Sadly, the body of this post was deleted at some point! So I will do my best to remember the events, as well as I can.
I left of with us saying goodbye to Venice, the most beautiful city I’ve ever seen and incredibly deserving of a second chance.
We were headed to Verona, with much better directions to our apartment, this time. However, when our train began getting delayed, I started worrying… If there is one thing that I absolutely hate, it’s being late. To make matters worse, we had no way of contacting our host to tell him! I have calmed down quite a bit in many aspects throughout my travels, but being late and making people wait is still my number one pet peeve. So I was destined to fidget nervously and bite at my lip for the remainder of the train ride, while my mom did what she does best and called to the man sitting in seat 7D. I quickly hushed her because I’m a brat and hate talking to strangers, but he ended up being extraordinarily nice! He told us that we were still nearly an hour outside of Verona………………………………………………………………. We were approx. 5 minutes away from check in time. Not a happy Andi. So we sucked it up and turned on our phones and made a call that probably costs 7 billion dollars. Our host finally picked up the phone andddddd no English. So, we hung up more confused than we were before the phone call and let out a collective sigh. Then, 7D turned around and offered up his phone AND his Italian!! This guy was a saint. He translated our host and gave us even better directions. We took out our map and he recommended restaurants, sights, and everything in between and when we got to the train station, he walked me to where they sold the bus tickets and told me exactly what to say to get the right one. In case you need further convincing the 7D was, in fact, a saint, look at these pictures!! The latter is a picture we saw in an art museum in Florence. CLEARLY the same person.
So Verona was beautiful. Easily coverable on foot, the city was small and charming. Since we only had one night there, we didn’t get to see everything we wanted. I did go to Juliet’s home and leave a letter on the wall! I also copped a feel on Juliet for good luck. Given our short stay, we saw a good amount of beauty and I was ready to move on to Florence.
Next up was Florence! Much larger than Verona, we took a taxi straight to our apartment, which cut out any chance at getting lost. We were met directly outside by Elisabetta, who is probably the sweetest woman ever, and her son and husband. The boys kindly carried up our luggage to the FOURTH FLOOR (props to them for not collapsing under the weight) and Elisabetta and her son stayed for almost 30 minutes carefully explaining the apartment to us. Her English was good, and her son translated when needed. She left us snacks and a binder WITH PICTURES to help us understand things like the wifi and the complicated key system. To say she was an amazing host would be an understatement. If any of you ever find yourself in Florence, I highly, highly recommend her.
After that, we were off! Summing our first few days in Florence, I can say that, without a doubt, it lived up to the hype. The David was one thousand times more amazing than I had expected, and every time I turned around, I found myself in a new and beautiful plaza. We spent our days exploring the city, eating as much meat and cheese as our bellies could hold, and drinking wine that proved to be more delicious than I had imagined. I would, 100%, go back to Florence someday.
^my reaction when I turned the corner and saw the David.
I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to drinking a beer on a plaza, surrounded by dogs off of leashes and people smoking, staring at a cop, which I eat my pizza. Very strange.
But definitely amazing.
Comments