Rome: Florence and Traveling Home

I am almost done. Thanksgiving was our last full day in Italy. After a short stay in our hotel, we caught the hotel shuttle back to the train station where we once again checked our bags. We had until 4 PM to see as much as Florence as we could in one day, so we had to decide which sites we wanted to see the most. We started wandering around the city, and all roads seem to lead to Doma, the most striking building in Florence. We opted to walk to the top, another 430 stairs. On the way up we encountered a woman who was feeling faint and had to go back down, which wasn't easy since the staircase was so narrow. Once we reached the top, we were rewarded for the third day in a row with a spectacular view of the city. It was clear and sunny, making for good photographs. Once we walked back down, we found ourselves inside Doma, which was basically a big, empty building.

Once outside, we walked around some more and then walked to the Uffizi Gallery, one of Rick Steves audio tours. This museum included many works by Michelangelo, Raphael and other famous artists. A few times during the tour we got lost, but still managed to wind through the maze of rooms amongst the many tour groups. No photos were allowed, so all I have are memories of this place, which are kind of fuzzy, as it was just another museum. When we left, we all agreed that it was time for our Thanksgiving lunch. We found a small cafe near our next stop, The Accademia. Our Thanksgiving lunch was simple, as you can see from the photo: lasagna for everyone! It was simple and enjoyable.

Actually, somewhere in there we stopped at a telescope museum, which housed telescopes by Galileo and other astronomers. The main floor was closed, but we had our fill of telescopes. This museum had some "hands-on" exhibits and did allow photographs.
So after lunch, we got our tickets to The Accademia. This museum is famous for Michelangelo's David, and Rick Steves audio tour started with this statue. David was larger than I imagined, and rather well preserved. You can walk around the statue, which is protected by a six foot high plexiglass wall. The rest of the exhibits paled in comparison, but we walked through each room to get our monies worth. No photos were allowed, so I don't have my own photo, but David pretty much looks just like all the photos you have seen, in his full glory.

From here, we walked towards the river than runs through the town, which I can't seem find the name of. There is a bridge that crosses the river that was nicely decorated with Christmas decoration, and there were many jewelry shops on the bridge, which we did not stop at.

We continued to walk around the streets, encountering protesters many times. They were non-violent but still noisy with whistles and cow-bells, and we couldn't figure out what they were protesting. Perhaps something about farming.

Having been walking and climbing stairs for three straight days, we were getting tired, so we slowly walked back towards the train station. It was getting cold as we stood for almost an hour waiting for our train. Once it arrived, we sat down and soon the train was off. I don't know why, but the trip back to Rome went by very quickly. Back at the train station in Rome, we considered taking a train to the airport, but the next one left in an hour, and we realized that a taxi wouldn't be much more money. So we got in a taxi and were in for the ride of our lives! These taxi drivers are crazy. They ignore all rules of the road, such as stop signs, lanes and cross walks. However, I wasn't scared, because this is their city and they know who to drive, and I didn't see any dents in the car, nor did I see any auto accident during the entire stay in Italy.

The last night we stayed at the airport Hilton. We each had our own room, which turned out to be the nicest room of the three hotels and the one we spent the least amount of time in. For dinner, we ate at the hotel restaurant, which offered a buffet. This could have also been our Thanksgiving meal, but we had already proclaimed the lunch in Florence as our official Thanksgiving lunch. All the food was good, and they had a nice variety of dishes, and of course, desert. We finished dinner around 10:30, and I was in bed by 11:30, having just set the alarm clocks, three of them, to go off at 4:20 AM. We were warned that it might take three hours to check in at the airport.

Our flight left at 7:30 and we arrived at the airport by 5:15. Everything was going well when we saw our plane left from terminal C, and not 5, which required a shuttle ride to. However, when we went to get our boarding passes, the lady at the British Airways counter could not find our itinerary in the system. She typed, made a phone call, and then said we would have to go to the main ticket counter. So we stepped out of line and looked for the ticket counter, which didn't seem to exist. There was a ticket counter, but no one was manning it. So we went to call the American Airlines Gold hot line, and the one phone capable of making international calls had a dead batter. So while I watched the luggage, Brad went looking for an outlet and Lorie went back to the same woman, who told her that everything was taken care of and to come back to her to check in. During that time, a busload of Canadians arrived, so we walked to the first-class line and they let us through. The man at this booth was given some signal from the other woman, and he got us our boarding passes no problem. We never found out what happened, but we didn't care.

The flight to London was very short, but we still got a light snack. Once in London, we got through their security rather quickly and didn't have to wait long to board our plane which would take us all the way to Los Angeles. This was the longest flight I have ever been on. It took 11 hours, and more interestingly was the route took us over Iceland, Greenland and Canada. We passed over Greenland about noon local time, and I saw the sun to the South, and being close to winter solstice, it was very low in the sky. I tried to sleep on this fight, but every time I dozed off, they started food service. So during the flight I watched two movies, read, listened to my iPod and ate. In Los Angeles, we got though passport control and customs with no delay and had plenty of time before our connecting flight home. We arrived in San Diego by 6PM and home by 7. This marked my 24th hour of awakness. By 7:30 I was sound asleep and didn't wake up until 7:30 the next morning.

This trip to Italy was very enjoyable and I'm glad we went. We are already planning our trip next Thanksgiving to Buenos Aires with a day trip to Uruguay.