2006-11-04 - 10:34 p.m.
Man, Rome is awesome. I'm rediscovering the joys of travelling. I was getting sick of Italy, until I got here. Things I've done so far include seeing Pope, and seeing St. Paul's tomb. It's a great city.
But, to backtrack a little, let me tell you about Florence. I was excited to see Florence. Before I left Victoria one of the guys from church, Ron, loaned me several books on Italian art, and Florence really caught my eye. I was looking forward to seeing the Acadamia, and the Statue of David, as well as the Duomo. So we get in to the train station in the late afternoon, and start calling hostels. The first one we call say that they do indeed have two rooms for four nights. We haul ourselves and our backpacks across town, only to find out that there was some sort of miscommunication, and they had two beds for one night. The clerk told us to come back before ten the next morning to check for new vacancies, but she said that she was sure there would be no problems.
Somewhat worried by this, we go to our room, which turns out to be a huge room with twenty two metal beds, and as many tiny lockers. You had to go up a thousand steps to get there, and then to get to the bathroom it was down two steps, and then along a hallway, and up another flight. Very odd construction.
Anyway, we soon left, and went to explore the city. We saw the Duomo straight away. This is the major church in the city, and it is fantastic. It is one of the biggest if not the biggest church that I've ever been to. The sheer amount of space inside was awe inspiring. It was incredible, and a true work of art.
We invested in some cheap gelatto, and wandered around the squares and streets of the old city. It was incredibly crowded, with people everywhere, but it was not as bad as Venice, probably because the sidewalks were wider, and you could walk in the street without drowning.
The next morning we got up early to check on our room situation. Actually, we woke up earlier, since one guy got up at 7, starting a chain of people who very noisily got up. I slept through a lot of this, but Jesse assures me that it was noisy. We went to reception, only to find that they had no room for us. This was very off putting, and a terrible way to start the day. We called a couple of the other hostels, to be told to call back later. Growing increasingly worried, we started to toss around plans of leaving the country all together, or maybe just leaving Florence.
In the end we left our packs at the hostel and went to an internet cafe. There Jesse found another hostel, one that was not in our guidebook, but nevertheless had room for us. It turned out to be a very nice place that reminded me of nothing so much as our very first hostel in Madrid. It was a three bed room, in a little apartment, not too far from the center. Very very comfortable, and very nice. For the first night, the third bed was unoccupied, so we were not disturbed.
The next day we decided to take a day trip to Pisa. Pisa is, of course, home to the famous leaning tower. It took us an hour to get there, and then half an hour to walk across town. The tower itself is quite interesting, in that it really does lean. It's an incredible architectural gaffe, and is pretty funny. We didn't go up, but enjoyed looking around at the tower. It was so weird to be there, looking at this bizarrely leaning tower.
On returning to our room we found that we had a Stanly for that night. The tags on her luggage said her name was Donna, but Jesse named her Joan. I don't know why, but it stuck. We never met Joan-she came back after we went to bed, and left before we got up (not like that's difficult though).
Our last full day in Florence, and we went to see the famous statue of David. This is located in a museum known as the Acadamia. The Acadamia has lots of other art as well, and was well worth visiting. We had to wait in line for a little better than an hour before we could get in, but it was worth it. There was lots of medieval art, as well as four half finished carvings by Michelangelo. I loved those. They looked like the figures were breaking out of the stone- the carved parts were so lifelike, it looked just like they were breaking free.
The centerpiece is, of course, the famous statue of David. It was incredible. By far the most amazing statue that I've ever seen. It was huge, way way bigger then life, and incredible detail. The way the veins on the hands stuck out was beyond amazing.
After the museum, we tried to go see the old fort, but it was closed to tourists, so we spent the rest of the afternoon watching the street vendors.
See, in Florence, the streets are lined with people selling purses and bags, as well as some selling sunglasses, and some with camera tripods. All this is illegal, so when the cops come by, these guys grab the sheet that their wares are laid out on and walk away. It's pretty funny, just to sit and watch how they ebb and flow in the wake of the police. As soon as the cops have passed, the vendors are back out, setting everything up again. We saw one guy get caught- a little too slow to pack up. We met a Florentine fellow who told us that these people are mostly illegal immigrants, and so they cannot really be arrested or charged. They should be deported, but this is quite expensive, so at most they get a couple days in the local clink. It's an odd system.
Our Stanly that night was a girl from Australian, who was originally from Serbia. She had been studying in Venice.
That was Florence. It was interesting, but marred by our first day, spent trying to find a hostel. A beautiful city though.
