This post is a day late because the wireless signal in a our room in Florence is crap. However, on the ground floor, it's perfect. I'm doing laundry at the moment . . . 4 Euro to wash and 4 Euro to dry. :( I guess beggers can't be choosers. Now, on to Friday, June 1st.
The night before I investigatede St. Mark's Basilica and found that if you pay 1 Euro per person you can skip the line to see the Basilica. That was the best 2 Euros ever spent. By the time we arrived at Piazza San Marco, the line to get in was at least 100 people long. We didn't have to stay in that line. :) St. Mark's Basilica is so beautiful in side. I feel like I say this a lot, but words cannot describe the beauty. We decided to explore the museum as well. After climbing LOTS of stairs (uneven to boot), we read about the building of the basilica and about the frescos inside. We were also able to step outside on the balcony, so to speak. The Piazza was amazing to see.
After St. Mark's, we figured we would have enough time to find the Italia recycling store we went to the night before. Unfortunatel, we got on the wrong Water-Bus, #1. This boat stops at EVERY stop along the Grand Canal. What we thought would be about 10-15 minutes ended up being about 30 minutes. We had just enough time to find the store and get 1.5 liters of wine for about 4 Euros. We got Pinot Grigio, Roboso (sparkling red for the summer), and Tocai (white). Yep, we used our empty water bottles to get wine. :)
We then had to rush to get to our hotel. I wanted to be at the train station by 1pm since our train was leaving at 1:27pm. This means we wanted to be at the hotel by 12:30pm. We got there about 12:45-50! Then we need to re-arrange items. Then, we had to wait for the water bus so we could get to the station. We got there at about 1:25pm. Yep! We were literally running through the station and to our car . . . number 5, which was NOT close. We made it, though. Whew!
We got to Florence in one piece. We bought a Florence map since the map in my Lonely Planet book is not very detailed. Once we figured where our hostel was located we started pulling our luggage down the narrow sidewalks of Florence. The walk took about 20 minutes. Our hostel is okay. We each had to buy a towel because they are not provided . . . neither is hand soap. Oy!
Our guide from Venice recommended that we go to Piazzale Michelanglo and watch the sunset on the steps with a nice wine. So, we found the bus that takes a directly there and made it in plenty of time. We brought our three wines in plastic bottles to enjoy. We had an amazing view of Florence and the sunset was amazing!
Before we headed to the Piazzle, we enjoyed our first pizza in Italy at a local cafe/bar. Ham and mushrooms . . . very good. For those of you keeping track, this is day 2 and the second day we had gelato! YUM!
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