Venice to Florence

Recap of December 27

I got up early this morning and took a long walk along the Grand Canal, then into town and back to the water’s edge and a lovely park.

I might note that I was one of a handful in tennis shoes deliberately seeking exercise…the Italians of course have lovely leather footwear and don’t bother working up a sweat on purpose.

It was a lovely morning with a few boats just getting a move on. When we left the hotel (might I add that the panettone and jam-filled muffins at the hotel were particularly good, as was the brie) plenty of tourists were in the piazza – the most we’d seen so far.

We were in Venice at a delightful time, uncrowded, quiet, glittering lights on placid water, crisp and mostly sunny. Magical.

We picked up the water bus for a leisurely ride to the train station – we hit every stop en route, I think, but with plenty of time it was a picturesque journey past palazzi, the Guggenheim, the Accademia and Rialto. Upon arrival at the station we were told our train was leaving imminently – apparently we were ticketed for a station one stop away but we got on anyway and it worked out fine.

Two hours later we got off in Florence. Several calls later, to no avail, we didn’t reach our apartment contact so set off via cab. At the address we were stumped, no one to let us in so we hit a nearby pizzeria for lunch and made more calls.

Eventually we reached our accommodations people, so once done with seafood salad and pizza we made our way to a different apartment. Incidentally, the cab driver who whisked us from pizzeria “parked” to pick us up by planting his car at a diagonal in the middle of the street to block all traffic while getting us in the car…

What we ended up with for a hotel wasn’t ideal: separate rooms, wherein Joe and I split up to room w/ the girls. (Fast forward a few years and this would have been a great set up…) Apparently the former poreperty had technical issues, whatever that might mean.

Central location, nice property and really, we’d spent enough time getting into this one. So we headed off to enjoy the warm weather and a lovely sunset at Piazza Michelangelo. This lovely spot is on a hill overlooking the city, so is a bit of a climb but well worth it.

FYI: Designed in 1869 by Florentine architect Giuseppe Poggi, Piazzale Michelangelo was created as part of major restructuring of the city walls in 1869. Poggi designed a monument base dedicated to Michelangelo, where copies of Michelangelo's works, including the David and Medici chapel sculptures from San Lorenzo would be displayed. When the terrace was finished, Poggi designed the hillside building with loggia as a museum for Michelangelo's works. However, Poggi's project never became a museum…it is now a restaurant.

From the Piazzale we wandered to the Ponte Vecchio, a Medieval bridge over the Arno River. It is noted for still having shops built along it as was once common. Butchers initially occupied the shops; the present tenants are jewelers, art dealers and souvenir sellers. It has been described as Europe's oldest wholly-stone, closed-spandrel segmental arch bridge. Apparently that's a lie; there are older structures of same make up.

We then wandered around town, enjoying the lovely Christmas lights and the festive feeling in the city as many people were out for early evening strolls.

Eventually we ended up at a lovely little cellar restaurant – Giuseppe’s. We were early but were invited to come in and enjoy the ambience – warm brick interior with wooden table and walls filled with photos of celebrity types and the restaurant owner.

Apparently we’d stumbled on a hot ticket (or the place wanted us to think it was).
While we tracked down the restroom we found the staff eating dinner and it looked/smelled delicious. As was the case, we soon found. It filled up quickly, too, with a mix of locals/tourists. I had a fabulous eggplant tart, Joe had veal, which he seemed to very much enjoy. (Note: I've eaten more eggplant since leaving the U.S. that I would ever imagined -- it's popular in India, the UK, Italy, no doubt France (though who knows -- I couldn't read the menu there).

The kids had no complaints about their pasta at Giuseppe's, either.

For dessert we enjoyed gelato at a bar near the Duomo. Very nice way to end the evening, and my roommate for the night: Ava.