Siena
We returned to the Botteghe Donatello for dinner again last night – and were treated like long-lost cousins again. Tony, our usual waiter, told our new waiter (we sat inside this time) about gluten free pizza, and he brought us glasses of frozen limoncello at the end of our meal. It’s nice to be a “regular”!
The bus to Siena was quite an easy operation – walk to the bus station (next to the main train station), ask for “due, Siena, andata e returna”. 14E each, and we’re on our way!
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Uffezi day!
We got up early to go line up, since we hadn’t managed to be at the right place at the right time with the right dosh to book tickets (the hotel website says they do hotel reservations, but that’s gone the same way as the hotel wifi – open to extremely broad interpretation!) and wandered down there. There were only about 50 people in the line when we got there so we were feeling pretty optimistic, especially when they let 30-odd people through 15 mins after we’d joined the queue. However, our optimism was unfounded, as the signs had said (min wait 1 hour). Nevertheless, we managed to be part of the second 30 people though, an hour after we started. Woo! Saved the E4 booking fee.
Last night we went out for pre-dinner drinks at a little bar around the corner from our hotel. It’s tucked between about three narrow buildings, and our table was right next to one of the doors to the apartment building, so people were coming home and going out through the bar. A bit bizarre. While there we had some bar snacks – tiny pieces of pizza etc, and the greenest olives I’ve ever seen! They are really a grassy green rather than the drab colour our olives tend to be. Yum!
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Today was supposed to be our gallery day, but we only managed to get to the Accademia gallery as we couldn’t book tickets to the Uffezi. We’ll just go early tomorrow and line up.
Today we visited the Palazzo Pizzi, which is one of the Medici palaces. It’s been turned into a series of museums/galleries – a modern art gallery, a silver gallery, a costume gallery (whee!), plus the gardens have been kept, and are huge. There’s a gorgeous parterre garden overlooking the Florentine hills, and some great formal gardens overlooked by the palazzo. There’s some modern art in the gardens as well as the original sculptures, which makes for an interesting mix!
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I’m liking Florence already. It’s got the bustle of Sydney but a definite cool factor. We’re in the Hotel Medici, just around the corner from the Duomo. It’s 6 storeys high and has a roof terrace, but we haven’t got up there yet. Our room is small but has high ceilings and a window with shutters, so it has a nice feel to it.
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After finding internet last night we wandered through Cannaregio, which was a lot less frantic with tourists. I stopped at a mask shop to pick up a pressie for Mum and one for me (a swarovski encrusted metal filigree mask – niiiiice). Then we headed back to the hotel and had dinner at the restaurant next door. I had monkfish stew and rice. Not quite up to the standard of what the boys had (pizzaaaaaa) but very nice.
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Today we wandered back to Piazza San Marco in our efforts to find breakfast. My earlier idea about eating GF in Italy has taken a bit of a blow, as we ended up having gelato for breakfast as there was nothing we could find that wasn’t pastries!
Lunch was grilled prawns and polenta, which hit the spot much better.
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I touched down at Marco Polo airport in Venice after another 7 hours on the plane. Thank goodness I don’t have to catch another plane for two weeks!!
Lesson 1: there are two steps to public transport here – buy a ticket then you need to validate it! The girl at the bus stop was vehemently telling me something i didn’t understand, then repeated “stamp! stamp!” Apparently that;s what the unlabelled yellow box at the bus stop is for.
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I just landed in Dubai. I’d forgotten just how warm and sticky it is here! We landed at 5am and it was already 36C and outside it’s like breathing soup. Inside the new Terminal 3 building is beautifully cool, and scarily huge. We had to go through security, then down escalators, then up three times the height of those escalators, right next to the first ones down! Not good for my fear of heights! 😉
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Two Weeks Away 