Nov 14 2019
Italy Trip : Day 3
Time to move for the 2nd destination of our trip. Being short time our itinerary was primarily near Florence Duomo and town. We haven't extended to beautiful Tuscany part. May be some other time we can revisit if its written for us.
We left our Hotel - Giordino" around 9 am.Train to Florence(aka Firenze) was booked in fast Eurostar to save some time. Roma Termini was just 7-8 mins walking distance from hotel so not much problem in pulling the luggages and backpacks.
After waiting few minutes we moved for our departure station which was nearby.High speed train "Freccia rossa" formerly known as Eurostar Italia came shortly.We got a comfortable 3-seater good enough to settle our baby's stroller perfectly. Most of the train was empty so it felt damn cool to board it. It will reach Firenze Santa Maria Novella station in around 1 hour 30 mins instead of 3 hours journey by standard trains.
We had a solid full breakfast in the morning so was fine with some light snacks and biscuits. Today the weather was very nice from the first 2 days at Rome though 2nd day at Rome was mostly sunny. View outside was good enough to keep us excited during the journey. Our baby Ron by this time was already awaken and got pretty active. We have to open his favorite rhymes to keep him calm, He also had his feeding meanwhile.
A lady ticket checker came shortly to verify our bookings.She was so gorgeous and courteous enough to check it lightly being with family, just took reference of any one ticket only. Yes, that's something i always love about Italy - beautiful & stylish peoples around and many are so caring also.Having being stayed for a year earlier in Italy it was my observation, though people are not fully open to talk but within limits they are very caring and courteous specially to tourists or strangers.
Anyways we reached on time at Firenze Santa Maria Novella. Here also the hotel booked was within 10 mins of walk. We helped ourselves out of the station. Main road is just behind only. Crossed the first street to take a right turn & walk up straight.Reached the hotel booked to let know a small twist.The hotel we booked someway had some booking issues as they don't have any room but instead they made arrangement in a nearby similar alternative hotel.Reaching the other hotel again we have to wait for a room confirmation as initially the receptionist was not sure for any available room.Anyways he managed to handover the keys of one of the rooms behind the streets.
Since we had only 1 day scheduled for here, after having some light snacks & all 3 of us getting refreshed we started off for the city tour. The primary spot of the Duomo & associated monuments were. very near to the hotel led via a street just near to it.
Florence Duomo, Campanile Di Giotto & Baptistery of St. John
We started to walk down the street which was also a market full of bags, souvenirs. I was taking a small video for our memories while PP was moving ahead pushing the stroller. By the way Ron is back into sleeping time after playing sometime in the hotel. It was around 10-12 mins walk before we reach the center square where the big huge Duomo resides along with Campanile di Giotto & other associated structures.
We already decided from the beginning not to climb any more Duomo after having climbed the Vatican city, there being two reason - 1.To Save time & 2. To save energy & difficulty to manage with our kid.
We spend a good 1 tor 1.5 hour or so around the Duomo taking pictures and moving closeby. It was around 12:30 to 1 pm already and we need to eat something. Empty stomach is not helping anymore. We dropped in a near by cafe after trying to find a McD but PP was not preferring again a burger or likewise. In the cafe shop we got hold of 2 butter croissant & Cappuccino's. Okay so some relaxation & tummy got full.
Florence is a very small place & from the Duomo every place is in walking distance within 30 minutes max and the entire streets are surrounded by market place with the happening Piazzas in between.
Piazza Della Repubblica
We spent sometime trying to check for a leg covering blanket to fit in the stroller. Our kid is slightly long in the leg space which kept hanging so at times he was feeling uncomfortable and sometimes cold. Visited nearby stroller shops but could not get the appropriate size of it. Anyway thought of checking somewhere else. We moved on surfing the happening streets on our way to "Piazza Della Repubblica" a medium sized open space to hang out. It was all surrounded by shopping markets, carousels, food shacks etc
Piazza Della Signora & Palazzo Vecchio
Moving ahead within 5 mins walk we went for "Piazza Della Signora" - another open space square behind which was the famous "Uffizi Galleria" which we will visit shortly. The Palazzo Vecchio is the town hall of Florence, Italy. It overlooks the Piazza della Signoria, which holds a copy of Michelangelo's David statue.
Ponte Vecchio
Before that we went towards the river side magic place "Ponte Vecchio". We reached almost close to evening when the sun was about to set so the lights in the Ponte Vecchio shops were already lit up. Also it was quite breezy at that moment and was drizzling very lightly.Our pre-booked ticket to "Uffizi Museum" was from 4:30 pm for the last slot so we cut short our bridge side strolling a bit and went for the museum which is also beside the river known as "Arno" over which the bridge "Ponte Vecchio" stands.
