An early wake up and the hotel staff assisted in securing a cab
and getting our luggage down the 57 steps to the street. Our cab was waiting
and we are off the Schiphol airport. We were warned to ensure we arrived 3
hours before our flight was scheduled to depart and because of the recent
attack in Manchester, England and the heightened threat levels we actually
arrived close to 4 hours before.
We are flying KLM, the Royal Dutch airline and they have
automated the baggage check in process quite successfully. You enter a roped
off area after showing your passport and wait in a small queue for the next
available machine. You place your bag in the machine and scan the barcode on
your boarding pass. The machine weighs your bag and tells you if it is within
guidelines. It then confirms that the bag belongs to you and issues a baggage
tag. You put the adhesive tag on you bag, press OK and the door closes and away
goes the bag. Having not used it before, it took us about a minute for the
first bag and maybe 20 seconds for the second bag.
We were warned that security would be long and extra tight. It
took about 15 minutes on line and a few extra minutes to have my bags searched
because of all the electronics, charging cables etc. and they don't like even
3oz liquid containers without checking them closely. But within 30 minutes we
were done and now had over 3 hours to wait. Actually, it was longer because all
of Europe was congested due to heightened security and Amsterdam only had one
runway working, the other closed for maintenance. Our aircraft was about 45
minutes late in arriving and they use a crazy system to board. They have
jetways out to the tarmac and then stairs to ground level. You then walk about
25 yards to another stair rolled up against the aircraft door. We had one carry
on, one personal item each and both were packed full. Not easy with all those
steps.
The pilot made up some time and we had a bumpy ride but we hadn't
even cleared 10k feet and the seat belt sign was off, people were moving about
and the cabin crew were preparing to serve free drinks and snacks. Never would
have happened on Southwest or another American carrier. The seat belt sign came
back on minutes before we touched down & he used every inch of runway in
Florence. It was an Embraer 190 aircraft that seats about 100 people. They used
both the front and rear exit doors to off-load, again using steps. We could see
the small terminal building from the plane but they put us on buses and drove
about 150 feet and had us get off and walk into the terminal. Immigration was
fast and easy but she asked why our passports had not been stamped & how
did we get to The Netherlands? When we told her that we came by ship and all
the stops we made she was amazed nobody had looked at and stamped our
passports! But with electronic communication these days it is not surprising.
I had pre-arranged a taxi transfer for the airport and in 30
minutes we were checking into our hotel. Surprise, only 2 steps and an
elevator. Wow!
We are in the center of Florence and near everything.
The Hotel Casci is about a block and a half from the Duomo, 2
blocks from the Academia and about 6 blocks to the Ufitziti; basically the 3
major attractions in Florence. A short nap (by now you probably realize we take
naps every day we can, we’re old) and a recommendation for dinner about 5
blocks away at Trattoria Trebbio. A gem of a small, side street restaurant that
serves fabulous Florentine food and very reasonable prices and as Laurie says,
“even better red wine”! Of which she had
way too much. Amazing how sometimes the walls of the buildings as you walk down
the street seem to bump into you and propel you across to the other side Oh My!
I got her back to the room and she slept soundly.
Unfortunately, for Laurie we had an early wake up and the taxi
picked us up at 7:10am for an 11+ hour bus tour of the Tuscany countryside.
Exhausting but enjoyable. We drove several hours to Sienna and saw the large
cathedral square and site of the annual horse races representing the various
villages in the Tuscan region. As usual on these type of tours, you don't get
to see a lot, just snippets of the area and the guides always walk too fast.
Yes, we were the oldest people on the bus and we kept up but we sure did walk a
lot.
From Sienna, we headed into the hills for lunch at a local
Tuscany winery. A pre-arranged stop for Groups. A three-course meal with paired
local wines. Quite nice and no long walk from the bus. A short drive up the
hills and the medieval town of Giamangiano. Known for its leather shops and
“special” gelato shop, highly recommended by our tour guide, hmmm, maybe it was
her cousin? Anyway, again the buses had to park far from the town and the guide
took off. Some curious shops and great vistas of the surrounding hills of
Tuscany.
