 8/31/2022 - Florence, Italy - In a last minute booking the night before, we decided to spend today taking a day trip to Florence. The weather calling for lots of rain but we decided to give it a shot anyway. We had breakfast at Hotel Pasquale early and watched the rain pour down hoping it would stop, the staff at the hotel even gave me and umbrella to help our day succeed. The walk from the hotel to train station in Monterosso was rough with heavy downpours of rain but we caught our train from Monterosso to Pisa Centrale that took about an hour and forty-five minutes. Then train two from Pisa Centrale to Firenze Santa Maria Novella was another fifty minute train ride, getting us finally to beautiful Florence. The weather in Florence was absolutely fantastic and the rain held off the whole day while we explored. We explored the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella and were greated with a fantastic busker singing opera right in the Piazza di San Giovanni. We explored Florence taking in it's beauty of The Baptistery of St. John Battistero di San Giovanni, Piazza del Duomo and Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. We walked the streets a bit picking up some food and seeing more sites of Florence, like Piazza della Repubblica, Fontana del Porcellino, Ponte Vecchio with nice views of the Arno river. I was able to get tickets to the Galleria Della Accademia to see Michelangelo's amazing David. Seeing the David up close was impressive and the gallery had many other interesting works including a musicical instrument museum with some five to six hundred year old instruments. We grabbed a couple burgers quick before catching the trains back, from Florence to Pisa to LaSpezia and finally to Monterosso. We were back late and grabbed a pizza from Lapos to go and headed back to the Hotel Pasquale to pack up to check out in the morning. In the morning, we had our final breakfast and said our sad goodbyes to the most gracious staff and rolled our luggage to the train station one last time. This time Monterosso to Milano Centrale to Milan Airport via the Malpensa Express to stay at the Sheraton Milan Malpensa Airport Hotel prior to our flight home the next day. The flight from Milan to Newark was no problem but the flight from Newark to Rochester was delayed multiple times making our travel brutal. We made it home finally, but will never travel thru Newark again, lesson learned. Another great adventure in the books. Slideshow |
