Hiking in Florence

Our first and only full day in Florence! After some sandwiches for breakfast we set off to sightsee/kill time until our ticket date at the Accademia gallery. We wandered in and out of a few nice plazas on the way to the Bargello, an old prison and police headquarters. We intended to check it out but their armory was closed AND they wanted to charge a lot. Since we have been spending kind of a bit lately we decided to tone it down today…too bad, museums! Italy is horrendous for student discounts in that there are few to none available, and they always want to charge way more than any other country has for their exhibits, even the small ones. Pah we said! So we set off towards the gardens and Forte al Belvedere across the bridge, because our map says it’s a nice place to see the city. It was definitely a steep climb to get up there, but the streets were very pretty. The area leading into the gardens, however…well, the first thing we saw was the fortress entrance not only closed but taped up. Oh joy. Also a lot of the grass was dead and there was a lot of construction going on (well, set up to go on – hey it’s a Sunday, no one does anything). The kicker was that they wanted 10E each for garden admission…and we had 19.85 collectively. Ooops, forgot to hit the ATM, and the ticketman was kind of a jerk about it. Since we had seen so many gardens in Spain we decided to forget about it, and see if we could get to another high point that the guy from the hotel recommended.

After wandering around a bit – educational, as we were in the super-rich-Florence-resident area with tall gates and mansions – we found a street the map said would lead us to the other spot. Little did we know that the street we took would go almost all the way back down, with the pedestrian path often being no more than a non-pavement area near the fortress that little spindly trees took over. But it was scenic and interesting! Then all we had to do was go back up again, but at least there were stairs this time. And then we were suddenly on a large overlook on Monte Alle Croci, with vendors and restaurants and a bronze recast of the David. Quite a difference from the remote-on-purpose hills that we had just left! And the view was great and FREE! The ice cream prices weren’t half bad either so we got a lemon Frigo product (actually Algida here, and Miko in France, but still the same great stuff) and enjoyed seeing the whole of the city after hiking around some backroads in Florence. As an added bonus, there was a big church (San Miniato al Monte) and a huge cemetery at the top as well, which is apparently where the author of Pinocchio is buried. We didn’t see (or at least recognize) his grave but there were tons there, each of them pretty interesting, ranging from relatively small ones to huge family mausoleums that were practically mini-cathedrals (some even styled like the Duomo!). A very impressive find overall, and no admission except for the 60 cents I had to pay to use the bathrooms (boooo…but at least they were clean unlike some of the smelly ones we passed). Woohoo!

Surprisingly, we still had some time left, so we grabbed a pizza for lunch (medium with a small coke for 6E, pretty good deal to feed both of us…yay nontourist sections) and walked back towards the Duomo. One of the girls that had gone to Greece with me had recommended a gelato place there via facebook, so we figured we’d check it out. I am SO happy I remembered to update my facebook status this time because it was GREAT! Most of their ingredients are relatively organic or free-trade, the prices aren’t horrible, they weren’t artificially colored like a lot we’ve seen, and the flavors were delicious. At first we just got one cone with bacio, dark chocolate and nougat flavors – the dark chocolate was by far the best, although the others were delicious as well. Peter decided he needed more (we were both fighting over it haha) and went back to get a vanilla, lemon, and peach one. Again everything was fantastic and the peach tasted especially great on a hot day. Probably the best food in Florence yet!

After that we finally were on schedule to see the Accademia, and pretty disappointed to see that the line was actually not horrendously long. We were kind of hoping it would be bad so we would feel better about prebooking but oh well. I think the descriptions of the paintings in the Accademia were the most informative of the many museums we’ve gone to, sometimes even with details about the restoration of the painting – what had been painted over or changed, things like that. We were there for a special addition of Robert Mappelthorpe’s photography as well for some reason, and that was pretty cool. Of course the most popular exhibit was the David – not the plaster or bronze but the finished marble one. I thought his hands were huge, but otherwise it’s a nice thing to have I guess. Maybe I will read up more about it but knowing that it was a symbol of bravery and intelligence for the city was nice enough for now. …yep, still not really art people. But we try.

Headed back to see what room we’d be in after that. We got switched over to the place we thought we would stay at, which was ok – again, our room has been upgraded to ensuite and there is a lot of extra space (even an extra bed, which is kinda odd). Not really sure what went on with our reservation but I suppose it turned out alright! Sadly, the internet is much slower here than at the other hotel, but we are surviving.

After a bit of a break, dinner was next! I had a series of recommendations from The Internet to help us in our search of good food, and the second one was actually open and looked good. Called Il Santo Bevitore, it was a pretty nice place with English-speaking waiters and a willingness to seat us in a presreserved table as long as we were out by a certain time. Our table was amusingly in a wind tunnel, so our unprotected candle sputtered down very quickly and we had fun trying to help it last a bit longer. The food itself was merely ok…the tomato soup was excellent but the ensuing entrees were less exciting. The desserts – dark chocolate soufflé and a white chocolate “dome” – were also great. So not bad, but not necessarily as good as it had been made out to be. Ah well, at least it wasn’t terrible! I’m just hoping Siena is less touristy and therefore cheaper…this eating well thing is hard on the wallet.

Tomorrow we will take a train to Siena around 1pm…we’ve hit all the major sites in Florence at this point, really, so we’re thinking we might just shop around and, most importantly, go back to Grom. Nom! =D For now, it’s another relatively early night, but my legs are tiiired from all the walking so it is about time. Hopefully all the bug bites on my feet from wearing flipflops in Venice (Bea Vita was on the water…but so worth it!) will fade soon. Otherwise, Peter says “grom grom grom, nom nom nom” and goodnight! I will try and post some pictures (I realize I’m pretty behind) but the connection is so bad here I doubt it will work. Maybe tomorrow!