Our first day in Italy

So, after a year of planning, we finally left Gainesville (using Garold's frequent flyer points with Delta Airlines) around 10AM Sunday morning and flew to New York, then on to Italy. By the time we arrived in Pisa it was Monday. I was able to sleep some on the plane, but I don't think Garold got much sleep. There were a lot of Italians on this flight, who were talking to one another in Italian (imagine that). Upon our arrival, it was just a short walk to the Hotel Royal Victoria. The building (at least part of it) has been there since the 10th century, and it has been run as a hotel by the Piegaja family since 1839. It is in a very busy location, but our room was on the 4th floor and in the back, so noise was not a problem.

This photo shows Garold standing at the bus stop across the street from our hotel (it is the five story white structure on the right), with the Arno River in the background. Our room number was 430, but it was on the top floor. This is because Europeans call the first floor the ground floor, the second floor the first floor, and so on. Oh, and you use the stairs to get up to the 4th/5th floor!


This was the key to our room. Very old fashioned, right? We had to spend a little time figuring out how to use it. It required two full turns of the tumbler to lock or unlock.

This was our private en suite bathroom. Some places have "private" bathrooms that are not actually located in the room (they may be down the hall, or even on a different floor). Notice the bidet in the back corner, complete with its own soap dish and towels. This was pretty much the standard throughout Italy! The shower was very tiny, but much appreciated. Just wait until we get to Rome, and you will understand why.

This is the view from the terrace that was on our floor. There were tables and chairs in case you wanted to hang out and have a cappuccino. At this time Garold wasn't yet hooked on them. But stay tuned: that will happen very soon!

Of course, a visit to Pisa would not be complete without the obligatory photos of the turiste holding up the leaning tower! Garold thought he could do it with just one finger.

Our efforts were unsuccessful, however. As you can see, the tower continues to lean.

As we strolled through the streets of Pisa, we passed by this cool bookstore.

We got pretty tired pretty quickly, so when we saw a park, we took advantage of the opportunity to sit down for a while. Children in Italy like to race their bikes just like the adults like to race their cars and Vespas!

No visit would be complete without a trip to the Duomo! It was amazing to see how these magnificent structures dominate the landscape of every Italian city.

Here is a close up of the giant front door. I wonder why they made them so huge.

This is a photo of the ceiling inside the church. They put a lot of work into ceilings and domes.

This photo was taken inside the Baptistry, which was a separate building from the Church. The acoustics in this building were so amazing! A guard chanted for us and we could hear his voice echo throughout the building. It sounded like three people were chanting instead of just one.

This photo was taken outside the Baptistry. Note the ancient wall of Pisa in the background.

This photo was taken through a window on the second floor of the Baptistry, where you can see the ancient wall of Pisa. This amorous couple most likely had no idea they would be in our vacation blog.

Tuesday morning we caught the bus to the train station and took the train to Rome. Bus tickets are purchased in Tobacco Shops in Italy. No problem, though. There is a Tobacco Shop on every block, and several in every train and metro station. We bought our Eurail Passes before we left home, from AAA in Gainesville, as well as the seat reservations on some of the trains. Seat reservations cost extra, but in some cases they are required, and they guarantee you a seat. We paid a premium for first class seats because we heard that they allow livestock on trains. I don't know where Italian livestock hangs out, but they weren't on the trains. Reservations for some local trains are not available. They just take you first come first served, and you may or may not get to sit down. You are supposed to write your passport number on the Eurail Pass, and each time you use it you have to write the date on the pass.

Our trip is almost "finished"

I haven't done a very good job of keeping up with this blog have I? There aren't as many "Internet Cafe's" in Europe as we thought. And then the ones that are there are not places you want to hang out in for any length of time. They were for the most part very small rooms in the back of a very small place with people crammed together like sardines. And the charges varied from one Euro for 30 minutes to 15 cents per minute. So the pressure to hurry up and get out of there was a bit overwhelming. I plan to take some time sorting through all of our many photos and post the story as soon as I can manage to get some quiet computer time. Until then, we are, as they say in Italy "finished" as of tomorrow and will be flying home. Hope to see some of you at the airport.
PS: When they are out of a dish on the menu they will say "the lasagna is finished."

Our ride to the airport

Go figure--in a town that encourages the use of public transportation, the city bus doesn't go to the airport. And parking a car at the airport would probably cost anywhere from $6 to $9 a day. Getting a taxi ride from where we live would cost at least $40. We are going to avoid the hassle by renting a car from the airport that we will use to drive ourselves to the airport and then return before our flight leaves. One day rental will come to about $35. And we won't have to tip anyone! Awesome!

More memory!

For the camera, that is. If I could buy more memory for myself, I would do that. I have a Sony digital camera that came with a 1 gb memory stick. I think it will hold around 300 photos, but that may not be enough! So I went to Circuit City yesterday and bought a package of two 2gb memory sticks for $30.00. I think it was a pretty good price, because Amazon was advertising a 1 gb for $15.00. I have a little card reader that looks like a thumb drive that makes it very easy to transfer photos onto the computer. You don't have to get the whole camera out while you are uploading pictures--just remove the memory stick, insert it into the card reader, and then into the usb port on the computer and you are ready to upload.

Florence reservations!

This is a picture of people waiting in line to get into the Uffizi Gallery!

I am ecstatic this morning, because we now have reservations for the Accademia and Uffizi galleries in Florence. These are two very popular places and everyone recommends getting advance reservations. The lines are reported to be very very long. So now we have confirmation numbers and a designated time for each of them. All we have to do is find them and have 28 Euros cash in hand to pay. (The tickets were 10 Euros each plus 4 Euros handling.) You may be interested in how to make international calls. Here's how it works:

011 gets you outside of the United States

39 is the country code for Italy

055 is the city code for Florence

294 883 is the local number for Florence Museums reservations

Because we don't have long distance service on our home phone I used a calling card I bought at Sam's Club, which had to be accessed before calling 011 39 etc. The good news is it worked! Yay!

Welcome to our travel blog

Hey everyone! Garold and I will be posting news and hopefully some photos too while we are in Italy. You can check up on us anytime you want to. We are so excited, we are making lists and checking them twice! It feels like Christmas eve times 10. We are trying very hard not to forget anything.