We left off yesterday (Nicole's birthday, happy birthday to me, yada yada yada) with an easy, low-key afternoon in Venice.
We did a little re-packing, a little reading, and then decided to go to a local trattoria for dinner. The plan was to have some salad and maybe a meat dish, as most meals here are served ala carte (first salad or insalata, then first course of pasta, then second course of meat and then dessert). We've had so much pizza and pasta lately that we were really looking forward to some vegetables (for regularity's sake -- you knew it would come up eventually). You can only eat so much dough and cheese... well, you get the idea.
Instead, we got in a celebratory mood and went nuts with the menu (and the vino which is cheap and yummy). We started with a Caprese salad (tomatoes, mozzarella, olives, olive oil, arugula salad), then had pasta. By that time, we were getting a little bit giddy. We started into a laughing spasm about the Tracy Chapman soundtrack that was playing in the restaurant, with the waiter singing along. He couldn't speak English, but he knew Tracy!
Then we had a major laughing fit about my napkin. You sorta had to be there. But I grabbed my napkin to daintily wipe the corners of my mouth and ended up smacking my forehead with the bulk of it. I blame it on the starch. We could NOT stop laughing. There was an Austrian couple across the room that was not amused.
You know, as I write this it's not as funny. Tell you what. Go have a few glasses of wine, coffee or sugar or whatever, and then come read this. We'll wait.
After completely gorging ourselves, we waddled out of the restaurant and took a walk one last time down the streets of Venice before we turned in for the night.
When we got back to our hotel, we were greeted with a hotel clerk other than the somber fella that normally greeted us. This one looked like Einstein with olives in his teeth. We grabbed our hotel key from its hook and he said, with a big olivey grin, "Ow Kaey!!" and went back to smoking in front of his tiny television (I think he was watching Benny Hill).
Today, we got up early...ish and got ready for our departure from Venice. We said goodbye to our Mosquito Motel (where mosquitos check in but they don't check out), grabbed a quick caffe latte, and headed to the train station.
We bought our tickets and sought the track at which we would catch our train. After confusing several other groups of Americans (we're going to Florence, but I think the train will say Rome or something different!!), we attempted to board our train.
The plan was that I would board the train, and John would "toss" each piece of luggage to me up the stairs. I greatly overestimated John's ability to toss luggage, and my ability to catch them. It's an exercise in physics to attempt to catch a 50 pound, 3-foot suitcase up a 2-foot wide staircase.
Then we realized we were on the wrong car and had to do it all over again. Mama mia.
The trip was really very pretty, through rolling Tuscan hills. When we reached Florence, we hastily found our hotel (restrooms on the train were ... damp) and realized we then had to lug our 50+ pound suitcases up another THREE FLIGHTS of stairs, clutching our hearts the entire way. John's calves are now as hard as walnuts.
We decided that there's no better way to learn a city than to dive right in! So we fluffed our hair, donned our sweaters (note, not raincoats) and made our way into the heart of Florence, with me saying how we did not need our city map because I had it all in my noggin.
We managed to make it first to the Duomo, one of the largest basilicas in Italy. It spans several city blocks and seems to touch the clouds. As usual, it was surrounded with tourists. This we expected. What we did not expect was that every tourist was armed with an open umbrella.
We made our way through the crowds with sunglasses on... not because it was sunny -- it was in fact raining -- but because every bewildered tourist tried to nail us in the eyeballs with their umbrella tines.
We then decided to find the Uffizi
Gallery, because I remembered there were many lovely little cafes that surrounded a large piazza, where we could have lunch. As the crow flies, the piazza is probably 7 city blocks. We, however, found it in just over 25.
We dined on extremely overpriced (half) sandwiches and water, paid the bill and ran from the waiter as he scoured our table for a larger tip.
We're back at our hotel for a rest and to freshen up. Pray that tonight we have fewer mosquitos and get a good night's rest. We have some 450 stone stairs to climb tomorrow at the Duomo!
Love to you all!
John and Nicola
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