Firenze!

Getting to Florence was nearly a disaster.  A strike had been scheduled. Thank goodness the people we were staying with spoke Italian.  On a visit to Venice there had been an announcement on the train, I haven’t the slightest idea what it said but the people we went with heard and understood it.  The regional trains had planned a strike for Saturday evening through Sunday night.  Awesome, right when we were supposed to be going to Florence by train.  Luckily, the strikes were only affecting the regional traffic, so after making a quick change and getting a ride to the Mestre station we were on our way.


It wasn’t the prettiest of days when we got into Florence. It was raining and I thought it was rather cold. Never the less we decided to walk from the station to our flat because we knew that it wasn’t far. This sounded like a great way to check out part of the walk we would be doing every morning, but luggage wheels do not like cobblestones.  Especially when those wheels are supporting 60 to 70 pounds of cloths and whatever else had been crammed into those suitcases.  Once we got to the apartment which took a few tries, there are several buildings marked number 5 on this street, we were pleasantly surprised by our accommodations. The large wooden doors open to an entrance with high vaulted ceilings that have simple but elegant paintings on them. The flat itself has 5 separate bedrooms, a kitchen, kitchenette, 2 bathrooms and a washing machine. The washing machine was surprisingly difficult to find because it was in the kitchen and looked exactly like anyother appliance. After getting our keys from the women that neither of us could really understand we set out to explore the city some before unpacking.

Our goal was to walk down the street and find the Piazza Della Repubblica and the entrance to the language school. We wanted to get some eyes on where we would be going everyday for the next month. Good thing we did. Maps of Florence are slightly misleading, the scale on them is deceiving. What looks like 2 to 3 blocks on the map which in San Francisco where we were used to walking around and takes several minutes, is in reality like 20 steps here. This town is tiny. Everything is right next to each other. Not having a car is going to be no problem at all. After adventuring about getting lost a few more times we decided to grab some quick street food for dinner and head back to clean up and get things situated in our room. The next morning school started.