Keri Goes Abroad: Florence Part One

Our hostel room in Il Ghiro

Tuesday morning Pat and I took the short train from Rome to Florence. The weather was regrettably grey and rainy - I had hoped to have stunning views of rolling Tuscan hills bathed in sunshine, but instead we had primarily views of fog. I'm sure underneath the fog there was some romantic Tuscan landscape, but we didn't get to see any of it.

I think I had decided I would like Florence even before I got there. It's roughly the same size as Salzburg, and with a similar history of wealth. Where Rome had the rich history mixed in with a more run-down present, Florence seemed like it would have well-preserved cultural, historical and artistic heritage through and through. In a way, that was very true. Florence is stunning; it's history and art are present around every turn, and everything was maintained...except it seemed like we had a lot of encounters with tourists and very few encounters with "real" Florentines. Perhaps it was the time of year, but everything seemed tourist-oriented, and it seemed to lack the underlying hum of locals going about their daily business. Maybe we were looking in the wrong places.

Regardless, despite the rain and extreme tourist presence, I liked Florence immediately. Our hostel was a short distance from the train station, so we walked. It was hard to tell where it was from the street. There was nothing to distinguish it but a little sign next to the door - which, after Budapest, made my heart sink a little. But the hostel was lovely. It was on the top floor of a residential building with a small kitchen and common area and only a few rooms. Our room was clean and bright, and came with a bidet (which I didn't use, but Pat tried to use to wash his feet). The best part, though, was the guy who ran the hostel. He was somewhere between 30 and 40 and was someone my dad would describe as 'squirly'. He rushed around everywhere, making sure we were settled, making sure we had coffee and internet and anything else we wanted. I think he might have had one too many cappuccinos.

Our hostel guy recommended a place for us to eat lunch, which of course I forgot to write down and therefore cannot remember what it was called, but it was delicious. Probably the most genuine Tuscan food we had the entire trip. We ate a little of everything, including some very scary looking squidlets covered in an olive oil sauce. Then we explored Florence, starting with the leather markets and heading toward the Duomo. Again, I wish I had a picture of Pat's face upon first seeing the Duomo. Florence is so small and the Duomo is so big that it didn't really surprise us the way the Colosseum did, but Pat's jaw still dropped when he saw it. After that we found the Uffizi (the big art gallery) and Pat got incredibly frustrated with me as I went into every Florentine paper store we passed. Then we went into the Duomo and climbed the tall tower next to the Duomo. I got some cool pictures before it started to rain again. The weather couldn't decide what it wanted to do, so we crossed the river over the Ponte Vecchio - the bridge lined with shops - and emerged onto a small street with no shelter just as the sky opened up and let out oceans of rain. Our umbrellas were practically useless against the waterfalls coming off the roofs of the buildings, and of course we were in a part of town that had very little in terms of shelter. Pat's poor tennis shoes were soaked all the way through and squished when he walked, which didn't really mater as he walked through the rivers that used to be sidewalks. We finally took shelter in a little Irish bar owned by a Chinese family (seriously) until the rain let up a little. Then we walked back to the hostel, changed out of our soaked clothing, and went out for dinner at a pizza place. Finally, we ended the night by climbing up to the Piazza Michelangelo, which has a stunning view of the city, and called Mom to wish her happy birthday while staring at the Florence skyline. On our way home we walked through what looked to be the clubbing district, which was full of Americans on study abroad programs. We looked for the cast of Jersey Shore, who were filming in Florence at the time, but didn't look very hard and had no luck finding them. Oh well, maybe next time.