Ciao amici,
Have you ever noticed in the movies when someone is just in the nick of time when they run after the bus or just sprint to the gate to get on a plane? That's what happened to us. Thursday afternoon we depart from studio late, and speed walk to the bus stop near Argentina to get a bus to Termini train station. As we approach the stop, we see our bus, 64, making the turn - so we all make a run for it. Peter and I get on in the rear door and stand in the doorway to force it to remain open while Keihly and Amy (finally) arrive to walk on. We finally arrive at Termini with only moments to spare-- sprinting through Termini, avoiding children, luggage, and beggars, we finally make it to our platform and land on the train. Just in the nick of time -- only minutes later we depart for Florence.
The three and a half hour train ride from Rome to Florence was very nice. The route brought us through mountain valley to prairie and back against mountains. The country side here is spectacular--especially passing by cities that are built up the side of a mountain. Spectacular views, spectacular countryside, spectacular train ride (except when you go through tunnels, it makes your ears pop all crazy like ... it hurts!)
We arrived in Florence after dusk. Amy had booked a hotel room for the four of us at 'Hotel San Lorenzo'. We somehow found the door and followed these arrow, winding stairs up four flights to a door with a sign that said 'HOTEL' above two stars. So ... I guess we're staying in a two-star hotel ... interesting. Maybe it will be like a Hotel 6 or whatever. At any rate, we surrendered our passports (which is typical of hotels in Europe) and got our room key. It was quite nice! It had an interesting wood ceiling with beams, and one wall was at an angle forming a trapezoid shaped room -- this was an obvious response to the street angle below. Interesting.
We went out walking and found a fantastic gellato place. My first gellato in Italy. So delicious, we went back two nights in a row. Not the most healthy solution, but delicious none the less. We also went to a restaurant that was recommended by some fellow students who came to Florence the week before. Turns out this place (in a very inconspicuous location) serves Florentine Steak. The four of us arrive, order a 1kg (2.2 lbs) Florentine steak ("Bistecca alle Florenzia) and two pasta dishes - one with ravioli in a cream/tomato sauce, another with tortellini in a similar sauce with truffles.
It turns out that meal included two Italian delicacies and my brother (a chef) is insanely jealous I ate it. I will attempt to relay the information I received from said insanely jealous chef brother-- apparently truffles are fungus/mushroom type thing that only a boar (or dogs?) can find -- people harvest these by following the animal as they sniff them up and out of the ground (note to self, learn how to smell truffles and become the first human to harvest them with a boar or dog). Want to try some truffles? They're only $400/lbs (or kg? basically very expensive). Delicacy number one.
Delicacy (kind of?) number two: bistecca alle firenze (Florentine steak). This 2.2lbs steak is left out for a while (to let the steak age and get more tender), hopefully no more than a week, and is drenched in butter, and cooked in a very hot pan. To keep the butter from burning, more butter is added as the steak continues to (sort-of) cook. It was the most raw, but most delicious steak I've ever had. The outside was so crisp, burned -- it was all amazing.
Is your mouth watering yet?
Florence is also the home of Brunelleschi's duomo at Santa Maria dei Fiore (see the three pictures above). This early 15th century renaissance cathedral has an interestingly over-ornate exterior and shares a clearly juxtaposed relationship with its bare, stark interior. (heh, there's your architecture lesson for the day, folks). We spent 6 euro to walk up 436 (that's the wrong number, but it was a lot) of steps to get up to the top of the dome. On the way, we walked through rings that were up through the interior of the dome. Everyone looked like ants from all of the way up inside the dome. At the top of the dome, it is 300 some feet above the ground. This means that while I was on the exterior on top of the dome I was even higher with a clear 360 degree view of Florence.
Let's fast forward a bit. After walking up a huge hill (to get another gorgeous view of Florence) we found a church (with yet another gorgeous view of Florence). This church had an interesting chapel that was almost like a crypt in that it was located below the main choir and alter (even though the stairs down were behind a secondary altar which was closer to the nave/congregation). Not too sure about the history of the church, but it seemed to have a italian renaissance flat facade with corner/triangle pieces that mask the shape of the roof behind (hard to describe - it was green, like many other italian renaissance facades, too). At any rate, we proceeded to get the church we had just visited mixed up with a castle we saw at the top of the hill. We figured we would just follow the roads to the castle on the map and magically be there. 45 or so minutes later (and after seeing an italian on a motocycle listening to Michael Bolton - quite a funny site) we figured out we were lost. No really loss though, we enjoyed viewing a once in a lifetime view of valleys and vineyards we otherwise would not have found. We finally discovered our fatal mistake in that the castle we thought we were headed to was actually the church we just visited -- then we discovered we weren't even on our map! It was a fun laugh to think that we were completely lost outside of Florence, really a true feeling of excitement.
We walked further, and more, and finally down a hill to the correct street. We finally reached back to Florence and knew where the hell we were. Still a fun adventure, if you ask me.
Fast forwarding, again... Pisa. The leaning tower. The end (serious).
Fast forwarding ... The Mediterranean sea at the coastal city of Pisa. Interesting ... deserted.
Back to Florence, another Florentine steak (yup, no joke, we enjoyed it two nights in a row. No regrets. I'm still alive). We found a look out to watch the sunset... another gorgeous view of Florence (from the opposite side).
I am tired of writing and you're probably tired of reading my writing.
Ciao amici,
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Ciao amici,
You might recall my post about the aqueduct park and its picturesque moments I captured on my camera (or, look below if you haven't seen it yet). Well, I intentionally qualified the statement "most picturesque moment" with "...so far" because I suspected...no...HOPED that I would find equally, if not more beautiful moments in the future.
Today Keihly and I hopped on a train and traveled to Castel Gandolfo (makes me suspicious of the Harry Potter character "Gandolf"). We knew a bit about it, and from what Keihly researched, there would be a bit of the lake viewable from the train station, and we could also treck up a steep path to reach the top of a mountain... sounded interesting.
As the train emerged from a dark tunnel, we rounded a curve and was welcomed to an enormous lake which snugly fit into a valley surrounded but continuous mountain like peaks. We were both shocked. The view from the train station was fantastic -- the sunshine was exploding onto the lake (yes, sunshine explodes. Just look at the picture. It's exploding). We found the insanely steep pedestrian pathway to the upper part of the hill, and found a quaint little city (rather, the lake was bordered by many cities, this was one city with a small square that overlooked the lake). Every view from within the city - and out through the alleyways was stunning. The framed views through the narrow streets gave the small town and tight quarters such an Italian character.
We walked around the city, sat in the square to draw, and was given ooodles of pamphlets from the gentleman who was sitting in the tourism stand. Clouds flew in around 1PM, which made things cold, dark, and a bit damp. Luckily it passed and the sun poked through remaining clouds for the rest of the evening. Along the lake's edge, a road carried light traffic, and to our surprise, many people who were jogging (we saw ... mmmm... over ten people jogging within two hours -- lots for Rome!). And how could you blame them? They have found a perfect, relaxing, beautiful place to go for a run -- a steep, tree-ous hill on one side, and a placid, large round lake on the other. The air was so crisp and clean -- no smog or noise from the city.
We paid €3,80 for the round trip tickets -- so cheap! I also got a ciocolatoto (sp??--hot chocolate) at a bar when it started raining a bit. This is also when I decided that I don't need to pay oodles of money to go to extravagant places around Europe, I know there are so many beautiful places in Italy that I can easily access for cheap. (Not to say, though, I will go somewhere fantastic for Spring Break ... not sure where yet)