The Uffizi Galleria
Among the many museums and galleries Florence is filled with, the famous two are "Galleria dell'Accademia"."The Galleria dell'Accademia di Firenze, or "Gallery of the Academy of Florence", is an art museum in Florence, Italy. It is best known as the home of Michelangelo's sculpture David. It also has other sculptures by Michelangelo and a large collection of paintings by Florentine artists, mostly from the period 1300–1600, the Trecento to the Late Renaissance. It is smaller and more specialized than the Uffizi, the main art museum in Florence but nevertheless the 2nd best in Florence. We chose to visit ant one of them which was the Uffizi , also for the fact that the replica of David's structure is displayed in Piazza Della Signora
As per schedule we went for the "Uffizi Gallery or Museum" which was within 2 mins walk down the river side. Being in the less crowdy time of the year , the Gallery was pretty empty and also an opportunity for us to see the awesome art works in a peaceful manner with quick time. Uffizi Gallery, known in Italian as Galleria degli Uffizi, art museum in Florence has the world's finest collection of Italian Renaissance painting, particularly of the Florentine school. It also has antiques, sculpture, and more than 100,000 drawings and prints.
Michelangelo, Leonardo Davinci, Botticelli just to name a few of the world's greatest artist's work are in display here. Truly speaking all are unique and of its own class depicting the rich art of Renaissance. We just can wonder how much talent and knowledge of art those magicians acquired in that ancient times with limited and natural resources. Truly Spectacular !!! Isn't it?
Anyways we took around 1.5 hours to visit the entire gallery, but yes ofcourse for a passionate art lover 3 hours will be at a minimum to spend here to give justice to the wonderful creations. Anyways slowly we are getting hungry also and was having some shopping spree to follow up tonight only. So we made our way out of the Gallery to come back to Piaza Di Signora. By now its already night out. We moved along the square for sometime and continued back towards our hotel which is almost 30-40 minutes from our hotel.
We earlier had a plan to cover one more place crossing the "Ponte Vecchio" bridge which was Pitti Palace but time didn't permitted and it was already around 6:30 pm. Some shopping time we have to manage before we get back to our hotel and find some place for dinner. On the way while i kept entertaining Ron, our junior - PP tried to hop few makeup & garments store which she is crazy for. My beautiful wife likes to beautiful items as she is. She is a darling and I am always more than happy to fulfill her wishes to the best. On the other hand took Ron to Disney Store for a change. He got a nice puppy for himself also. He liked all the soft toys over there actually :-)
PP helped herself with some makeup items. She would have loved to have something more had not we were in hurry and hungry. While coming back we also took few souvenirs from the nearby local market. The shops were mainly from Bangladeshi owners. The person we had came across was happy to know we were Indians and speaking similar language. Being the end of day and also courteous enough for us he gave us the souvenir's with some discount also.
So finally its time for dinner. I searched quickly for any nearby Indian Restaurant there and to our surprise we got one just 1 street after our hotel. It was named as "Indian Palace". It was hardly 5 minutes walk from our hotel. It was spacious enough and having wide variety of traditional Indian menus. The reception and staff were very co-operative. The girl who served us was from North India as i remember. She cam here for job purpose only. Overall Food was quite tasty - ordered some Chicken Pakodas, Nun and Chicken curry with wine for my sweetheart and couple of beer for me. Our Junior had some milk earlier. He was getting a bit crazy feasibly being tired. Only option at this time was his rhymes in phone. Unfortunately data was not working. But to our surprise a funny thing happened. Another family was in the next table with their kid also watching cartoon in phone. We realized Ron is calm sometime only to discover he is actually following the rhymes going on in the next table. His face was so cute to see that, will never forget that excitement in his face.
We also took the wifi password and helped him further to see the rhymes in our phone. Dinner was good and by 9/9:30 pm we were done. Food was authentic and as per cost. We then reached back to hotel with some water from nearby shop.
Reaching hotel we packed up everything after getting refreshed and making Ron sleep. Next day would be a bit tough as target was to reach Cinque Terre by evening via a 2.5 hour stay at Pisa for the Leaning Tower. As like everyday we prayed just like the 3 day passed let there be no rain tomorrow also but Alas !!! :-(
Lets have that story in our next blog for Leaning Tower of Pisa visit.
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