L Rizzy's Adventures: Florence, Italy

Yesterday morning in Venice at 4am, we were awoken by a familiar shaking in the hotel room. After two years in LA we were well accustomed to the feeling of the Earth moving below you, and this was no different. It was in fact an earthquake with the epicenter just north of Bologna, Italy. There were several after shocks as well. Furthermore, Bologna was one of the stops for our train heading from Venice to Florence. Between the hotel shaking us all awake and the thought of possibly not being able to make it to Florence, we were a bit nervous at breakfast. But, things turned out ok for us. The hotel did not collapse, the train, although delayed outside of Bologna for 30 minutes or so, made it through to Florence and we were onto our next city.

We checked into our hotel, the Il Guelfo Bianco, and our rooms were gorgeous. While filled with antique furniture and amazing art throughout the hotel, we also stationed close to everything we wanted to see. Our room's celing was amazingly painted and boasted a non-functional fireplace. We had arranged tickets to the Accademia (Galleria dell'Accademia) for our day of arrival. Thanks to the reservation we walked straight in and after seeing several amazing Renaissance paintings we entered the room of one of the more amazing things sorry eyes have ever seen. The David, sculpted by Michelangelo at the tender age of 26 out of one enormous piece of marble, stands 17 feet tall and demands respect. There were many people sitting down around him, staring at him. It was an amazing experience.

We then found dinner at a really great local restaurant. We had some delicious soups and pastas, as well as some very tasty wines (by we I mean I). We went back to the hotel, Grandmother watched L Rizzy while L Mama and I went to the laundromat to clean some clothes. Thankfully we made it out alive because this joint was super duper sketchy. There was a group of vagabonds outside using and selling drugs. We did, however, manage to get our necessities clean and I got a fantastic deal on 3 kilos of pure Columbian marching powder.

We were hoping for a great night sleep because we had planned to take a short train ride to Pisa to see some tilting tower that was obviously built by morons. However, we think L Rizzy was not as excited by our room as we were, and the noise of the street woke him up throughout the night. Also, the weather report was forecasting heavy rain, so we elected to forgo the trip to Pisa. We used the rainy day to sleep in some, relax at breakfast, and then take the Renaissance walk as described by Rick Steves. Through this walk we were able to see most of what Florence had to offer, and it was great. We marveled at architecture, we enjoyed amazing art and sculptures, and we dined on delicious gelato. Naturally, the weather forecast was insanely wrong and instead of rain all day long we were out for nearly three hours without feeling a single drop. Sometimes we get lucky, other times we do not. For dinner we had two restaurants we wanted to try in the area but we came to find out one was closed to remodel and the other would not open until 7 pm. So we settled on a cafe with self service. We went back to the room, opened the windows and enjoyed the rain that finally came before bath and bed for L Rizzy.

Tomorrow we are renting a car and driving down into wine country for a stay in Chianti. I am especially excited to be behind the wheel again... just flying around, not paying attention to any road signs, and avoiding occasional wraps in the mouth. Hopefully we make it to our hotel and if so, our next blog post will be from Castellina in Chianti.