March 29

For some reason, we both woke up really early today, maybe it’s the “We’re going to be leaving Rome!” panicked thought in the back of our heads. Not wanting to waste the morning we decied to visit the Circus Maximus that isn’t too far away from our hotel. The place looked pretty interesting on the map, a big oval. Of course we metroed ourselves over there, even if it was just 2 stops.

The circus… was… disappointing… it truly is a big plot of land, just like Frommers describes it. A big fairground with a little brick watch tower. Gee, what a waste of time, I didn’t even bother to take pictures. I suppose all we can do now is to walk to the colosseum right next to it and take more pictures of it! I must have dozens of pictures of this building.

Our train to Florence is at 9:30 so we had plenty of time to grab some breakfast and then check out of the hotel. By 9:15 we were back in the station waiting for the Eurostar ride to Florence. This trip is quite expensive, about 47 euros for the both of us.

Upon arriving at the station, we saw that our train was delayed for 1 hr. We bought another cappuccino so that we can sit in one of the café tables and waited. And waited. About every 20 minutes or so, the delayed time display would increase. This was frustrating since the time shown was always 45 minutes to 1 hour away which didn’t allow us to leave the station. This kept happening for over 3 hours! Apparently there was something wrong with the tracks… What sucked even more was that the 10:30 train going to the same place, Milan left 20 minutes before we did!

The train ride itself was so so, we had assigned seating so at the very least the seats were reserved. We tucked our bags between the seats (there is a large space for luggage), and tried to relax…. Kinda tough after waiting 3 hours in a train station….At least the seats were comfortable and had plenty of space. The only issue I had was that the seats are placed face to face with a table in the middle. So you end up sitting there staring at a stranger the entire trip while trying to get foot space. It’s a good thing the man sitting across from me went to the dining car for the majority of the trip. By the time we made it to Florence, it was 4pm. Maybe next time we would take the regular train instead of paying so much more for Eurostar.

Leaving the station we dropped by the tourist office right across the street from it and picked up a map. Using it we found our way to the Azalee Hotel which wasn’t far from the station. After dropping off our stuff we went out to explore the town and to find a bit to eat since we skipped lunch. All the restaurants were closed and won’t be open again until 7pm. We got a sandwich at a bar nearby. Wasn’t much, bread, paper thin salty ham and paper thin cheese. But it will do.

Since the day was almost over we decided to scout out the city and get an idea of the layout. We strolled past Santa Maria Novella, the Dumo, Uffizi and crossed the bridge at Ponte Vecchio. Florence is a pretty small city, well as far as a tourist like us is concerned. On our way back we went to a recommended restaurant, Le Mossacce for dinner. This is a pretty small restaurant with about half a dozen tables. We were the first ones there, right after they reopened for dinner. We were placed at the very back of the restaurant near the kitchen. An old Polish couple came along and they shared the table with us. They were very nice, the guy spoke English so we talked a bit about Florence.

I ordered ribollita, a thick vegetable soup which was quite yummy. Jae got the cannelloni filled with spinach and tomato and meat which he loved. The servings were rather large and we were almost full by the time our main entrée came. We had ordered steak, bisteccalla fiorentina, as recommended by Frommers. The menu said that we had to order by the grams, 3 euros per 100 grams with 50 grams minimum. We didn’t know what 500 grams were and the piece the waiter drew out didn’t look so big, about the size of any regular cut. So we ordered two. After our order the cook in the kitchen about 4 feet away from us took down this large slab of meat and started hacking away. I was afraid that pieces would come flying into my soup!

When the steak came, it was about the size of a dinner plate and about an inch and half thick! The old Polish couple that was sharing our table started to laugh when they saw the dish and our faces. Whoops. Maybe we shouldn’t have gotten that cappuccino at the bvar while waiting for the restaurant to open, and maybe we shouldn’t have ordered that side of potatoes (the potatoes were too salty to eat anyhow). Well we ate as much as we could. When we got back, all we could do was fall into bed and sleep.