We finished our stay in Florence with trip to the Uffizi Gallerie. We booked a guided tour which meant we could skip the queues and get a hand picked selection of the most important artworks. We arrived early and after a little wait we were in with our guide Dr Sergio, an older gentleman with an interesting outfit of combat pants matched with a linen jacket, and baseball cap, finished off with flip up sunglasses attached to his spectacles. We noted that the sunglasses remained flipped up but still attached to his glasses, and did not come off for the entire tour. Dr Sergio was a slightly eccentric fellow, whose thick accent made him very difficult to understand. More difficult to understand than his accent was his choice of words which did convey what he wanted to say but in a sort of linguistic puzzle that had to be pieced together as he spoke. Some of the Americans who had joined our tour persevered for quite a while before giving up and just looking around the room as the good Dr waffled on. His tour basically covered how the Renaissance began and how religious art moved from the stylized Byzantine icons to realistic depictions of religious figures as real people, something that could have been explained in a few words but that the good Dr deemed required 1.5 hours.
Despite this we got to see some amazing artworks including works by Giotto, Uccello, DaVinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Titian and Tintoretto. Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" and "Primavera" were definitely the highlights. Unfortunately we ran out of time to see Caravaggio due to the Dr's incessant warbling, so that's on the list for next time.
Once we were done we high-tailed it to the station to catch our train to Rome. After waiting for what seemed an eternity to find out the platform number we boarded without fuss and were soon on our way. After only 1.5 hrs of zipping through the green hills of Tuscany we had arrived in the bustling Italian capital. We made our way out of the station to find our bus, we jumped on board the already crammed bus and headed off in the direction of the Vatican (our apartment is just a stones throw across the River Tiber from the Vatican city).
It was hot and sweaty, loud and bumpy (it seems that Italian municipal buses do not require a suspension system of any type). To top it off just when you thought the bus was full to capacity, we would stop and pick up another 10 or 15 people, sardining themselves in amongst the existing passengers. The buses in Rome are notorious for pick pockets, so we were on our guard, and as more people got on board Mick got pushed further to the back of the bus away from our luggage. Luckily Damian was holding onto a rail and would not be pushed away, keeping an eye on our bags and trying to think of Italian phrases to warn people not to mess with our stuff (the best he could come up with was "Touch my bags and I'll touch your face"). There was a young girl (quite possibly a gypsie, Mick thought) with a baby in a pram, right next to our luggage and at one point the baby began to play with one of the luggage tags (they obviously train those gypsies early, Mick thought).
We got off the packed bus at our stop, and walked down the lane way to the apartment. We climbed the stairs to the second floor apartment (again, no lift). We have a nice large apartment with kitchen (which we won't be using) and washing machine (which got a massive workout). Also noteworthy is that the bidet in this apartment has a strainer over the plug hole...we'll leave you to imagine the logistics!
Once we were checked in, and had dropped our stuff off we decided to go for a walk and see just how close the Vatican is to our lodgings. It is a 10 minute walk to Vatican City, which explains why we see so many young priests and nuns around our area. To Mick, it is a rather strange sight to see young priests and nuns, in Australia you only ever see old priests. We walked up to St Peter's Basilica and then down to St Angelo's castle (retracing some of Tom Hank's steps in the movie 'Angels and Demons').
Our apartment comes with a list of recommended restaurants. Mick consulted the map and we took off. Mick's map reading skills obviously needs further refinement as we could not find any of the recommended restaurants. We wandered and wandered (Damian was being picky, not wanting to eat at any restaurant with a red and white gingham tablecloth - too touristy) but in desperation we came upon a place full of tourists (and yes, with those offensive tablecloths); and against our better judgement we went in. Damian ordered prosciutto and melon for entree (and had prosciutto and mozzarella delivered which he sent back) and a main of fettucini with broad beans and pecorino cheese. Damian's main was so salty he could not eat it. He was extremely disappointed. The owner came to collect our plates and asked why Damian didn't eat his meal. With the explanation that it was too salty, the owner responded that it was the pecorino cheese. Damian refuted this, noting he has eaten pecorino cheese every day for the past week and it was not that salty. The owner offered to make him a new fettucini, with mozzarella instead. Damian said "no, it's not necessary, I am fine". 5 minutes later, he comes back with spaghetti bolognese and puts it in front of Damian. Damian ate a few mouthfuls under sufferance, noting it was still too salty! At this point, Damian was well past disappointed and wanted to get the hell out of there (Mick's meal was not blog-worthy). The dinner was an unfortunate way to end a good day - but given we are having 60 odd meals cooked by others during this trip, we are going to get the odd disappointment (hopefully not too many).
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