Florence - Day 1

Last night, Jon has his first industry party in London, so needless to say it was not an early. Nevertheless, it was an early morning - we woke up at 4:15am to make sure we arrived at Gatwick on time for our 8am flight (OK maybe a bit of extra time, but we've never flown out of there).

As usual, we mapped out our journey to a T - taking the last late night bus to Victoria Rail Station, then saved a few quid by taking a local train instead of the Gatwick Express. We've always kvetched about Heathrow, but Gatwick feels noticeably older - sort of 70's era. Everything went smooth with check in and soon enough, we were on the plane (of course in the exit row as we've become professionals at checking in on-line exactly 24 hours + 1 hour before the flight departure). We were exhausted and the next thing I knew it, we were landing in Pisa.

It's a little over an hour ride to Florence, so this leg of the journey, we opted for a bus (can't beat €8 apiece!) and in typical Italian fashion, we didn't leave on time. We arrived at Santa Maria Novella Train Station in Florence and I remembered it was somewhat close to our hotel, which I've stayed in twice before. We somehow bumbled to the correct street without a street map. We checked in and got room 315.

So, I can safely report that the trend of accepting the first room as we did it Prague and Paris was just a fluke. I had a feeling that Jon might not love this hotel - but the weak air conditioning and funky smell just hit a chord with him. So he went back to the front desk to 'deal with it' which we also learned is not the best course of action as he didn't get a new room but said they could come fix the air conditioner, which as we know Italians have their special concept of getting things done quickly wasn't going to happen. After viewing 3 more rooms with similar issues, we settled on room 313, on the condition of two additional fans being brought to the room. Now, with all this you would have thought it was burning up in the room, but honestly I had to bundle up in the room, so I guess it's another instance of temperature variance between me and Jonathan.

Finally, we got out of the hotel and decided to walk through the city center on our way to lunch. Our hotel was just by the Duomo, so we passed that and walked toward Basilica di Santa Croce to search out Il Pizzaiuolo, which we are told is the best pizza joint in town (yes, we realize that pizza is not the specialty in this part of Italy and that's why this place is Neapolitan-style). After walking what seemed like forever (and admittedly in some circles), we finally arrived to find a middle-aged Italian man sitting on a chair outside the empty restaurant chatting with his neighbor.

Alas, we experienced our first European siesta during this trip, which evidently is widely subscribed to by local shops and restaurants.

We were absolutely famished, so after wandering around the streets in a few more circles with our inadequate hotel map, we finally sat down at a restaurant in Piazza della Signoria. Our waiter was a nice old man who started us off by asking what we wanted to drink, so Jon ordered two diet cokes so we could amp up our caffeine. The old man replied - would you like a large? So Jon didn't hesitate and said sure. Our drinks (below) arrived in the most massive cups that we knew for sure we'd arrived at our first European tourist trap! And if we were clear from that, the €17 spent on the two drinks clarified it all....

Jon does not take kindly to being ripped off, so he literally gulped down the whole cup - it must have been 1.5 liters; we were slightly tempted to take one of them home to give Charles, a lover of soda, but we resisted and went on our way.

We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring - walking through San Lorenzo Market...

We made our way to Via Tornabourno the main shopping strip in Florence...into Gucci hoping for well priced loafers like my last trip, but actually they were more expensive this time - but we did get some entertainment for a pair of 23 year old Brits buying a custom pair, exclaiming "this makes you look like a real banker now!"

We made it back to the hotel and took a not-long-enough nap before heading off to dinner at Acqua al Due, a place I went with Lisa on our trip to Italy way back when. It didn't disappoint or change much over time - and the weirdest part was that we actually got seated at the very same table as last time.

We had the Assaggio di primi (pasta tasting menu) which comes with five courses of pasta dishes - Riso al Gorgonzola e Martini, Rigatoni alle Melanzane, Maccheroni alla Vodka, Fusilli Cord agli Spinaci and Fusili Lunghi aila Contadina - of course paired with a great tuscan wine. And as if that was not enough, we decided to share the Filetto ali’Aceto Balsamiko, and again my memory of the dish didn't fail me... magnifico! And the diet starts on Monday - we finished with the Assaggio di Dolci, which comes on one plate with tastes of Tiramisu, Pannacotta, Torta di Cioccolatta and Ricotta Cheesecake.

All this talk of inadequate maps and getting lost, I should add that Jon and I are huge fans of Time Out Short List travel guides... click on the link for your next adventure!