A Week in Florence

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Who says, "Getting There is Half the Fun?"

Day 1 – 13 May 2011 - Leaving California 

Terry takes me to the Sonoma County Airport for the 8:45 a.m. shuttle bus to SFO to get the 1:15 p.m. daily United Airlines flight to Frankfurt, which arrives the next day at 9:45 a.m.

Day 2 – 14 May 2011 -- Saturday in Florence

I change planes in Frankfurt to a Lufthansa flight to Florence.  The Lufthansa employee at the gate tells me I cannot take my small suitcase as carry-on since she contends that my laptop suffices as my one piece of allowable carry-on luggage.  That laptop case is smaller than many women's handbags.  But she insists that my carry-on bag be checked.  She tags it, says it will be taken to the flight, and will re-join me in Florence. 

Well, an hour or so later at 2 p.m., I arrive in Florence…and my suitcase does not.  After flying for 14 hours, I then spend an additional hour in a queue for the Lost and Found Department of the Florence airport.  I am told the suitcase will be on the next flight coming in from Frankfurt, which is due in at 5:30 p.m.   Well, 5:30 comes and goes – and now they say my suitcase will arrive at 7:15 p.m.  I sit in various places in the airport to while away the time.  At one point I go to the 2nd floor for a change of scenery.  I take the elevator.  Halfway between the 1st and 2nd floors, the elevator stops.  It doesn't go up and it doesn't go down.  I wait a minute or two before I ring the bell.  The bell is answered by voices in Italian -- no doubt telling me to remain calm and probably to push various buttons.  I did neither.  It was now 6 p.m. on Saturday and I had been on the road since 8 a.m. on Friday.  So I shouted back “no capeesh Italiano” and the Italian people stopped talking to me and just continued with mechanical sounds.  After about 15 minutes, the elevator jolts to a start and lurches its way to the second floor.  I get out and stay put in one spot for the next hour waiting for my errant "carry-on" bag.

Because of the lost luggage, I had to send the driver away who I had hired (and pre-paid) to pick me up to take me to the villa we had rented.  I was able to shout from the restricted international baggage area to him as he stood with my name on a cardboard sign.  He shouted back to me in Italian.  Kind volunteer translators relayed our messages to the other and he tells me that he could not wait three more hours until 5:30 (the original arrival time of my luggage on the next flight from Frankfurt).  I hired this guy because I had previously canceled the car I had rented because the directions to the villa were very complicated and I thought the first attempt to find the villa should be made with a local person driving.  So, anyway, I lost 45 Euros on that transaction.  Deb, Emma, Charlie, and the guys were to have arrived at the villa earlier in the afternoon from Venice.  I had no phone numbers for anyone or for any house phone at the villa – and the Florence airport had no wireless internet service -- so I was unable to contact them to explain my not showing up mid-afternoon as planned.

Well my bag arrives at 7:30 p.m. (not at 2 p.m. or 5:30 p.m.).  I am now able at last to take a taxi to the villa.

Well, a harrowing 20 minutes later the cab gets to Via San Felice, 31 -- the villa gate -- and we find it very wooden, very tall, very solid, and securely locked.  The house itself must be beyond the fields of olive trees and down a long gravel driveway and is not in sight as I peer through a small window in the gate.  I shout Debbie’s name over the wall, but no one hears me.  I have no way to get through the villa gates.  I get into a dither.  I ask the taxi driver to drive me back to the nearby Porta Romana Gate where I did see some possibility of finding internet access so I could email Deb.   After trying 3 or 4 hotels we finally found a pensione on Via Romana called the Annalena.   It has a wireless hotspot and also had a room available for the night -- an apartment actually.  I rented it.  I just wanted to find a place to sleep and I would deal with the villa gates in the morning.

La Pensione Annalena

In my 15^th century rooms, I email Deb with my tale of woe.  In the morning I receive an email back from her and we arrange for them to collect me at the Annalena.  Deb and Scott come around 11 a.m. and are a welcome sight.  Rob stayed downstairs in the car, parked on a narrow sidewalk on a narrow street.  So narrow in fact that we all had to inhale for busses to cruise by – at their normal rate of Italian crazy speed – somewhere near 40 mph.

We pile into the car and travel a bit further down Via Romana so Scott and Deb can do some grocery shopping while Rob and I stay parked on a sidewalk again with traffic whizzing by.  

Deb and Scott eventually reappear, and we all go “home” to the villa.  This is the stunning place where we would spend the next 7 days.

The Villa

There we join Deb’s sister Charlie, daughter Emma, and Rob’s boyfriend Tom.  I move into my bedroom – the red room.  Beyond it is a full bathroom, a sitting room, and a small single bedroom.  Charlie had found the night before that she preferred the solitary confines of that small bedroom and so moved out of the room she was to have shared with Emma. 

The villa itself is amazing.  It has 5 bedrooms on various levels which sleep 9 people and there are only 7 of us.  There is a large living room with a fireplace and French doors opening to the patio above the pool.  There are 2 other sitting rooms as well.  The fully equipped kitchen is adjacent to a formal dining room with French doors to the patio.  4 bathrooms and a laundry room off the patio complete the layout.  The pool and outdoor shower near the pool are surrounded by old stone walls with beautiful terracotta urns atop the walls' columns.  

Only one mile from Porta Romana, the historical southern gate into Florence, this beautiful Florentine villa is situated on the hill of "Poggio Imperiale" in the heart of the Tuscan countryside, surrounded by olive groves, gardens and fruit trees.  The property looks out onto a beautiful Florentine hillside as well as the Villa del Poggio Imperiale: in the 1600's, the residence of the de Medicis; in the early 1800's, home of Napolean's sister, Elisa; and later, the Austrian Granddukes of Tuscany.  From our villa we also see the Arcetri Observatory near where Galileo was exiled to continue his astronomical research after being called to Florence in 1610 by Cosimo II dei Medici. 

The Arcetri Observatory

It was Saturday night and we had energy only for a villa-style sink-board supper.  As if by magic, many containers of prepared Italian dishes appear on the dining room table.  Deb and Scott do know how to food shop in any country!  It's Emma's 25th birthday so we top off the supper with a birthday cake, accompanied by a large votive candle for her to blow out.  

Emma on her Birthday

After a game of 20 Questions we all toddle off to bed to rest up for our second full day in Florence.