Mega-Vacation Day 2 - Florence, Italy

Day 2 (Florence):
The rest of the train ride (about 1 ½ hours) was pleasant, as the views of the Apennine Mountains were great. However, the parts of Italy we passed through were not necessarily “pretty”: I saw a good deal of slums, beat-up houses, and shacks. Italy seems rich and grand on the surface, but in actuality, it is one of the poorer EU countries.
So when we got our passports and tickets back after inspection, we came across an awesome fact: so on our 8-day, 3-country Eurail passes (allowing 8 days on unlimited travel in France, Italy, and Switzerland), the overnight train is actually supposed to count as two days. But at the time, we had only filled out the calendar for the first day. When we got it back, we expected the guy to fill in the second – but he didn’t, meaning we now have an extra day of train travel that we can use at a later date! Woo-hoo! Where should I go…
Anyway, we arrived in Florence around 8:30am. We found ourselves in a packed train station full of people speaking Italian – quite a shock. This is the first time I had been in a country where I knew very little of the language since my trip to Hungary in 2005. The feeling of not knowing enough to get around stinks – even if most people in Florence know English.
So we quickly dropped off our bags at our hostel, which unfortunately had no Internet and thus I had to wait for 3 days to use it.
The day of exploring was crazy – great but exhausting. We fortunately met up with MT’s friend Andrew, who had been studying in Florence for 6 months and has near-fluency in Italian. He was charged with showing us around, which was an enormous help. We met him back at the train station at 10:30, where we made reservations for our next leg of travel in 2 days (Florence-Monaco) and then hit the town.
So I was shocked to see that they charge one euro to use a toilet in many parts of Western Europe – including in Florence. Ridiculous.
Anyway – so we first walked to a nearby market (MT seems to love markets) and then, after debating whether the 6 euro cost was worth it, saw the Medici Chapels, home to the graves of all the famous Medicis (who ran the Florentine Kingdom for 200 years during the Renaissance). Each of the graves are elaborately decorated by statues from none other than the great Michelangelo. While photos were forbidden in this museum, I managed to sneak a few in. 
Afterwards, while we waited for our lunch place (which was packed) to find a table for us, I did something stupid. I decided to wander over to the other side of the Medici Chapels – the 5th century Church of San Lorenzo – to explore a bit. Of course, I got severely lost coming back, as all the streets look the same and the busy market caused me to lose my bearings. Even better, I discovered that my French phone didn’t work in Italy…great. After 25 minutes of wandering and worrying, I finally retraced my steps to get myself back – not my finest moment.
Lunch was incredible for one purpose – I have never had better wine in my life. I had an expectation of Italian wine being inferior to French, but boy, I was wrong. It was simply a house red wine, but it was to die for – sweet, but not too much so, and incredibly smooth. And even better – it was literally only 1.80 euros for a quarter liter. That’s about 40 cents per glass – compare that with the 3.50 per glass that it is in Tours. Wow. Awesome.
So after lunch, we headed over to San Marco to catch a bus to Fiesole, a suburb up in the mountains and home to the Georgetown Villa, where about 25-30 Georgetown students study each semester (and some in the summer). The place is Italy at its finest – perfectly maintained gardens and an awesome view of all of Florence. MT is considering going there for the spring semester. Aww, it was good to be back in Georgetown, if only for an hour. Haha.
So by this time it was brutally hot and we had to walk a good distance (downhill, thankfully) to get back to the bus stop. My not-so-restful night before was finally catching up to me. Maybe it was for this reason that I thought that the famous “Duomo,” the largest church in Florence and formerly the largest dome in the world before St. Peter’s was built in the Vatican, was overrated. The outside was great – especially Giotto’s Bell Tower – but the inside was empty and barely decorated, save for the mediocre dome itself, painted by a mediocre artist. Part of the reason for the emptiness was a massive flood in 1966, which wiped out a lot of the city’s monuments, but even still, I expected more from one of the world’s most famous churches.
But there was one highlight: Rick Steves seems to make everything more interesting – hundreds of tourists own this guy’s books – including Andrew, who brought it with. His details about each monument are very good and helped provide some historical background and funny incite to all of Florence’s sights.
After Duomo came the delightfulness of Gelateria Grom’s famous gelato – I was never a gelato fan until I came to its proper home – Italy, but now I am hooked.
So it was nearing the evening and we were getting a bit worn down – but we kept amused with Donatello and others’ statues at Orsanmichele Church and Dante’s house before finally making it to the best square in Florence – Piazza della Signoria, where the impressive city hall, Palazzo Vecchio looms, as well as a large collection of Roman statues and a surprisingly-popular replica of Michelangelo’s David. For some reason, we managed to be here when the tourists weren’t. Andrew said he had never seen the place emptier – a nice gift, as we were able to take a bunch of pictures without having to wait for hundreds of others to take them first.
At this point, we said goodbye to Andrew for the night and returned to our hostel to freshen up before dinner. I had pizza, which was actually very disappointing. It wouldn’t be the first time I would try either – on the whole, the US seems to have beaten Italy at its own game.
We walked around a bit afterwards and saw the Duomo at night when it was empty before returning to the hostel for bed. Thus ends our first true day of Mega-Trip 2010.