venice, I really recommend the Nutella gelato.  Delicious.

Posted in General, Italy, Travel, Venice | No Comments »