Saturday 1 October: Florence & Rome
Up at the crack of dawn (more or less) once again for an early shoot of Florence from Piazzale Michelangelo. This is an elevated plaza on the south-east side of the old town, with excellent views of the city and the Arno. The light wasn't bad apart from the usual brown smog, and we got some reasonable pictures. Unfortunately, part of the cathedral's fabulous dome is undergoing maintenance, and was covered in scaffolding.
Back to the hotel to check out. Paul then headed for an internet cafe to catch up on his much-neglected emails and this diary, while Sue hit the shops. We weren't sure about the train arrangements to Rome, so we headed for the station information offfice. Big mistake. To cut a very long story short, one woman managed to hold up the line for ages. We probably stood in the queue for 30 minutes for a question that was answered in 30 seconds.
The train from Florence to Rome was an "Intercity Plus", which meant it was reasonably fast and very comfortable. We had the usual issues of high steps and low platforms, combined with insufficient luggage space. However it was lunch which made this trip truly memorable. We went up to the restaurant car, where Giuseppe and Luigi greeted us like long-lost cousins. Explaining we didn't want a full meal, just a snack, we accepted their suggestion of prosciutto é mozzeralla. Big mistake. We had anticipated some sort of bread roll containing ham and cheese and maybe some salad - what we got was a tray containing a vacuum-sealed packet of prosciutto crude and a plastic plate with a great big lump of mozzeralla cheese. Yuck! "Twenty euros per favore". Ouch!
Roma: Our first taste of the eternal city was Termini the city's railway station. The place is huge, crowded, noisy, hectic - mindblowing. We got out of there as fast as possible, and found our hotel - the Altavilla, a short walk away. The guidebooks warn that the area around Termini is not particularly safe, but again it appears OK on our brief experience.
A word about bathrooms: The bathrooms we have encountered on our travels have ranged from "adequate but up the hallway" to utter luxury. But nothing prepared us for bathroom altavilla. We have had bathrooms with separate toilets. We have had bathrooms with the toilet in the same room as the shower. But never before has the toilet actually been in the shower! Yes, it's true. Not only that, but this was an ingenious arrangement where the toilet lid doubled as a bidet. Interesting...
On balance the Altavilla is probably the worst hotel we've had so far. The room is small, the bed is just adequte (but there are no extra pillows), the place is very noisy, and the bathroom is a joke. Well, you've got to laugh...
After deciding that we were only there for two nights and it wasn't worth the hassle of finding another hotel, we walked down the long hill towards the forum. A couple of hundred metres from our door is Santa Maria Maggiore a very old and quite beautiful cathedral. A little way further on is the coliseum, and next to that the forum, Palatine hill and arch of Constantine. It was a nice warm, clear afternoon and we wandered around having a good look and snapping photos with Paul's Coolpix. We'd come back later with the "big guns" to get some really good images of all the sites under floodlight. So it was back up the hill to the hotel (seems a lot longer this time), pick up the big cameras, flash, tripod etc, and out again.
It was getting dark by now, and we decided to have a bite to eat on the way. Into the Mary Love Cafe (would I make this up?) for some delicious bruschetta (though quite different from what we have at home) and some fairly average tiramisu. This took longer than expected, and then one of Sue's contact lenses started disintegrating. OK, back up the hill - geez it's a long way - to fix up the lens. By this time Paul called a halt - we'd get the pictures tomorrow night.
