The Wanderers Return - 10 Weeks in Europe - Part 4

A Ferry Ride, Sicily & the Ancient Wonders of Florence

From Salerno, we took the ferry out of Naples for Sicily. The overnight ferry trip was fun. Our room was very luxurious, with ensuite bath with shower, and sleeping at sea was relaxing. Eating in the dining room was fun once I got over my irritation that the earliest reservation we could get was for 10:30 because all of the tables at earlier sittings had already been taken by massive numbers of tour group people.

. This after trying to fight my way to the information desk with numerous fast-talking Italian speakers elbowing and pushing their way in front of me, leaning across the desk to get the immediate attention of the desk people, who were certainly not going to bother to tell them that I had been there for 20 minutes before they arrived. (Hey! I didn’t say everything about the trip was perfect!) A couple of late night glasses of wine in the bar up on the top deck after the mobs of vacationing school kids (!) had disappeared was heavenly! Arriving in Palermo early the next morning, the city appeared bedraggled and soiled. I’m sure that if we had stayed longer, or arrived under different conditions (other than lost on the waterfront not knowing where to go so early in the morning), we would have found interesting neighborhoods and things to see. But we finally found somewhere to get coffee, unstrapped our backpacks, and proceeded to figure out where else we could go. After consulting our maps and guidebooks, we headed for the train station, and a few hours later were in Cefalú, a most charming town which exists in the very shadow of the biggest rock I’ve ever seen, seeming like it might consume the town at any moment. Wow! Another wonderful town for wandering through tiny cobblestone streets, eating great food, and drinking lots of wine and cappucino. Another fabulous helpful innkeeper. An invitation to stay at the home of a wonderful Swiss couple whom we met at an outdoor cafe for no more than 10 minutes on the last day of their visit! We both fell in love with Sicily and hope to return for a longer stay.
From Cefalú, we took an overnight train to Florence, definitely the most uncomfortable train trip of our adventure. The fact that we had somehow got ourselves tickets for a compartment with 4 other people, all “sitting/sprawling” in reclining seats all night was somewhat offset by the fact that our traveling companions were friendly, fun people with whom we had some fun conversations about language and food – all of this mind you with hardly a word of common language!
Every city we visited in Italy was a fabulous experience, and I’d be hard pressed to pick a favorite, but Florence was absolutely amazing. I had no idea that so much art existed in the world, or that such awesome, huge, beautifully detailed buildings existed. The concept of all those famous ancient statues just being there outside in public for everyone to see still baffles me! Another city to totally fall in love with! We spent a week in Florence, wandering the charming narrow streets, eating good food, drinking good cappuccino and wine, visiting more museums and cathedrals and listening to music. We stayed at a the B&B Battistero (“Rooms with a View”), directly in front of the Duomo’s Baptistry. It’s a wonderful little place with only 6 rooms, and when you open your windows, you’re looking directly at the Baptistry. Amazing! Wonderful hosts, charming place, and only 3 flights of stairs to climb! An unusual little side benefit: breakfast in bed – including a boiled egg! We were there for a week and were not ready to leave. We definitely had not seen everything we wanted to see.
Florence is absolutely another city that we hated to leave and would like to visit again.
While in Florence, we also took a day trip to Pisa and gawked at the buildings, which lean even more than I had envisioned! We looked at our tentative itinerary and decided that it was more important to us to spend more time in Spain at the end of the trip than it was to spend time in Venice. So Venice ended up being just an afternoon stopover from the train between Italy and Austria. What a fascinating place! Clearly it would have been worth it to stay a couple of days, but it didn’t interest us as much as the other places on our list, so we were happy with our decision. Leaving Italy, however, was sad. We loved it. We could live there. We’ll be back.