After arriving in Florence, it took me a few days to get accustomed to life in Italy. For one thing, I arrived to a blast furnace of 90-degree weather, a city crowded with tourists and noise. Honestly, it made me wonder why I had come. I stayed at a familiar hotel near the train station, but there was no air conditioning, and the other guests were a group of couples from Seattle traveling together and they monopolized the terrace in the evenings. (I have noticed before when traveling that couples are often sufficient unto themselves, and do not often invite conversation with me: it's usually other single women or women traveling together that do so. On the other hand, I don't really try to join them, so perhaps we're equally at fault.)
Though the hotel has wi-fi, it didn't always work, so that was frustrating at times, but no real biggie. I found an internet cafe down the street that only charged 1.50 euros per hour, and can use that as a backup when needed. Then, when I tried to buy a cell phone to use while in Italy, I was told they could not sell me one unless I had an Italian I.D. Hmmmmm. Bummer. I had really counted on that. Things started to perk up as I rode the bus across town to visit my friend Paola, a native of Florence who writes books on teaching English for specific purposes.
Paola could not pick me up, as my hotel was near the town center, an area typically congested with tourists: most cars are not allowed in centro, downtown, until late evening. What I enjoyed about the bus ride was that when I asked the bus driver if he stopped at Piazza Nobili, a woman near me mentioned that she was going there and would show me which stop to get off at. (All spoken in Italian!) She moved over to let me sit near her and we had a pleasant conversation, still in Italian, on the 20-minute ride across town. I held my own during our talk, and that felt good. I started to feel that magic was once again on the horizon. Paola took me to dinner at a trattoria near her house, and we had a good long chat. She drove me back to the hotel and we made plans to meet again when I return to Florence at the end of my trip.
The next day, Friday, was set aside to hang out with Haruko, who had also just arrived in Florence. We had last met in Tokyo last March, and before that, in Bologna last October. I was hoping she could help me find a store that would sell me a cell phone, since she had bought one like it last year. The phone I was looking for was a cheap model that can only be used in Italy, but it uses prepaid phone cards that I can buy whenever I need more minutes while traveling in Italy. I figure I can even rent it to friends who might need a cell phone while in Italy. On previous trips it was no problem buying prepaid phone cards for public phones, but it was always a pain to find a public phone, not to mention one that worked and was not in a noisy area.
I woke up early that day, and headed out at 8 am to get to Giotto's Campanile by 8:30 and climb to the top. I was the first one to show up that morning, and it only took about 20 minutes to climb the 414 steps to the top. Though not as tall as the nearby Duomo (with 464 steps), the views were pretty spectacular. It seemed an easier climb than the Duomo, which I managed to do 2 years ago, not just because I'm much lighter than I was then, but the ascent was also more straightforward. The Duomo has a series of winding staircases that seem neverending.
Haruko and I arranged to meet in Piazza San Marco, not far from my hotel. Earlier in the day I had located a store where I could buy a phone, and so we went there first and bought it. We went back to my hotel to get it charged, and realized we needed some help to figure out some necessary things, like changing the language from Italian to English, and how to activate the prepaid phone card. Once that was done, we decided to walk across town to Piazzale Michelangelo, which boasts wonderful views of the city. I'd been there once before, on my first trip, when my friend Marco had given me my first tour of Florence, and wanted to see it again.
On the way, we stopped at Piazza San Ambrogio, where there is an open market every day, and had lunch at a famous cafe inside. It is one of those places where mostly Italians come to eat, sitting together and chatting up a storm. We sat at a table between two young women and two older men, trying our best to converse in Italian like everyone else around us. The men who cooked and served the food were some of the hardest workers I have ever seen, literally running back and forth with food and drinks to keep up with the lunchtime crowd, inevitably stopping to have a chat along the way. I had melanzane parmagiana (eggplant parmesan), quite superb, and only 4 euros (less than $6.)
By the time we got to Piazzale Michelangelo, we were too hot to really enjoy the view. I suggested we look for the nearby gardens that Marco and I had visited, but found they had closed at 1 pm. Instead,we decided it was time for a gelato treat, so Haruko led the way to her favorite gelateria, near the briege Ponte di San Trinita.
Once refreshed by gelato, we crossed il fiume Arno, the river, looking for a quiet spot to sit. One of the things I enjoy most about Haruko is that we can spend hours together, not really doing anything or talking all the time, but just hanging out. I do not have many friends I can do that with, but it seems to be easy with Haruko. It probably helps that we hang out together in cities like Florence, Bologna and Tokyo, where there is a lot to take in.
We couldn’t find a quiet spot, but to get out of the sun, we decided to sit along the cement steps on the back wall of the Loggia Lancia in Piazza Signoria, one of our favorite places in Florence. This is where everyone seems to congregate, the very same piazza where the mad Savonarola was burned at the stake in the 1500's, and where giant statues of David, and Neptune dominate the square.
Within a short time, we heard the roll of thunder and the crowd quickly began to disperse as raindrops fell. We started walking back towards my hotel, and ducked into a bookstore we both like just as it started to pour. Along with many other people, we were stranded in the bookstore for nearly an hour, while Florence was freshened by the rain. It cooled the air and cleaned the dusty streets in one fell swoop. By the time the rain ended, it was 6 pm and time for Haruko to head back to her friend's flat, so we said our ciaos, with plans to meet again in October, if not before, if she decides to visit me in one of the stops along my route.
I was beat by the time I got back to the hotel, and used the evening to read, catch up on email, and pack for the next day's trip to Lucca. Little did I know I would find my route blocked when Florence trains were frozen by un'altro sciopero, another train strike.
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