On March 20th the guys kindly chauffeured Sandy and I up to the airport in Catania to catch a 9 am flight to Florence. Our Ryan Air flight was only about 2 hours long so we figured we would have the rest of the day to see some of Florence. Other than some confusion with the boarding process and bus bridge to the plane, the flight was comfortable. (We had only taken a small backpack each so we could fit it under the seat, but ended up having bin space which was a bonus that we hadn’t paid for, score!)
The plane landed in Pisa which was an hour train from Florence ha! ( Probably we should have looked more carefully at that). What the heck, it was a perfect opportunity to see the leaning tower, so off we went. It was an invigorating walk in a stiff breeze over to the piazza, and en route we passed a botanical garden, a school of surgery, and a university campus.
The piazza itself was fantastic with a large ornate church, with the tower at one end and the Baptistery at the other, and there was lawn all around it. We spent a few hours walking the grounds and taking in the architectural wonders, then located a place for a sit down coffee. Here’s the deal with coffee; standing at the counter it’s 1 euro, sitting at a table it’s 2.50 euro for a standard espresso, cappuccino was 1.50 to 4.50. Still if you need a nice place to sit down ( and use a loo!), it was fine to pay Starbucks prices.
We got back to the train station and located the train to Florence which arrived promptly…but like a Dr John song, we were on the right train at the wrong time.. and had a 40 minute detour to a seaside town before the train reversed and deposited us in Florence. Our AirBnB was a 10 minute walk from the station which was very handy, and the host Max, met us there. He was a lovely energetic fella who was also a sailor, and we could have chatted to him for ages but he was still in the middle of his work day. The apartment was terrific with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a well supplied kitchenette with a dishwasher, and it had a heat pump. Max gave us some sight seeing and dining tips and suggested the central market for dinner, (which had been on our list for possible day one to-do’s). This was a 2 story building with all the fresh produce on the first level (closed at that time of night), and a great mix of bars and restaurants on the second level. It was a good choice as we weren’t needing a big meal, and we were keen to hang out in the apartment planning the next day over a few glasses of Chianti..we were in Tuscany after all!