2010 Italy – Florence
Next stop was Florence where the road to our hotel was so narrow that there were only a few inches between my wing mirrors and people’s front doors. I dropped Federika off with our suitcases and went off to find the garage which was just around the corner. There were lots of road works so my satnav was hopelessly out of date making me horribly lost. I ended up outside town which turned out good because I was able to use the Satnav to take me the same way we had originally entered and this time I found the car park with no problems. It was a shock to find it cost forty 40 euros a night for the parking space which was half the price of the hotel room.
We loved Florence although it was very expensive. There were dozens of places to visit and they all charged separate entrance fees. Of course, the Uffizi Palace was the highlight of our stay. We hired audio guides and splashed out on one each rather than those that had one handset with two headsets, leaving people to explore the museum like Siamese Twins. It was an amazing experience seeing so many masterpieces in one place and I discovered for the first time that I particularly liked Caravaggio. His paintings were amazing but what really impressed me was to hear that he had killed a tennis opponent who was cheating. I was amused to hear that the Pope himself pardoned the killing by making a small change to one of the commandments, “Thou shalt not kill… but cheating tennis players are fair game.” Caravaggio and I had a lot in common. He suffered from violent criticism of his work because people envied him. It was the same for me, except for the bit about being envied.
One special treat was a Cioccolata Calda (hot chocolate) in the magnificent Rivoire Café. It originated from a chocolate factory 150 years earlier and was now a chain of exclusive cafes all over Italy. Two hot chocolates cost us the price of a lunch but were worth every penny, not just for the chocolate but the ambience and the sense of history.
The Italians are a funny race. They ruled half the world, gave us some of the greatest works of art and architecture the world has ever seen and yet they never quite mastered the public toilet. When I say public, I don’t mean those provided by the council which simply didn’t exist but those provided by restaurants and cafes. We went to several restaurants which catered for well over a hundred people but only provided one cubicle in the men’s toilets and no urinals. Half the establishments we went to seemed to be unaware that there was supposed to be a plastic contraption that went between the porcelain and the bottom. Even some of the plushest restaurants had no toilet seats.
2010 Italy
