Firenze and Pisa, Italia - 10-11 September 2016

We pull into Firenze Station dead on time which is surprising given we were late leaving Perugia and had a few stops in the countryside along the way. As the doors open its a hop, stop and a jump to join the "leave a bag" line. Talk about location! A shame the line isn't shorten though.

First stop after dropping our bags is a place for coffee.



We have a couple of hours wandering the streets of Firenze - through the street markets then around the food market. We stop at one for a bite to eat.

     

No visit to Firenze is complete without seeing the Duomo so after Dad purchased a pair of shoes we receive instructions on how to get there. It's basically around the corner - wow there are people for Africa!

  

It's hot and humid so we decide to call it a day and wander back to the train station.

There is one person in front of us at the bags pick up place - perfect! Bags collected, train tickets purchased; now for a cold drink!

The 3pm train is on the platform when we arrive, lovely to have a relaxed entry! The first stop is Pisa Centrale - our stop.

Two lifts later, better than taking the stairs, we arrive at the entrance of the train station. I'd booked us a hotel close by as we're here for less than 24 hours; thankfully it's nice and easy to locate it.

Hmm not exactly the Ritz Carlton but hey ho. Repacking is needed prior to flying out tomorrow morning.

Early evening we head out to explore Pisa Centro - we want to see what Pisa is all about without going anywhere near the Leaning Tower of Pisa!

The first surprising thing is the number of people that are around. I know it's Saturday night but wow! Definitely a lot more than we all thought.

We wander down the pedestrian street, towards the river. Stopping enroute in a few shops. It's extremely humid!

 


We stop for a drink at a Piazza - great for people watching. No free nibbles here though.


 

Along we continue, people people everywhere. We have another drink stop, trying to get in as many Aperol spritz as I can before we depart Italia!

  
  

The hotel had recommended a couple of places for dinner, and I'd also looked on TripAdvisor so we go off in search of them. One of them wasn't opened yet, another said its fully booked yet had no-one there yet. Righto the search continues; we decide on a place in a very busy piazza - great that so many people are out and about!

   

Sunday, 11 September it's off to Paris we go! It's a super early wake-up as we have an 8.30am flight.

After paying the city tax, a taxi is ordered for us. I'm surprised how many people there are around at this hour, especially when the sun hasn't made its appearance for the day.

We arrive at the airport within 10 minutes of leaving the hotel, nice and close! Now the fun begins of checking in / dropping of our bags. We manage to walk in the first entrance door and straight ahead is Easyjet. Bingo.

We have at least 20 minutes watching the staff set up the barriers - it takes 3 of them to do it - which is extremely painful! No need to advertise you start bag drop at 6.30am if you don't open to 7am!! Not a good start Easyjet. Finally the counters open; we find ourselves second in line which is awesome, means we are served first. This is an experience in itself as the systems are down, a good 15 minutes later we are finally all sorted - boarding passes in hand.

First stop after security (which had no line) is coffee......Eeks they only serve Americano. Not a good end to our stay in Italia. I overhear instructions given in Italiano on where to get an espresso. Yes thanks we'll be going there ASAP.

Boarding takes a year and a half - seriously how difficult it is to board passengers???! No point joining the every growing line until it reduces dramatically. Finally our turn and within what seems like seconds we are out on the Tarmac, only to be informed there is no space for Mum's suitcase. You have to be joking! This is just getting better and better. Time for a bit of a reorg on the Tarmac, then up the stairs I head again.

The pilot is extremely honest with his message, after apologizing for the delay on checking-in (which he has zero control over!) he informs us he has no idea when we will be departing, only that he hopes soon. Yes so do we!

32 minutes post our allotted departure time the pilot comes back on to announce that the reason for the delay is because the gate has a different number of passengers than what the place has......rather an issue. We won't be departing until it's sorted.

We finally start moving 1 hour and 5 minutes after we were supposed to. Annoying, but thankfully we don't have any onward connections. and made worse by the fact that they turned off the engines, which meant no a/c, while we waited. Ciao Italia, Grazie Millie for an amazing week. We'll be back.