48 Hours in Florence

2 July - 4 July

Alas, Jim is here to work so he was unable to join us on our next adventure: Florence.  On Monday, the six of us (mamas and girls) took the train to Mestre and switched onto a high speed train to Firenze.  When we arrived we walked through the city streets with our luggage to our accomodations for two nights - in a residence called First of Florence that I had luckily stumbled upon online.  Our walk took us right past the Duomo, as we are staying just a few blocks away (check out the view from the street just in front of our hotel).  The apartment we are in for the six of us is amazing...the building is from the 1500s, the woman who runs it so wonderfully helpful, our unit is two floors, three sleeping areas, a wonderful bathroom with a jacuzzi tub, and a small kitchen that they had stocked with some free food.  Sounds expensive, I know, but equal to the price of the two simple hotel rooms we would have needed anywhere else.  We arrived hungry (the dining car on the train had been disappointing) so cooked up some of the free food we found here and relaxed for a little while before heading out.  Laura was given a recommendation to have dinner at a restaurant called Baldovino, so we asked our front desk woman (also a Laura) to make us reservations there for later and get us tickets to the Uffizzi for the following day, and set out to explore.  

We are staying two doors down from the Leonardo da Vinci museum, so that seemed a good place to start.  It is an interactive museum with replicas of Leonardo's inventions so you can actually touch and manipulate them.   His drawings accompany the inventions - it is amazing how many things he thought of hundreds of years before they came to common use - the ball bearing, the machine gun, the flying machine, the tank, the canon, the crane. Copies of all of his art, the originals scattered in museums throughout the world, are together in one room.  Rachel, who famously gets what she calls 'museum legs' 10 minutes after walking into most museums, read every single word and touched every single invention, and could have stayed there hours after the rest of us were done.  Too bad Jim wasn't there to experience it with her - or maybe that is a good thing - they might still be there!

We walked on past the Duomo and towards the Ponte Vecchio, unfortunately keeping in pace with a group of Hare Krishnas who sang us almost all the way to the bridge.  By the time we got there, many of the shops were closing up, but the setting sun provided the perfect light.   

Our walk from there to the restaurant was along the river and quite beautiful, if a little long.  They saved our table though we were late for our 8 pm reservation.  It became clear that time wasn't a major concern of theirs as we sat for over two hours by the time we got all of our food.  The meal was well worth the wait though and we had a fantastic time laughing at each other's attempts at different accents - we each found our best - Rachel can do a great Californian (from Saturday Night Live), Meg does the English-with-a-Spanish accent of the tennis player Nadal, Julia's English accent is spot on, Neve can drawl like a good Southerner, and Laura's Irish is usually great (with a huge advantage of being raised by an Irish mother).  As has been established time and again, I can't do any accents - though it seems laughing at my attempts never gets old.

We walked back to our super nice apartment to rest up for the next day.  

Our hotel includes a free breakfast at the OK Café directly across the street, served until noon, which is good because we didn’t get there on Tuesday until 11:30.  We were waited on by Fabio and had our first “American” breakfast in Italy – eggs, smoked salmon, omelets, etc.  After we walked to the Duomo and waited in line to go into the dome.  We didn’t know that meant walking up 463 stairs in increasingly narrow spaces to get to the very top of the dome.  Now that we are all out safely, I can spare everyone the suspense I was feeling wondering if any of us were going to make it out before a big earthquake hit (Laura was thinking fire).  The first ledge you are half-way up with wonderful views of the church below (not that I could look down at that point) and the painting of The Last Judgment painted on the inside of the dome.   Then you walk up a little more and think you have gotten to the top, when it splits and either you go up even further or head out with people going out the exit.  Lucky for me, Julia is afraid of heights and opted to be done at that time.  I couldn't get out fast enough, but Laura and the other three girls went all the way to the top and enjoyed the fabulous views of the painted dome interior and the whole of Florence from the exterior at the very top of the dome. 

