After 3 trains, and a taxi we arrived in our hostel in Florence… an old convent, with two single beds, a sink and a shower in our room… with a communal toilet down the hall… Its lucky Sara and I are so close, otherwise I’m not quite sure how one would dress in the morning when the shower is in the bedroom, and the closest bed is also used as the bathmat…
It has become increasingly clear that moving days for us are exhausting, so after a quick bite to eat at a local restaurant we had an early night and went to bed. The next morning we joined a local walking tour… a renaissance tour of the city. We were shown various sights, squares, monuments and churches and told stories about the myriad of artworks to be found within each building... mmm… our favourite… We were also made aware of the extensive waiting lines outside each museum and art gallery… which we were not prepared to join. At the end of our tour we decided to wander the streets, go inside the unimpressive church, grabbed some lunch and went back to the main square. We had been informed by fellow tourists in Cinque Terre, that Florence was hosting the TRL MTV music awards as a free concert in Florence, and it was rumoured that Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Katy Perry, Eminem and various other famous artists would be performing… We decided we would sit in the café overlooking the stage in the hope that we could drag out our… diet cokes, and bruschetta for the duration of the concert… however the restaurant decided to close 2 hours before the concert began, so we had to claim our position in the crowd.
We found a lovely spot, in the middle of the square, giving true fans the advantage of going close to the stage, on a slight step which protected the cables, and gave us a slightly better view. We sat there for a good 2 hours before the concert began, and then were rammed by fans wanting to push past us for a better view. The concert eventually began, and we watched various Italian artists, perform songs we had never heard of, and didn’t care to hear, in between being told jokes by the hosts of the event, in Italian, which even the crowd did not respond to. After many attempts from locals to push us out of the way, we made our own barricade, acting as security with other locals that wanted to maintain their position on the step, and rejected many requests to get through our interlinked arms. We insisted they go around as we were sick of being shoved. The locals were not too pleased with this, which they made known to us, on multiple occasions… but we persisted with the help of our new friends on either side of us. Unfortunately we do not speak Italian, so their abuse was not understood, except for a few universal hand gestures… much to their dismay… however we continued to wish them well, and politely told them to enjoy their evening…
Now, standing for long periods of time is not my forte… my back likes to cave in on such occasions and does not appreciate the beating… but in my determination to see a famous artist I had actually heard of… and my wilfulness not to be blamed by Sara the following day for leaving a concert before seeing said artist, we continued to stand in agony for eight hours… Our new friends of our barricade, were not as strong-willed as us, and so were constantly changing shift and we managed to make new friends with each one… however… after eight hours, and 20 Italian artists, and maybe 2 English speaking artists we had never heard of… the concert came to a close… We swiftly began to dash through the crowd, in hopes of not being recognised as the barricade bitches, in fear of being bashed, and wound our way through back streets to find our way home… we found our way to the main taxi stand at the central station and found a queue to join… however other people were not as well educated on the etiquette of waiting in a line and tried to jump ahead… this was unsatisfactory to us, and yet again we put our ‘door bitch’ skills to good use and managed to maintain our position in line and got a taxi back to our hostel…
The next morning, after fighting through the “get out of the bathroom, why are you naked in the bedroom, move over weirdo, eww I didn’t need to see that, stop brushing your teeth while I get dressed, hurry up, you’re in my way, are you ready yet, come on lets go” game.. we collected our bags and made way to the train station… We had previously booked 4 nights at a campsite, 30 minutes outside of Florence. We had decided that if there was anything else to see in Florence we would make a day trip… we didn’t feel the need.
We arrived at the train station in Figline Valdaro, where we were told to ring the campsite to be collected. Ten minutes later we were on our way up the rolling green hills and found our campsite, overlooking a lush Tuscan valley of small farms and vineyards. We checked into our cabin and were given a map of the property. This was more than just a campsite, this was a resort! We had multiple swimming pools with water slides, multiple restaurants, gelaterias, beauty salon, gym, sauna, massage parlor, supermarket, bazaar, tourist office, mini golf course, tennis court and horse riding facilities all on site. We were in heaven.
We spent the next four days lapping up the sun by the pool (with lashings of sunscreen Mum), reading books, listening to live music in the bar, playing eight ball, doing laundry, and basically just relaxing, and Sara even went horse riding. However, on day three when we tried to order tap water with dinner, we were informed that the tap water was not safe to drink... hmm... we had drunk a lot of water... so the last day we both had a lot of soft serve... and I don't mean the gelateria variety... It was wonderful. Unfortunately the Easter Bunny did not find us in our cabin… but it was a lovely Easter break none the less.. (yes everyone needs an Easter break, even on a holiday of 5.5 months so far...)
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