Il Porcellino
Florence, Italy, Monday, July 10, 20:55
After packing this morning we checked our bags at the hotel and spent an hour or so walking around the area near the Vatican looking for a camera shop and a travel agency. While we found several camera shops we weren’t satisfied with the selection, so we opted to wait until Florence. When we finally located a travel agency, the customer service was quite lacking (we sat for about 10 minutes and the woman helped someone else who came in after us) so we left and found another. We purchased our train tickets to Florence and headed back to the hotel.
We opted for a cab to the train station – no more Rome Metros for us thank you – and caught the 14:55 (2:55p for you westerners) non-stop train to Florence. Well, there was one random stop in the middle of Tuscany for no apparent reason.
Once here, we cabbed it to our pension’, a wonderful place run by a mother/daughter team (though neither was here, another employee checked us in). Called Relais Cavalcanti (www.relaiscavalcanti.com). Our room is called Donatello, which is coincidentally Kevin’s favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.
The pension is located right by the Marcato Nuovo (“New Market” with stalls of leather goods, bags, etc.) which is famous for the statute called Il Porcellino (The Little Pig). A bronze statute, it purported to be good luck to rub its snout, which is a shiny brass color from the thousands upon thousands that have done so.
Turns out the little pig was pretty good luck for us, too. Out our window, in addition to the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, which shares the piazza with the Uffizi Museum, we spied at street level a camera shop! And they had just what we were looking for.
For dinner, we selected a spot not too far from here called Acqua al 2, which was recommended by Let’s Go. (Sorry, Rick, we didn’t get your Florence book…) It turned out to be great. Kevin rated his second course – the filet in a balsamic sauce – the best of the trip. And it was the best deal so far when comparing cuisine to cost. An excellent place.
We don’t have internet access in the pension, but there is an internet café just around the corner, so we’ll go there to upload today’s entry and photos.
Tomorrow, we are getting up early to be in line at the Uffizi by 8:00, it opens at 8:15, in hopes of beating some of the crowds. There can be waits of up to 2 hours midday to get in and we are trying to avoid that. In the afternoon, we plan to see Michaelangelo’s statue of David. And perhaps in between squeeze in a visit to the Basilica San Croce.
After packing this morning we checked our bags at the hotel and spent an hour or so walking around the area near the Vatican looking for a camera shop and a travel agency. While we found several camera shops we weren’t satisfied with the selection, so we opted to wait until Florence. When we finally located a travel agency, the customer service was quite lacking (we sat for about 10 minutes and the woman helped someone else who came in after us) so we left and found another. We purchased our train tickets to Florence and headed back to the hotel.
We opted for a cab to the train station – no more Rome Metros for us thank you – and caught the 14:55 (2:55p for you westerners) non-stop train to Florence. Well, there was one random stop in the middle of Tuscany for no apparent reason.
Once here, we cabbed it to our pension’, a wonderful place run by a mother/daughter team (though neither was here, another employee checked us in). Called Relais Cavalcanti (www.relaiscavalcanti.com). Our room is called Donatello, which is coincidentally Kevin’s favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.
The pension is located right by the Marcato Nuovo (“New Market” with stalls of leather goods, bags, etc.) which is famous for the statute called Il Porcellino (The Little Pig). A bronze statute, it purported to be good luck to rub its snout, which is a shiny brass color from the thousands upon thousands that have done so.
Turns out the little pig was pretty good luck for us, too. Out our window, in addition to the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, which shares the piazza with the Uffizi Museum, we spied at street level a camera shop! And they had just what we were looking for.
For dinner, we selected a spot not too far from here called Acqua al 2, which was recommended by Let’s Go. (Sorry, Rick, we didn’t get your Florence book…) It turned out to be great. Kevin rated his second course – the filet in a balsamic sauce – the best of the trip. And it was the best deal so far when comparing cuisine to cost. An excellent place.
We don’t have internet access in the pension, but there is an internet café just around the corner, so we’ll go there to upload today’s entry and photos.
Tomorrow, we are getting up early to be in line at the Uffizi by 8:00, it opens at 8:15, in hopes of beating some of the crowds. There can be waits of up to 2 hours midday to get in and we are trying to avoid that. In the afternoon, we plan to see Michaelangelo’s statue of David. And perhaps in between squeeze in a visit to the Basilica San Croce.
posted by Katie | 1:34 PM
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