Once we were all safe and sound on solid ground, we headed for our next destination Boboli Gardens, behind the Pitti Palace.  After walking from the Duomo down over Ponte Vecchio to the Pitti Palace, we realized that there wasn’t enough time for the gardens and lunch before our 5:15 reservations at the Uffizi.  So, we opted for a nice big lunch at Café Pitti and finished that just in time to make the walk to the gallery. 

The Uffizi was high on Julia’s list of must dos in Florence, and everyone was given the choice of joining her or not.  Because all chose to go, none was allowed to complain about being there.  We paired off in twos (because of the audio handsets) – Julia/Neve, Me/Rach, Mama Laura/Meg – and agreed to meet 1.5 hours later at the entrance and see how things were going.  Julia and Neve (who was attached to Julia and had no choice) stopped at every painting in every room and were barely half-way done when the time ended.  My true favorites in that museum are the Botacelli’s – Venice and Spring.  When the meeting time came, Laura and Meg headed back to our apartment, but the remaining four of us decided to stay…it still makes me laugh that it is my kids who keep me in museums, not vice versa.  Rachel hadn’t seen the Medusa by Caravaggio so we set off in search of that and spent another hour or so walking through more rooms.  I finally had to call it – and told Julia she would have other chances at more museums this summer.  We walked home via the statue of David.  Mama Laura found a store that had a travel set of Rummikub, and unable to wait another day for the box, she bought it.  So, we knew we had a game night awaiting us.

We got back to the apartment and decided to head out for a dinner by the Duomo.  We ate calzones, Tuscan bread soup, grilled vegetables, penne alfredo, and tortalinni in a prosciutto cream sauce at 10:00 pm!  Played some games, and went to bed to read.  I feel asleep with my deaf ear up, but found out this morning the girls were up laughing, amused by a drunken Italian outside their window doing Karate Kid type moves....the benefit of a deaf ear.

Wednesday was the 4th of July and Rachel never likes to miss a holiday.  She made sure she brought red, white, and blue to wear.  We got up early to be able to have breakfast before our check out time at 11:00.  This morning’s breakfast was the sight of the most embarrassing moment in Florence for the girls.  In our defense, teenage girls are easily embarrassed…in their defense, this was pretty embarrassing even for me.  Mama Laura has been practicing her Italian and enjoys using a few keys phrases: hello, my name is Laura, nice to meet you, have a good day.  After being served by Fabio two mornings in a row and having regular waiter/customer sort of chit chat, perhaps a little friendlier, Laura approaches to shake his hand and say “Piacere” – “nice to meet you.”  At which point, she says, Fabio leans in and puts his cheek near her mouth – so what could she do but kiss it.  And then the other cheek of course, we are in Italy after all.  Neve was immediately mortified, and turned away.  I, to make it all seem more normal, followed suit as I passed by, kissing Fabio on both cheeks.  The girls got out of the restaurant as fast as possible.  All day long we have been analyzing what really happened and if Fabio had initiated the kiss or if Mama Laura misread the cues…Meg thinks he was merely mimicking Laura’s slightly bent posture because of her bad back.  It has given us hours of entertainment...imagining kissing all the servers we have at the end of every meal.

Wednesday’s plan was to go to the Mercado Central to see the food market and the leather goods before heading to the Boboli Gardens and then to our train.  The market was bigger and better than expected and by the time Laura had bought presents for all of her family members and Rachel got an Italian soccer jacket and a leather belt (sized while we watched), there was again no time for the gardens after all...we will see them on our next trip to Florence for sure! 

There was time for a quick lunch, a trip to the art store to get Julia some birthday brushes and canvases from Laura, and then a cab to the train station.  I'm so glad we didn't drive, driving in Florence seems very, very close to impossible.   Jim picked 5 of us and our luggage up at the train station - and I walked home. On this walk without a map or a camera, just going back to my "home", I really started to feel a little like a local.  

We went out for dinner at a pizzeria around the corner from our house - tired of spending so much on eating out at nicer restaurants - and may have just stumbled upon what will be our regular spot.  Our server, Elena, just finished her studies at the University in Milan, and her parents own the pizzeria.  It was great fun to talk to her in Ital-ish - but even so, we didn't kiss her as we left.  There is still time!