Traveling to Florence

I have lost track of time. Today is Wednesday, July 11, 2007. We have been traveling for 4 days. It rained early in the morning in Venice. The city is incredibly beautiful in the morning without the masses of tourists. We were able to sit outside for breakfast and watched people getting off the Water Buses going to work. After breakfast we took a Water Taxi to the train station. The weather had cleared by then.

At the Venice train station, we had to find Franco, father of Andrea, whom we met at the Griffith Observatory mentioned in my earlier blog. Franco owns a shop close to the train station. I brought a few photos of the Observatory and of Andrea and gave it to Franco. I can see in his face that he misses his son and was delighted to see the photos. He gave us a large bag of pastries and drinks for our trip. It was fun making the brief connection. I took a picture of Franco.

We had ordered the train tickets back in California but there was virtually no one around to help at the Venice train station. Most tourists helped each other confirming the trains and where to go. In our small section of the train, there were all Americans passengers. There were couples from Boston, LA, and Fresno. The train left the station precisely on time. The trip from Venice to Florence took about 2 1/2 hours crossing mostly beautiful country side. I took a short nap and we ate the pastries Franco gave us.

Our hotel in Florence is walking distance from the train station. The names of the streets and the maps we had were very confusing. Almost everyone else had the same problem. With help from another American couple we finally figure out our way to the hotel.

Our hotel room in Florence is this incredible duplex with an upstairs and downstairs section. We are completely spoiled.

At dinner, we realized that my daughter and I had nothing but spaghetti for lunch and dinner since we got here to Italy. The breakfasts were free from the hotels.

My wife told me to give up looking for free Internet WiFi's. We got a list of Internet Cafes, train and bus schedules from the Tourist Information office in town. The hotel in Venice charged 5 Euros for 2 hours of Internet. The hotel in Florence is charging 5 Euros for 30 mins.

Florence is a much larger city. It has lots of cars and motorcycles buzzing around and lots of tourists also. I added some Euros to my cell phone and had the guy changed all my cell phone messages from Italian to English. I have been trying to do that on my own for a few months without success. Now I am happy.