Florence

Tuesday, 14th

Let me try to catch up. As I said in the last blog, we couldn't get the vans. The company we had reservations with simply said, sorry they are not here. The lady found us another company that had one van, they were willing to give it to us for the same price, but wanted an additional 2,750 Euros for insurance, which the other company had already included in our price. But they only had one, but even if they had two, it was almost triple the cost. So five hours later we went home. It Was at that point we decided to head for Florence by train. The cost of the train was the same as staying another night in Rome, and that is what drove that decision. We got to Florence and bought tickets to the train to Vecchio, mysterious there was no train...no explanation, just no train. So, we had to negotiate taxis. Well, with the trains and taxis, that was 1000 Euros, which was what we would have paid for a van for a whole week.

We finally arrived at Brother Jerome's. He had only arrived that week, his house person from Nigeria, hadn't arrived due to work permit issues, so we found ourselves in a 13th century villa that had sat empty and uncleaned and undusted for eight months. Our numbers would have really taxed the hot water system. That was all probably solvable with a lot of cleaning, but the bigger problem was transportation, since it would have cost us four hours a day, just getting there and back using the train from Florence.

We decided we needed to be in Florence, just for transportation, if not for more comfortable lodging! The other ramifications of that is that we can't cook, which will cost a bit more. We are really trying to ration our funds. We are using the last of the van money to buy train and bus tickets to Assisi, Sienna, Pisa, etc. We think we have that all figured out. Last night we took the kids to a cafeteria, where Stefano was very patient with us. Mrs. Julich and I selected a variety of antipastos: fried zucchini, breshetta, octopus, fresh mozzarella and tomatoes, procuitto and melon, and procuitto with cheese, so the kids had a chance to taste something other than pizza. For the pasta course we had gnocchi, Tuscan lasagna, and spaghetti. We ate family style, so that worked pretty well. We covered that. And today for lunch we had a picnic in a park with the pigeons with food from the city market.

Today we did see the Duomo and shopped the are around the market. Last night we strolled the old part of the city, past ORsanmichelle across the Ponte Vechio and environs. We are staying in a convent run by the Dominican Sisters. It is 38 Euros a night, which includes breakfast. It is immaculately clean and located in the piazza del Carmine. At least there are no cobwebs and spiders nor a speck of dust, as you would expect from nuns with white habits!

Tomorrow we have tickets for the Uffizi. Then we will stay over night in Sienna, where we are trying to book another convent. We will stop in san gimignano on the way back to Florence.