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rain in the fire
Jul. 25th, 2006 10:41 pmWe encountered a noisy surprise when our train stopped in Florence - a thunderstorm! Our hotel is a short walk from the train station, but any walk at all meant getting soaked in the thunderous downpour. It wasn't about to stop, so we braved the hot wetness and made a run for it. I fared better than most, but man what a rain. It felt wonderful after being surrounded by water we couldn't dip our feet in, much less drink.
This wasn't our train, ours was much nicer. If you travel Trenitalia, don't go second-class. First class is just right. Plus the cars aren't covered in graffiti.
Florence feels more like a real city than Venice - an easy thing to do - but after living in Disneyland Italia for a week, we never really missed the city things. Cars, gypsies, noise, crosswalks, etc. We like the prices, and the laundromat, but I keep walking right into streets without looking, and I don't like having to be so vigilant; it's distracting and frustrating when I'm trying to appreciate the art that just leaps out of every corner.
We had what looked to us like a cheap dinner, then went walking to the lovely Duomo and Uffizi plazas. The rain has made for a very cool evening, which is wonderful! After days of never being outside without sweating bullets, this feels like a whole other country. Vicki lectured at some length at the Duomo, which was a real treat. Lovely all-natural colored marble facades on every side of the church, including the campanile.
Whoops, got a little distracted.
There's the Duomo! The lantern at the top of the dome is covered in scaffolding, unfortunately. The campanile looks great though.
We're all exhausted and are looking forward to much sleep tonight, so I'll try to post a couple backlogs from early in the trip, thank God we have free internet here. It'll take some time to get photos uploaded, I'm up to about 600 and there's a lot to sort through. Any backdated entries are not likely to show up on your friends page, so watch my journal the next few days for backlogged entries. I promise it'll be worth it.
This wasn't our train, ours was much nicer. If you travel Trenitalia, don't go second-class. First class is just right. Plus the cars aren't covered in graffiti.
Florence feels more like a real city than Venice - an easy thing to do - but after living in Disneyland Italia for a week, we never really missed the city things. Cars, gypsies, noise, crosswalks, etc. We like the prices, and the laundromat, but I keep walking right into streets without looking, and I don't like having to be so vigilant; it's distracting and frustrating when I'm trying to appreciate the art that just leaps out of every corner.
We had what looked to us like a cheap dinner, then went walking to the lovely Duomo and Uffizi plazas. The rain has made for a very cool evening, which is wonderful! After days of never being outside without sweating bullets, this feels like a whole other country. Vicki lectured at some length at the Duomo, which was a real treat. Lovely all-natural colored marble facades on every side of the church, including the campanile.
Whoops, got a little distracted.
There's the Duomo! The lantern at the top of the dome is covered in scaffolding, unfortunately. The campanile looks great though.
We're all exhausted and are looking forward to much sleep tonight, so I'll try to post a couple backlogs from early in the trip, thank God we have free internet here. It'll take some time to get photos uploaded, I'm up to about 600 and there's a lot to sort through. Any backdated entries are not likely to show up on your friends page, so watch my journal the next few days for backlogged entries. I promise it'll be worth it.
