2004
Friday, July 16 - Firenze (last full day)
Lodging: Il Palagio B&B (phone = +39 055 5520642; email address = info@il-palagio.it; Internet = www.il-palagio.it) ; plan to stay until July 17th

Last night...
We started heading back to the B&B for much needed sleep. We came across a phone and tried repeatedly to call home to let everyone know how great we were doing - to no avail. Oh well... guess we can try again tomorrow.

We are planning on going to the Ufizzi Gallery tomorrow - we have reservations for 8:30 a.m. (Should be another early morning with no free breakfast - bah humbug.)

Gregg played around on the Internet and the phone at the hotel before calling it a night at around 2:15 a.m.

Friday - Where to begin?! We dragged our tired bodies out of bed sometime after the alarm went off at 7:15 a.m. We quickly got ready and prepared for a full day away from the B&B. Gregg kindly carried everything for both of us since Erica had no pockets in her clothing (good thinking Erica!). Gregg joked that he had to make sure nothing happened to his belt because his shorts were not staying up with all that weight without the belt.

We stopped along the way to the Ufizzi for postage (they sell this at tobacco stores - weird) and hot beverages (capuccino for Gregg and hot chocolate for Erica), 7.60 more Euros. We made it to the reservation line at the Ufizzi right on schedule - okay maybe two minutes late but that is good for us, right? Amazing thing with the Ufizzi and maybe all of the really great museums here, the lines to get in are astronomical! But, you can make reservations for a specific arrival time to stand in a much shorter line.

So - we made it to the Ufizzi. Said to be the foremost Renaissance museum and the one thing Erica said we had to do while in Florence. Do not believe the hype. They did have a marvellous Boticelli exhibit and Erica saw other Renaissance pieces she had only seen in books before. There was an abundance of statuary and busts. It was overall a pretty cool museum, but it absolutely drained our energy. We made it out of there sometime before 11 a.m. and decided we had time to grab a real breakfast before heading to our noon appointment to head to Pisa.

After a little debate, we headed back to the place we had been the night before, supposedly renowned for its American Breakfasts. Yeah, whatever. They want to charge 12.50 euro for that? So - we opted for the restaurant next door (we were still feeling the burn of those crazy prices the night before) and purchased the Italian Breakfast instead; sweet croissant, capuccino, and the best orange juice we ever had. It was still pretty expensive, but at least they charged us what they said they would...

We still had a few minutes to kill before our Pisa trip, so Gregg headed to the pay phones to take another shot at calling home. This time he had success! We were able to talk to mom even though it was before 6:00 a.m. there. Then Gregg called Gabe... probably something about not calling him while it would cost him $1 per minute...

We made it to our Pisa trip starting point in adequate time, the tour guide gave us our sandwiches and water to eat when we chose. We took a walk to the train station, hopped on an older train for Pisa, then tried to catch a bus. That was not much fun. The train was delayed, we missed our original bus which threw the tour guide off, we waited for a while for the bus... etc. When we did finally make it to the cathedral and tower our new tour guide had to ask the other employee - Why are you so late? We were frustrated, but we made the best of it by eating our sandwiches while waiting for the bus. Then we did walk in the gateway - WOW!

Pisa - the baptistry, the cathedral and the tower were all so very amazing! They were each worth the hassle of getting there. The baptistry has this perfectly circular shape which lends itself to amazing accoustics. Gregg got a great 30-second video of the guard exemplifying the cool accoustics - the echo is so amazing - it makes it sound as though there were many people singing chords instead of one person singing one note of a chord at a time. So very cool. The guide also gave us a great deal of history on the architecture. All very fascinating stuff.

Did you know that the cathedral and the other structures there were manufactured from salvaged/recycled stone from all over Italy and Greece? It was interesting to note that there were details that did not balance, stones laid out starting with one color and then moving to another color midway, wording upside down and other novelties in the construction. It is still all so beautiful. They say that the stone was scalvaged from many sources because Pisa was such a pour town at the time.

Of course we checked out the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The guide gave us many interesting facts. She said the original architect did two things wrong - 1) he built the structure on land that has much water underneath, and 2) he built it using extraordinarily heavy materials (carrera marble). He built the base and three of the levels, then went off to war. The guide suggested that he ran off to war because everyone in the city of Pisa was so irate that their bell tower was already leaning. (Ha! She was amusing.) Anyway, they tried to adjust the following construction to make it appear a bit straighter. Funny - it does kind of look like a banana when you are trying to see a banana shape...

It was an amazing trip that we are both glad we took and Gregg got some really amazing pictures. You will have to see them!

Our guide exited company at the train station once we arrived back in Florence. Erica tried to find a blouse that had caught her eye on the way to the station. Gregg helped her find it - thank heavens. It was not what she really wanted once she had a chance to try it on. We stopped at a restaurant where Gregg liked the blonde hostess - no surprise there. Unfortunately the blonde never paid us any attention. Gregg was still seeking lasagna - he had it here but was disappointed; the cheese tasted a bit strange. Erica had a spicey penne - Perfecto! We headed back to the hostel to regroup and figure out the game plan for our last morning in Florence Saturday. Time is running out on our time in this wonderful city!

We trekked out after regrouping at the hostel to find a laundromat. We finally found one open late enough (it was about 10:00 p.m.) and we are sitting doing laundry now as we type. This laptop is so cool!