Florence: Casing Out Florence

Arrived in Frankfurt.  Boarded a bus on the tarmac to the terminal to go through immigration and get a arrival stamp in my passport.  During security check, my bag was held back for inspection because I had an excess of batteries.  After viewing the digital camera, TSA understood the back-up batteries were required.

An hour after leaving Frankfurt, we arrived in Florence.  Proceeding outside of the terminal, as I was bemoaning not getting an Italy stamp in my passport, Marie spotted our driver holding up a sign reading “JUDY WONG”.

Our UK born driver lived in Italy many years.  I picked his brain about “off the beaten path” sightseeing and places locals eat and shop – gleaned some good tips.

We arrived at Hotel San Giorgio and Olympic.  As it was a hot day and we had heavy bags, our driver breached rules and drove into the alley to let us out directly in front of the hotel door.  When I gave him a tip (not necessary in Italy), he kissed both of my cheeks and left quite pleased. After checking in and getting a stylized map of the City, wherein the clerk circled all of the main attractions (which, by the way, most were within walking distance from our hotel), we proceeded to Room 367.  The air conditioning, set to 66F was on, but I remedied that right away, raising the temperature to 70.  The room was small with a queen sized bed and a stocked mini-refrigerator.  The narrow bathroom featured a bidet and a tub with shower hose, no curtains.

After a quick nap and shower, we left the room to case out the meeting points for our two scheduled tours.  With the assistance of our clerk, we found that the first meeting point was quite literally around the corner from our hotel, and the second was across the street in the next block at the train station – the very train station we needed to go to board our ride from Florence to Rome later.  My travel agent friend had not known the proximity of the hotel to meeting points and train station when she made my reservations.  What incredible good fortune.

With my goal of searching for meeting points and train station fulfilled within 15 minutes, we wandered around the area, shopping in the 90+F heat. We had our first real Italian dinner at Café Le Rose, a restaurant next door to our hotel.

After returning to Room 367, I realized I left my sweater at the dinner table.  I dashed downstairs back to the restaurant.  It was closed.  I rapped on the glass door to get the attention of the bartender’s girlfriend, who made it clear she was ignoring me.  Finally, she turned around and yelled, “No!  Closed!”  I yelled, “I left my sweater!” while motioning wrapping a shawl around my shoulder.  The restaurant’s bartender leaned over to see me.  Upon recognizing me, he yelled to our waiter that I was back for my sweater.  Our waiter gave a knowing nod, went to the backroom and returned with my sweater, quickly slipping it to me through the cracked open door. Before going up the tiny elevator at the hotel, I asked for a 7 am wake-up call.