Today we got up early enough to take the 6:57am train out of Rome so we could get in to Florence (Firenze in Italian) before noon. Believe it or not, despite our record with transportation, we made it to the train without a hitch and once we got to Florence we made it to our hostel without taking any wrong turns…maybe we’re getting a hang of European travel after all (but probably not). Florence is another one of those towns that immediately engages you and entertains you without any real effort. Today we were able to just walk around the city and enjoy the sites. The one bad thing about Florence is that all of their exhibits and museums charge admission, where as most of the cities we’ve been to do have their fair share of free exhibits. Part of the reason, I suppose, that everything has a fee is because many of the museums and exhibits hold famous works from Michelangelo and DaVinci…so if you’re willing to pay the fees you’ll definitely get your money’s worth. We do want to see Michelangelo’s statue of David that is held at the Galleria Academia, but we are saving that for tomorrow morning when there won’t be any lines.
Anywho…back to what we actually DID do today. First we grabbed some pizza from a restaurant nearby that the hostel highly recommended…like all the other places we have tried, this one did not disappoint.
Brief aside…the pizza in Italy is not like the pizza in America, not entirely at least (I don’t want to mislead). Instead of taking at least 20 minutes for prep time and cooking, the time it takes from throwing the dough to pulling it out of the oven seems almost as fast as ordering at a McDonald’s…seriously sometimes it only takes about 5 minutes.
After getting lunch we went to Florence’s outdoor market; lots of leather, lots of jewelry, lots of cool stuff, and a fair share of knock off items…it’s definitely the best market we’ve been to so far. After the market we got gelato (I’ve lost count of how many times this makes), unlike most other times, where I’ve mixed two flavors, I got just chocolate (or cioccolata rather)…rich, sweet, great! From there we just walked to all of the main piazzas and locations in Florence that we were told we should visit. Eventually we made it to Pont Vecchio, Florence’s oldest and most famous bridge where we got our fair share of photos. The end goal of the path we took today was to make it to the Piazzale Michelangelo, a piazza on the top of a hill that overlooks the entire town of Florence. It took a while to get there, and the hike up was no cake walk, but once we made it, it was definitely worth it. From there we could see the hillsides, the river, the town and all of its old cathedrals and architecture…a very cool experience, another that offered many photo-ops. We ended the day at the same restaurant we got the pizza from for lunch; we started by splitting a pizza (salami, sausage, and ham I think) and then Erica had homemade spaghetti noodles (they were fatter than normal spaghetti) and Bolognese sauce, and I got normal spaghetti and meatballs; all accompanied by the house red wine. Of course after this we got another thing of gelato (strawberry and pineapple again, different than the time before but still great); completely unnecessary at this point, but totally worth it.
Stuffed, satisfied, sleepy…goodnight.
Showing posts with label spaghetti. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spaghetti. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Really Bad Timing and Really Good Stuff
At the beginning of the day today we got mixed signals as to how the rest of the day would go. We stopped at a bakery at the end of the street where our hostel is located and got croissants fresh out of the oven, and they were delicious. However after snagging a morning bite we headed to the Colosseum, and once again we were foiled…this time for a service men parade of some kind. We couldn’t believe it, on day one we couldn’t see the Colosseum because of some bike race and today our plans somehow managed to conflict with a random parade. At this point we decided to head to the Vatican hoping we wouldn’t strike out there as well. At first we thought we did...
Let me enlighten you on something about the Vatican…there are people everywhere offering “skip the line tickets and tours”. While these are valid methods of entering the Vatican they are highly unnecessary. Almost immediately after getting off the subway blocks from the Vatican we were met by people trying to offer us this great opportunity to skip the lines, for a certain price of course. All these people ensured us that we’d have to wait for hours to get into the Vatican and that we should take them up on their tour offer. Now I know why they greet you blocks before the entrance; because they’re trying to convince you of a line that doesn’t exist…no line, no wait, no extra fee needed. Perhaps on “fee Sunday” when we were in a line at least a half a mile long paying the fee to skip the line would have been worth it, but not a normal weekday like today. So we felt good that we finally made it into the Vatican, and at a price that was reasonable. Before actually reaching the Sistine Chapel we were lead through hall after hall of statues and paintings, it was all very cool but we were there to see the famous room. The Sistine Chapel lived up to the hype, and while you’re not supposed to take pictures I was able to take some covert photos with the help of Erica as a blocker. After the Vatican we went to St. Peter’s basilica, the famed area where everyone gathers to see the pope. The inside of the basilica was ginormous and as impressive as St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. After the basilica we headed to the church where the chains that bound Peter while he was imprisoned were enshrined. Our final major stop for today was Palatine Hill, and yes, finally the Colosseum. It was crazy to see all of the ruins at Palatine Hill were you can actually still see the remnants of a society that existed 2000 some years ago. The same is true for the Colosseum, a massive arena that was substantial enough to last for all these years and still exist today.
Oh and as for the really good stuff; we found a pizza place by the Vatican that we ate at before St. Peter’s basilica…and afterwards too. And for dinner we walked around until we found a restaurant; Erica had spaghetti Bolognese and I had the lasagna. We got stuffed, it was great, and we finished it off with some more gelato…this time I mixed strawberry and pineapple, perhaps my favorite so far.
Let me enlighten you on something about the Vatican…there are people everywhere offering “skip the line tickets and tours”. While these are valid methods of entering the Vatican they are highly unnecessary. Almost immediately after getting off the subway blocks from the Vatican we were met by people trying to offer us this great opportunity to skip the lines, for a certain price of course. All these people ensured us that we’d have to wait for hours to get into the Vatican and that we should take them up on their tour offer. Now I know why they greet you blocks before the entrance; because they’re trying to convince you of a line that doesn’t exist…no line, no wait, no extra fee needed. Perhaps on “fee Sunday” when we were in a line at least a half a mile long paying the fee to skip the line would have been worth it, but not a normal weekday like today. So we felt good that we finally made it into the Vatican, and at a price that was reasonable. Before actually reaching the Sistine Chapel we were lead through hall after hall of statues and paintings, it was all very cool but we were there to see the famous room. The Sistine Chapel lived up to the hype, and while you’re not supposed to take pictures I was able to take some covert photos with the help of Erica as a blocker. After the Vatican we went to St. Peter’s basilica, the famed area where everyone gathers to see the pope. The inside of the basilica was ginormous and as impressive as St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. After the basilica we headed to the church where the chains that bound Peter while he was imprisoned were enshrined. Our final major stop for today was Palatine Hill, and yes, finally the Colosseum. It was crazy to see all of the ruins at Palatine Hill were you can actually still see the remnants of a society that existed 2000 some years ago. The same is true for the Colosseum, a massive arena that was substantial enough to last for all these years and still exist today.
Oh and as for the really good stuff; we found a pizza place by the Vatican that we ate at before St. Peter’s basilica…and afterwards too. And for dinner we walked around until we found a restaurant; Erica had spaghetti Bolognese and I had the lasagna. We got stuffed, it was great, and we finished it off with some more gelato…this time I mixed strawberry and pineapple, perhaps my favorite so far.
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