Back on the bus for a 2-hour ride to Pisa and as Laurie commented
upon seeing it: “it really leans”. Unfortunately, a really long 1/2 mile walk
from the bus parking into the site. Lots of local “gypsy” vendors/pick-pockets
along the route. The Tower is really amazing and yes, it really does lean and yes,
we took the “original” photo ops of holding it up, etc. Back to the bus and a
2+ hour ride back to the train station in Florence. Unfortunately, our tour
price did not include the taxi back to our hotel (note to self, always check
that) but we made arrangement with the Guide to get us a taxi and meet the bus.
A quick dinner at a pizza restaurant across the street from the hotel and a well-deserved
good night’s sleep.
Today is May 26th and we have tickets for a tour of the Duomo.
Like many of the hotels in Europe their concierge will make tour arrangements
for you in advance of your arrival. You pay a small fee to the hotel when you
check in and the balance goes to the tour operator at the meeting point near
the site or event.
This was the arrangement for this morning except that the agent
collected our funds but could not find the scheduled docent / guide for the English-speaking
tour. So, to accommodate us they asked if we would be willing to tour the
church and baptistery on our own and later in the afternoon they would insure a
guide met us at the museum for our tour.
As a further accommodation to us rather than having to wait on a
long line with other tour groups they snuck us in a side door ahead of the
crowds and we had the pleasure of wandering around the church at our leisure.
A magnificent church that overpowers the square with its domed
structure and 200 step bell tower. Yes, you can climb to the top if that
intrigues you. Not this time. Been to the top of many church towers and they
are pretty much the same, just a different view. A beautifully decorated
interior with marvelous marble mosaic tile floors going back centuries and yes,
you can actually walk on them. Surprising, since so many other historic sites
in the world block off areas like this.
This church also has a basement and a walkway guided tour of the
ancient Roman artifacts and grave stones of departed dignitaries and church
relics. Alas, the proverbial gift shop is also down below.
An “al fresco” lunch in the Square gave us time to relax and
enjoy some people watching before heading over to the baptistery. A magnificent
structure with several small chapels for prayer and centuries old paintings on
the domed ceiling depicting biblical scenes.
We finished our viewing and treated ourselves to a gelato and
headed over to the Museum. We found our guide, Stephanie and we were all
surprised that we were the only ones for the tour. So, for the next 2 hours we
wandered the 3 floors of the building being awed around each turn and learning
about the Medici family. An emotional highlight for me was seeing
Michelangelo’s “Pieta”. During his lifetime, he sculpted 3 magnificent statues,
known internationally as “Pieta’s”. This one is known as the Florentine Pieta
or Deposition and took my breath away. It is truly awe inspiring and moved me
to tears with its realism. The other two are in Milan and Rome and we will get
to see the one at St. Peter's Basilica next week.
The Museum is unique in that they have taken many of the
priceless statuary from the cathedral and replaced them with replicas since the
weather and elements were taking their toll, especially on the gold and bronze
doors.
Since we were the only ones on the tour we had many an insight
into some of the works as Stephanie is a student of history and especially the
Renaissance. We concluded our tour with a photo op up on the roof. A lot of
walking today and we treated ourselves to a Pedi-cab ride to our favorite
restaurant for another fabulous Florentine meal and Laurie’s new found favorite
red wine.
Our next day of touring Florence took us to the Academia and
viewing the original statue of David. It's hard to believe that it sat outside
as a pigeon perch for so many years before they realized how priceless this
work of art is. It is truly magnificent and our guide was informative but the
place was crowded. We found a small restaurant for lunch. We also needed to buy
train tickets for tomorrow's trip to Rome and picked a local travel agency to
help us. Their fee was quite reasonable.
Our afternoon tour was of the Ufitziti Gallery. It is one of
Europe’s top galleries housing thousands of priceless art works. Alas, we are
getting tired of guided tours with 20+ people and guides who speak English as a
second or third language and have thick accents. The Gallery is a tribute to
and was paid for by the Medici family and our guide was true Florentine who was
extremely proud of her heritage. She spent way too much time extolling the
virtues of the Medici’s and there was no way to see the entire collection in 90
minutes. We broke away from the Group and took a more relaxed approach to the
huge museum. Perhaps too much touring days in a row.
