Florence, Italy

As we drove to Florence, we decided that we would first go to Fiesole, north of the city, to rent a room to make as our base upon which to explore the town. We even had a particular hotel picked out, mainly because it fit our price range and was mentioned in both guide books. But as we drove up the hills into Fiesole, the right turn indicated by the sign to our selected hotel was blocked by road construction. Stopping at the tourist office in the center of town, Glen asked the clerk about the hotel--she said we could get there another way, by going all the way back into Florence, then back up into the hills on a different road. Following her instructions, we were able to find the place, but its prices were not as reasonable as either guidebook had implied--105,000 lira per person, which wouldn't have been bad if the hotel had been in town instead of outside it where we would have to climb the hill to the bus stop and navigate the intricacies of the Italian bus system. We decided to see if we could find a hotel in Florence within walking distance of all the sites. We ended up at the Hotel Mediterraneo, a hotel which must often cater to American tourists given its English speaking clerk and cushy beds and pillows. The price wasn't cheap at 170,000 lira, but it was within walking distance (20 minutes max) of the Uffizi and a nice parking spot to boot; it filled our need.

One of the reasons Glen was attracted to Italy as a destination was because he had taken Italian in college. The other was art. When we visited London, we had the best time in the art museums, including the British Museum and the Tate Gallery. In Florence, we knew we would find some great works. But only if the galleries were open, we discovered. For some diabolical reason, the major art galleries of Florence are only open from 9 am until 2 pm, which makes it quite tough for the single-minded art hound. On the day we arrived, all the museums were closed by the time we got to them. We had to settle for more churches, but after the splendid three we saw in Assisi, churches were starting to grow monotonous. The churches did not seem to be as respected or used for services as the ones in Assisi and were certainly noisier with the many tour groups of high school aged people and foreign tour groups. We did, however, stumble upon an unique Salvador Dali gallery that featured a number of his lithographs and sculptures. Glen was especially intrigued by his biblical series and the Tarot deck that he had designed, although the sculpture was very interesting as well.

That night we used the guide book to select Il Papanello, a ristorante on Via Dante Aligheri. This was probably the second most touristy place that we had eaten (following the restaurant in Sorrento), but the food was strictly Italian. The antipasto, an eggplant and mozzerella creation similar to eggplant parmesano, was the best we had eaten so far. Jill's pasta was a tomato-based one with a paprika hit; Glen had the four cheese ravioli. We followed it with the formaggio, a selection of parmesan reggiano, gorgonzola, and a third which we could not identify.

Florence felt like a disappointment, much to our surprise. Thus far in Italy, we had run into only a few tour groups and the cities, churches, and museums have been clean and respected by caretakers and visitors. But Florence is a big city and high on the tour group list so our entire afternoon was a tiring time of dodging tour groups, peering at dirty frescos and churches, and wishing the museums were open.