The Train to Florence
The next morning we slept late and had a leisurely breakfast. We packed up our things and said goodbye to the printmakers. We walked through the twisting turning streets once again – this time following the yellow signs that read Ferrovia, which is Italian for railroad station. When we arrived, we bought tickets to Florence on the 13:30 train. We boarded the train and found our seats: I sat in the Finestrino (window) seat and Amy sat in the Corridoio seat.
After we got situated, another American couple came into the Carrozza and sat across from us. They also had a baby with them. We knew that it was just a matter of time before this kid started screaming bloody murder. The Carrozza was practically empty when we left Florence so, trying to be discrete, we picked up our bags and tiptoed to the other end of the car. It turned out that this couple hadn’t read the seat numbers on their tickets and when fresh passengers boarded they had to move to their correct seats – right next to us again at the far end of the carrozza! Now I felt doubly embarrassed but Amy was adamant about moving - so we tiptoed back to our original seats – trying not to make eye contact. Of course, a half hour later the baby did in fact go berserk and thankfully we only received a low-volume version so I didn’t feel awkward about the situation for that long.
Even through the dirty windows of the Inter-city train the Tuscan landscape looked beautiful.  I’m reminded of the scene in the movie Stripes when the heroes travel into Soviet-occupied Czechoslavakia and Harold Ramis remarks, “It looks just like Wisconsin!” I’ve had this experience – some landscapes seem so homogenous and I can’t tell if I’m Europe or the United States. This was not my experience in Tuscany – it really does look like all those travel brochures I’ve seen all my life. I can’t explain why – it’s all just rocks and dirt and dusty plant life after all – but it does have its own unique look.
I soaked in the scenery with my rods and cones, snapped an occasional photo and made notes in my notebook for the upcoming book of my travels – Ha! Amy was glued to her tiny laptop and her secret writing project. We passed increasingly long tunnels as we approached Florence. I even stared long and hard at the blackness out the window as we whisked through the deep rock of Tuscan mountains – I’m strange that way.
When we exited the last tunnel on our voyage we were immediately on the outskirts of Florence – non-descript apartment buildings, crumbling industrial buildings and weathered locomotives. We began to gather up our belongings. Once again, we had to be prepared to hit the ground running. The Italian museums are so popular that it is always recommended (if not required) to make reservations. We had a reservation at the Galleria dell’ Academia at 16:00 and our train pulled into Stazione di Santa Maria Novella at 15:30. This meant we had to check in to our hotel, drop our bags and run across town to the museum. Yes, I know, we should have got up at the crack of dawn and caught an earlier train but what the hell, we were on vacation and this was not New York City.

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Venice Train Station

Tuscan Mountain

Tuscan Bell Tower at 60 mph

Tuscan Train Yard

Was I the only American kid who thought it was weird
that a city was named after a lunch meat?