It was pretty amazing...we started off by going to Rome. Of course we had to fly out from the London boonies, so it took forever to get to the airport but we eventually got there, to beautiful ROME!
On our first day, we arrived in the late evening and made our way to our hotel which was relatively near the train station that we arrived near. We found an adorable little restaurant near our hotel, well we pretty much ran into it because it was right across the street. We got to eat outside (since the weather was beautiful!!!) and then we went to bed because....
We woke up early again to go to Florence!! ( I think you can by the title of this post how our trip went...) This time instead of taking a plane, we took the train. And I actually prefer taking trains versus planes. There is so much more room and nobody is asking you to shove all of your stuff into one teeny tiny book bag, even though you will immediately separate it once you get on the plane...just sayin'. So for clarification, trains are MUCH more comfortable than planes.
This time we arrived in Florence in the early morning, and...immediately got lost. Luckily some very nice Italian man was riding by on his bike and he was able to give us directions (kinda) in English. It turned out we went the exact opposite way we were supposed to so we turned right back around and made our way to the Tourist Hotel (nice name, right?). We got to check in early which was a relief but since their credit card machine was broken and Mom and I are terrible at directions, we spent the next 30 - 45 minutes searching for an ATM to pay the hotel. It turned out it was literally around the block, so that was an annoying way to start the day, but we paid them and then we were on our way.
Since we had already explored the area by the bank for about an hour, we decided to head off that way toward the river. Again, the weather was beautiful (it was like 70 degrees the entire weekend) so it was really nice just to be outside, especially for Mom since it was freezing back home. And eventually we found the old bridge, and apparently there is a lot of gold in the area, because every single store on the bridge sells gold. That's a lot of gold.
The river in Florence
The old bridge with its many gold shops
But basically for our time in Florence we just meandered around, looking at different shops, markets and stalls in several different areas. We bought a wallet for just about every member of the family it seemed like and went into The Gold Shop to get presents for Steph and Tony. Mom even got a discount on a cute leather purse because the guy asked if we were Italian. We also saw some lovely churches and got lost some more. We did however, find 'the best gelato ever' and ate a big bowl of it. I had chocolate and coffee flavored gelato, and it was delicious. The chocolate tasted like brownie batter....yum.
The large church in the Piazza that we ate lunch in
More sights in Florence...
And here we hit a bit of a snag in our travel plans. Somehow we got on the WRONG train, and we were heading to Bologna NOT Rome. But it could have been a lot worse than it turned out. We told the man taking tickets our mistake and luckily we didn't get a fine or anything (I've seen it happen before, not fun) and once we got to the next station we asked the people working at the information desk for help and they directed us to the next train to Rome. We didn't have to buy new tickets or anything. It was really nice of them, so basically the only bad thing was that we arrived in Rome 2 hours later than we had expected.
However, once we arrived in Rome we had to then find our new hotel, which was not the same as the one we had stayed in previously. And, as it turned out, this one was A LOT further away. This was unpleasant for 2 reasons: 1) We had just gotten over the excitement of being on the wrong train and wanted to be at the hotel ASAP and 2) We has a lot of luggage and it was getting quite warm in the lovely Italian weather. This meant that by the time we reached the hotel all I wanted to do was take a nap, which I did. And it was lovely.
The hotel room wasn't that bad, we even had our own little balcony. It was really cute, but after my nap we didn't stay in the room too long. We made our way back to the train station, and bought tickets on a hop-on hop-off bus tour. We thought that this might be the best course of action, since we were both still exhausted. Its nice to sit on your butt and have people tell you facts about the sights that you are seeing (very little work involved in this...)
We did hop-off at one stop so that we could find a restaurant recommended to us called Tre Scalini. Well finding this restaurant was easier said than done, because apparently Mom and I can't read maps. So it only took us about an hour to find this restaurant, and then we didn't even eat there! I guess there was a protest going on and the music was kind of annoying, so we ate at some other place down the block. But we did come back for gelato and dessert. I don't think gelato can ever taste bad, but Mom tried the Tartufo which was chocolaty and covered in whipped cream, and that was delicious as well!
After this, the day was pretty much over for us. After so much traveling, we were constantly exhausted. Plus we wanted to get back to our hotel in the boondocks before it got too dark. So we headed back, but it was still a pretty good night. We read our kindles on the cute balcony for awhile before heading off to bed.
The view from the balcony...so cute
The next morning were ate (a very limited) breakfast at the hotel, and left to get back on the hop-on hop-off bus. We used today to get off at the sights that we wanted to see more of. Our first stop was in Vatican City. We got out, and joined a crowd of several thousand people to listen to the Pope speak! It was pretty cool, although it would have been more cool if we could have understood what he said. Because of the lines, we didn't go into the Vatican Museum or anything, but like I said...I will be back!
The Pope!!!!
The Colosseum
More Sights in Rome...
Basically, we just spent the rest of the day riding the bus and getting off at the stops we wanted and then getting back on when we wanted. It was pretty amazing. Everything was sooooo pretty and the weather was sooooo nice. It was a really great last weekend to spend with Mom. We did have a little trouble getting back to London, which meant we didn't get to bed until really late, but it all worked out in the end. The next day Mom got to go home and be with Louis and I'm still here waiting to go back to Italy before I finally go home to Louis myself!!
Louis!!!
Exciting stuff!
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