Our trip to Florence

While in Rome, we decided to do a spontaneous day trip to Florence. Nothing was planned, we just decided to buy a return train ticket and go with the flow. The only thing we were dead set on seeing is Michelangelo’ statue of David, other than that it would be just walking around the city and figuring out on the way what to do.

As my son and I were walking to the Rome Termini station from our hotel, we saw a lot of police cars and a big crane tow truck closing off the traffic on one of the main city streets leading to the train station. Thankfully, the sidewalk was still open.

Passing by the spot, we saw a car stuck right along the tram tracks on the other side of the street, fenced off exclusively for trams. It was a dead end, the last stop for the tram line, and the car was about 200 yards away from the end of the line. Miraculously, the car was unscathed except for some scratches on the rear bumper.

Both my son and I asked the question at the same time, “How the fuck did it get there?” We came up with the theory that it must have been a high-speed chase, someone trying to get away from the police and getting on the tracks from the road that ended about 500 meters before. They failed to get out as you can’t turn your car around while driving along the tram tracks. Alternatively, it could be someone drunk at the wheel. In any case, they are going to be in so much trouble for stopping the movement of both the trams and cars on the adjacent street.

When we were passing by, four workers were trying to harness the car with wide belts underneath along the front and rear axles so that it could be lifted over the high fence by the tow truck’s crane. I wish I took pictures but we were in a rush for the train and there were too many people gawking around already. I am taking a note of this so that I can write a story later, perhaps.

When we got to the station, we bought two tickets for a high-speed train at 55 Euros each that took us from Rome to Florence in 1.5 hours, getting us there before noon. For the return ticket we got two tickets @23 Euros each for a regular direct train that took us 3 hours and 40 min. Buying the tickets directly at the station again turned out cheaper than online (starting at 64 for high-speed and 28 for regular train), but that is the pattern we have already figured out.

When we got to the museum where Michelangelo's David is housed, the lines for it were wrapping around the building two times. I've found a vendor across the street and paid 4 Euros more for each ticket to get a timed entry for 4 pm. That was probably the only time when I didn't regret paying more to resellers - we would have just wasted our limited time in Florence just standing in line. So we had about 3 hours in between and we decided to go the little-known (to us) Uffisi Gallery the poster ad for which we saw while standing in line.

OMG, that place turned out to be on par with D'Orsay in Paris! They had so many Florentine and Italian Renaissance paintings and sculptures, our heads started to spin. Of course our goal was to see Rafael, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Caravaggio's Medusa, and Botticelli, but it had so much more housed there, including Titian, Rembrandt, Van Dyke, Bartolomeo, Bellini, Memling, and many others. It was a feast for our eyes and souls. That gallery was definitely worth 25 Euros we paid for each ticket. I'm only going to post the pictures of Venus paintings here as it was impossible to take good centered pictures without interfering with other people's experiences with them: I only later read that Uffisi is one of the most visited galleries in the world, with lots of people attending even during the low to medium tourist season that we visited.

We came back to the Art Academy's Gallery for Michelangelo's David at about 3:45 for our 4 pm timed ticket. They were still letting in people from 3 pm. It seemed like the crowd management was a complete mess, but once we got into the right line, we saw the logic of it. The street in the Academy is extremely narrow, and they had to maintain two lines for timed tickets - for individuals (red point) and groups (green point); and the third line for people who were still standing in live line in the hope of buying the ticket directly at the box office (blue point). That line seemed to be not moving at all. All three lines were managed by several museum staff. One of them looked like a biker or professional bouncer turned museum crowd regulator. He broke the stereotype by turning out to be a most polite and friendly person.

Once we got inside about 4:40 pm, we just stayed there almost until the closing at 6:20 pm. We had enough time to admire the David statue from all sides, and taking note of how many people came there to see him just like us. And then we went to the huge hall of sculptures, plaster casts, busts and paintings used by art students from all over the world to hone their skills.

I'd estimate that at least half of the sculptures, plaster casts, and busts in that hall were by Lorenzo Bartolini, and one of my favorite ones was the cast of the Reclining Venus after Titian's Venus of Urbino. It's so beautiful I'd love to make a special trip to the Musee Fabre in Montpellier to see the marble version of it.

After the visit with David and Venus, we went for a nice dinner at one of the many fine restaurants in Florence and took a long walk around the city center before boarding the train back to Rome. This was a fantastic trip, worth every European cent of it and I will never forget it.

Practical money tip: Even if you have a good credit card for travel with no foreign transaction fees (I got one from Costco and it serves me really well as most establishments in Europe take credit cards now), you will need some cash for small purchases such as souvenirs, snacks and water. Exchange your dollars for Euros in the US before boarding the plane. The exchange rate in Italy is really unfavorable for the US dollar (I had to do it once and got only 85 Euros for 100 dollars, and in the second case was offered 72 Euros) and the ATMs that various souvenir shops around the city have as a side business will charge you not only the transaction fee of 4 Euros but also about 14% "mark up" fee which I understand is the rate conversion fee. Besides, your American bank will most probably charge you a transaction fee as well (mine did), so I paid a total of over $12 on a 20 Euro emergency withdrawal.