Florence 5

Today, Jeannie and I decided to take a train “to Siena”, which is about an hour and a half trip south, and a medieval/Renaissance archrival of Florence. Cathedrals, museums, etc like Florence, but different, and we’d heard, in some ways better. So we wanted to “see Siena.”

The first problem was that we realized we needed to validate our train ticket in a yellow box at the station once the train was already moving. So, on a tip from Rick Steves, I went and found the conductor before he found me and he validated it by hand. But the second problem was that I began, after an hour or so, to notice a few town names at the passing stations that I recognized; then we passed the hour and a half point; and finally I noticed that all the mountains were on our left, which often indicates the ocean. That’s right … Siena is central Italy, and should have mountains on both sides. The train we were taking “to Siena” had actually gone west to Pisa, then turned north up the Ligurian coast toward the Cinque Terras (though not even, it stopped in La Spezia, the town before the Terras). Though I knew that La Spezia was, or had been, a naval base, neither a town nor the sea was visible from the station. But we got off and looked at the departures listings, and went to buy return tickets, planning to stop in Pisa on the way back, then catch a direct train back to Firenze from there.

That station didn’t sell tickets. Seriously? Yes! A woman working there told us that we could by them on the train, but we were already leary of Rick Steves’ warning about fines with an unvalidated ticket (let alone none at all!). But we caught the next train heading toward Pisa – not at all confident that it was the right train or actually going to Pisa – and crossed our fingers that the conductor would just sell us the tickets we needed without a fuss.

That’s when our luck changed … with a small travel blessing, he never came! Technically, we stowed away on that hour ride down the coast, but for whatever reason, the ticket collector never got to us before we reached Pisa! Another of Florence’s past rivals, Pisa was actually quite nice, and we spent a few hours seeing the main tourist sites. The Field of Miracles conveniently contains most of them, and I loved the look of the place: open and bright, and many of the buildings – the leaning tower, the cathedral, the baptistery, and one of the museums – built with a nice, white marble. Looked like the Italian Renaissance Minas Tirith (nerds, anyone?). And yes, the tower LEANS! Jeannie asked if I wanted to climb up I and I said Hell no! Obviously it’s stood that way for hundreds of years, but it looks like it’s coming down any minute! We did go inside the cathedral, which is ornately decorated with paintings and statues, even more so than the two churches we’ve visited in Florence.

On our train home, we were second-guessing ourselves the whole way, but we were on the right train and got the ticket validated. I figured out that our mistake in trying to get to Siena was that we were supposed to transfer trains in Empoli … but we had no way of knowing that! Still not sure how to know whether or not a train is direct, without asking someone.

Back in Florence, we took the evening easy, a nice dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Arno and Ponte Vecchio, and some gelato on the way home. Crossing the bridge, we caught it just after sunset, which lit the river and westward bridges very nicely.

We’re still considering how we want to spend our last day in Florence before heading to Rome … you’ll find out tomorrow!