Florence oh Wonderful Florence, Will I Ever Leave You

Well on Saturday I went for a walk in the old city centre of Florence and I was mingling with millions of tourists as this is the high point of the tourist season, but I know Florence is great but I have been around the centre so many times now that I am getting bored with it and the hassle of getting around with the tourists.




I am wondering if the whole of continental USA has come to Italy for its summer vacation, the overwhelming language heard on the streets is English and with a heavy American accent. It is so funny that you can see a lost tourist with a map in his hands and looking hopefully at me and then asks with no hint of shame and says, “Can you speak English”. This is in central Italy, what is he thinking of, he was lucky it was me so I normally reply, “I hope so”.




They are having a big problem here with the thousands of illegal migrants, as they usually sell shitty tourist crap, like prints of famous paintings and fake Rolex watches and fake Gucci bags and rip off music CD’s, they are in their hundreds along the streets between the main squares and the Medici Palaces and the Ponte Veccio bridge.




There are tourist police and they patrol along these streets and can arrest these street hawkers if they catch them with the crap they have, but the hawkers usually have a look out and can lift up their stuff in about 2 seconds and start walking away if the police are coming, very funny to watch.




I was sat in my room watching a bit of TV after my walk into town and I was laid down on the bed looking out into the lovely garden and I saw a monster Mosquito fly into the room, this may not sound strange but I am on the 5th floor and I am thinking how on earth did that insect find me, they must be able to smell me out, this happened 3 times and I had to spend lots of time chasing them down to kill them as I am sensitive to mosquito bites, I did see one later and I didn’t find that one so it will have probably sucked at least another pint of blood out of me in the night, little shit.
Sunday being the day of rest I decided to go for a tour on the railway to Pisa to see that famous leaning tower.





Getting the ticket was a novelty, I asked in my strong northern English accent and this poor women only caught the word Pisa. I asked for return as I am in Florence and normally people come back from where they go, but I a sure my ticket is only a one way and from the looks of the ticket it says from Pisa to Florence, how could she give me a one way going the wrong way, mad women.




Anyhow I now realise that nobody checks the tickets on Sunday at least and from a colleague he told me then rarely ever check as he was here for two years and rode into Florence all the time without paying. So I get to Pisa and found a not great looking little town, some old buildings but not very pretty, I walked for about an hour and got completely lost inside a hospital grounds trying to get a shortcut to the main road, madness, I could see a church dome above the houses but couldn’t get to it, I was going round the houses to use a British expression but not getting to the place. I was on a main road and certain I was lost but I could see tourists here and there and it gave me hope, and then I was upon the place without knowing, it was hidden behind the old city wall probably and the grounds were quite big and millions of tourists. Call me an old fart and call me miserable and maybe I am getting bored with travelling but I wasn’t that impressed, I am still impressed with the great Duomo of Florence, but Pisa isn’t worth the trip, it is nice to say I have seen it but if I wasn’t in this part of the world I would be very disappointed with what I got, don’t get me wrong it is nice and picturesque but I have seen nicer and better buildings, Florence is far better.





I probably left after 30 minutes and I don’t do the climb the tower thing anywhere. I went back to the station and waited for my train and climbed aboard and watched as new countryside came by and an oil refinery which I definitely didn’t see coming to Pisa, I was going in the wrong direction, I was wondering where I was going to end up but the line does stop at this small town called Livorno at the coast and yes that is where I ended up, I had to wait only 13 minutes before the next train came back to take me to Pisa and yes it did go all the way back to Florence central, this is good as I fancied a nice sandwich or a pasta. I got this what I would call a hot toasted sandwich with loads of cheese and cured ham on it, it was probably the nicest piece of food I have eaten in Florence so far, I went back to the station to catch a train to the small station about 4 Km out of town called Florence-Rifredi, he was some important dude about 3-400 years ago. So I then go to find an open supermarket to kill a few well deserved beers and to my horror after a 45 minute walk to my nearest one, it is closed along with every other food place, I thought this place was civilised but seems to be stuck in the catholic middle ages. My legs are dead and feet sore and well worn and I have another week to kill in Florence before I fly to some place for a meeting or maybe fly home, we will see what the Lord Buddha brings me.