I am in love with Florence!!! All of you haters out there that told me not to even bother, that I would only need a day...whats up with that?! I would stay here for a week if I had the time. With all of the narrow, winding streets, ancient buildings and little piazzas, whats not to love?!
I took the train up from Rome on Saturday. This is my second destination and first without a hostel reservation, so I was a bit on the edgy side wondering how the home base was going to work out once I arrived. There were loads of backpackers on the train...competition for beds. So once the train stopped, I grabbed my heavy-ass pack and booked it into town. I came up on the first hostel on my list and they looked at me like I was insane for coming in on a weekend without booking ahead, and then politely sent me down the street. I got the same response from the second as well as the third. I had exhausted my list, and now only had the name of a random road, so I just started walking down it...where I ended up finding my fourth and final destination. It was a little pricier than the others, but had a pool, sauna, bar and what seemed like some pretty cool people. I was home.
I ended up meeting a girl in the line for my bed and her and I went over to see the David as soon as put my stuff down. Ah David....every man needs to learn a lesson from Michaelangelo. How he made such a perfect human body out of a single piece of marble is beyond me. I could have sat there and stared at it all day....and I did for about an hour, before being dragged out of there.
Upon returning to the hostel, I met some more people and went out for pasta (I have to say, I've had better gnocchi in SF) and many, many bottles of wine. The night dragged on and became a bit debaucherous, but it felt good to socialize as the place in Rome wasnt quite like that. I know I told you all that I didn't want the party hostels, but I was hanging with the older (and not much wiser) folks. Some of these kids are about 19 and going out to foam parties while they're in Europe (yes, I was invited to a foam party...no, I did not go ). Anyway, I ended up waking up with a wicked wine hangover this morning and going back to sleep for an hour before beginning my day.
Today I entered a town out of one of David Bowie's dreams. I took the train over to this little town called Siena that is basically a giant maze with 8 story buildings as its walls. I only wish I had the Labyrinth soundtrack on my Ipod as I was singing "Dance, Magic Dance" all day long. I wandered around there for a couple of hours and then decided to walk back down to the train station instead of taking the bus. Much to my dismay, I have my mom's sense of direction and got completely lost in some random train graveyard with no one around. After walking around forever (and apparently past the train station twice) I found it 10 minutes after my train had left. This trip will definitely teach me patience as I had to wait another hour and a half for the next train.
I was going to go to Venice after this, but with the film festival going on, I'm not even going to try. Brad and Angelina will have to do without me this year. I'll try to do Venice later in my travels. I've decided to head over to Cinque Terra, five little towns on the coast with hiking trails and beaches with crystal clear blue water. Time to take that much needed dip in the Mediterranean.
No comments:
Post a Comment