Firenze wrap-up and the Freccia

Tuesday, June 4

There's a lot more to see and do in Florence, but we'll have to leave something for our next trip, since later today we go to Venice.

In the morning, however, we still must see a few very important sites; therefore we had our yummy breakfast as early as our fatigued bodies could manage, and we then packed our luggage.  We made arrangements to check out a little after the standard hour.

We walked to the Cappelle Medici.  The new sacristy was designed by Michelangelo, and he decorated the Medici tombs with remarkable sculptures.  The frequent observation is that the reclining figures of Night and Day appear as though they will slide off, and the figures Dawn and Dusk look like they are in the process of sliding off.

There are a couple of renaissance homes that have been maintained for tourists.  I wanted very much to see a residence of somebody who was not a noble family.  Of course, anyone who could afford to build (or purchase) such a home was relatively wealthy -- perhaps a merchant or a major land owner.  We visited the Palazzo Davanzati, walking there from the Medici Chapel.  The building is a 14th century palace furnished much as it would have been when the family was in residence -- which means pretty austere, given the obvious wealth of the family.

In the kitchen we saw a pasta maker and a rotisserie that used a weight and cables to turn the spit for the duration of the roasting process.  Many of the bedrooms had adjacent bathrooms, complete with tub and toilet (a hole in a bench with a wooden cover).  Pulleys and buckets hauled water from the well on the ground-floor up to the upper floors of this 4-story palace.  Many of the walls were painted with thematic characters, animals, or plants, such as peacocks, parrots, and historical events, and some were fresco.  Many walls had ancient graffiti on them.  One of the residents had either been a government official or had rented a floor to a tax office, and tax-related calculations, drawings of buildings, and other themes were scrawled on some of the walls.

We picked up our luggage at the hotel, rested a half hour, and walked the 3 blocks to the stazzione.  We ate lunch in what was essentially a food court in the train station, where we hung out until our train was ready to board.  Oh, yeah; don't forget to validate the ticket.

We had taken regionales up to this point, in part because they are very inexpensive, and the distances have been so short, and in part because we wanted to enjoy the train ride and the countryside.  But today we were to travel much farther, so we took a fast train.  The Italian "arrow" trains are the Frecciabianco (white arrow), Frecciargento (silver arrow), and Frecciarossa (red arrow), in order of increasing velocity.  We took the Argento to Venice. 

Arriving in Venice at 4:30, we went to the tourist office and bought our Venice Card.  Then we went to the Grand Canal, which passes right in front of the stazzione and began to follow the directions sent to me by the bed and breakfast.  We bought a ticket and stepped out onto the floating pier to wait for the Vaporetto.  We boarded the appropriate boat and enjoyed the ride to our designated stop.  Along the way we saw all sorts of beautiful buildings from every historical period from the middle ages to the middle 20th century.

While there is a dearth of handicap access in Italy in general, there is almost none in Venice.  The only mode of transport is nautical -- no cars or motor scooters, period. 

Doesn't even pay to have a bicycle.  Wherever you walk, you can't progress more than a few hundred feet before reaching a canal, which must be crossed on an arched bridge, with steps up on one side and steps down on the other.

Following the B&B's instructions on how to walk from the Vaporetto, we progressed through one narrow street after another and over one such bridge after another until we had gone not much farther than 500 meters, but what a workout we had, schlepping the luggage over the bridges.

We found the B&B at the end of a quiet alley, and the key was left for us at the front desk, to which we gained access by ringing the bell and identifying ourselves.  The manager was not at the hotel.  Each room had a composer's name; ours was Puccini.

We freshened up and went out for dinner, eating at a restaurant on one of the canals.  Afterwards we strolled around town from piazza to piazza, admiring the setting as well as the beautiful -- sometimes crumbling -- old buildings.  After another full day, we made our way back to the hotel at 9:00.