(no subject)
Firenze was a very nice town. Even though it's thoroughly infested with tourists in the downtown area. Red tiled roofs everywhere, old buildings and history in about every corner you pass.
We stayed at a small hotel not far from the train station. The rooms was nice, the view was quite good, we were at the third floor, so we could see above alot of the roofs to the Dome and Palace.
First part of the day was spent at the airport picking up our fourth person, who was flying in from the US. Of course Air France had managed to leave one of her checked in bags in Paris, and as of now we've still not recieved it... Thankfully it was the smaller bag and not with that much important items.
In Firenze we spent the first day just walking about looking at things. Dinner was taken at a resturant we just popped into, and we had a good healthy italian meal, with starters, firsts and seconds. Yummmm...
The second day in Firenze we had tickets to the Uffizi galleries at 1pm, so between check-out and then we went sightseeing again. We headed to the Dome and Cathedral in the square, and seeing the lines outside, we acted on the tip of my brother, and went to the square tower right next to it and got in without a hassle. There was almost nobody in that tower, and we took the steps up to the top in strides. The view from the top was well worth it.
From there we headed to the Basilica di Santa Croce, where it seems most of Who is Who from old Firenze is buried. Galileo, da Vinci, Machiavelli, Rossini, Dante, Michelangelo and lots of others. Quite impressive, and not as... 'crowded' as Westminster Abbey in London is.
From there we grabbed a light snack and headed to the Uffizi galleries. This is situated in the old Medici palace, and houses what is regarded as the most important collection of art in Italy. It's very impressive, and if you have a guide and spend the time looking over things more closely, you can spend hours upon hours inside it. As it was, we did the 'highlights' tour. We went through all the rooms, but only took closer looks at pictures of the great masters. Even so we spent like 2 hours in there.
Then in the evening we headed to Pompeii via train. Was a bit of scratching our heads in Napoli as we tried to figure out where the train to Pompeii left from. I had read online that you have to head downstairs to the subway station to get it, but it seems thats just the local train/subways, meanwhile the regional trains also stops at Pompeii and leaves from upstairs. Whee. But in the end we got there.
The hotel in Pompeii was okayish, but the beds was horrible. Way too hard, making it a paint to try to sleep on them. As a result three of us got little good sleep that night.
Pompeii itself looks like a charming little town. The ruins of Old Pompeii is something else, just the extent of the site is boggling, and how well preserved some of houses are (espesially the Villa di Mysteri) is just amazing. After a late lunch we headed to the trains and worked out way up to Roma, where the most insane cab-driver I have driven with took us to our hotel. I am also quite sure we got throroughly fleeced, but at the time we were all so tired we didn't care. Friday night was spent grabbing a quick bite at the hotel bar, then crashing in our rooms early. At least the beds was better here, so we all got a good nights sleep and slept in. Today is saturday and we have no fixed plans except going out and wandering about a bit and seeing things.
Øystein