I'm presently cooking dinner at out apartment in Florence. It's a big change being back in a city. It's supposed to be very very hot here then next few days, a bummer after the absolutely perfect weather we had in our 3 days in Viareggio. I took a bike ride up and down the shore this morning, up through the neighboring town to the north and south to the dock. It's just a nice, mellow place, the people are very pleasant and we were sad to go. I still have an incredibly painfully sunburned ankle.
We got to our apartment late afternoon after a stop in Pisa to look at all of the silliness around the Leaning Tower. And there's an awful lot of silliness, let me tell you. Like most things in Italy, you have no idea of where to park. There are plenty of lots and street parking, but since you can't park anywhere you can actually see anything it's a wild guess. We picked some street parking and it turned out to be 3 long blocks from the plaza, which wasn't bad.
The tower itself is pretty. Lots of nice sculpture and inlay work, and it's obviously been cleaned recently. It's also really leaning. Somebody ought to do something about that. It's not nearly straight up and down. We didn't go in. I've stood on slanted surfaces before and don't need to go up into a tower to do it. I guess there's the view, but since the most interesting thing to look at is the tower itself, that seems like kind of a waste. The real show is outside, where everyone is doing their own take on photographs that look like they're either holding the tower up, pushing it over, leaning against it, and anything else you can think of. Ronnie took some great pictures of this.
Florence is about an hour away, so we set off directly from Pisa. Thank goodness we had a navigation system, because this apartment is in the middle of the historic area, where I'm not sure you're actually supposed to be driving. But we did. There's always a lot of anxiety with renting an apartment, even more than with a hotel (for me, anyway). There's way more variation and a lot more room for error in an apartment. This apartment is very vertical. The whole thing is essentially the attic of one of those European buildings with the humungous front doors. You take an elevator to the top floor and then up a bunch of steps to the apartment. The living area is on one floor, the bedroom up one flight of stairs, and then there's a deck on the roof. This particular apartment is the highest up of any in the historic area. We are literally above every other rooftop, except for things like the Duomo and the palaces. It is a 360 degree amazing view.
Of course, nothing's perfect, and this place has more than its share of oddities. It's bright bright bright during the day and the living room is pretty dark at night. They have track lighting with one light on the whole track. Why would someone do that? Just get a regular light if that's what you want. The washing machine, supposedly in the apartment, is in a teeny closet outside the apartment and down a small flight of stairs. I'll take a picture of it tomorrow. It's very odd, and since we have a LOT of laundry after 12 days away it's very inconvenient, especially since there's no dryer so we have to hang laundry and obscure our view.
Since there's no place to park near here (see above) we decided in advance to ditch the car here and then get another one when we leave the city next week. I set off for the rental return place which was described as "near the train station." Here's what I, the savvy traveler, did. I left without the actual address and without the apartment phone number and therefore any means of getting the address. It's nearly closing time, so I don't have time to go back. So I drive along saying "I am so screwed," or something to that effect, for the entire ride there. And when I get to the train station, it's awful. Construction, narrow one way streets, no signs. There was no way to make a systematic search, so I just started trying to drive everywhere within a 2 block radius. And I'm finding nothing. Finally, I see a National Rent a Car office, so I pull over and ask, "Where's Europcar?" and they tell me, around the corner to the left. Clearly, they think I'm walking, because you can only turn right at the corner. By the time I get turned around, I have no idea where I am, so after a few seconds of using the ph word loudly in the car, I just have the navigation system keep me near the train station and keep driving around. Finally, I drive by a street and out of the corner of my eye see an Avis sign. I back up, turn into the street and as I go by the garage where the Avis office is, there's a tiny Europcar sign on a post INSIDE the garage. No sign streetside at all.
I pull into the garage and park, then ask the attendant what to do with Europcar returns, and he says, just give me the ticket and the keys, so I've just either returned a rental car or given a free car to some Italian guy. I then somehow managed to get on the wrong bus, so I got off and walked back, which took all of 10 minutes (driving to the station took almost 30).
So that was my day. I'm happy to be sitting here under the lone track light and relaxing. Here
are a few pictures. I don't know why it's sideways here.
No comments:
Post a Comment