Venezia

It might have made sense for us to drop the rental car off in Venice.  But someone told us that the car rental location is very hard to find in Venice and if we drop it off in the wrong place we get charged for parking in the garage.  So we decided to take a 2-hour train ride from Florence to Venice.  However, we are not staying in Venice proper but just outside it.  The train stopped at the Venice Maestre station, which is just 1 stop before the main Venice St. Lucia station.   From the Maestre station it was a 5-minute walk to the a&o Hostel/Hotel.

I've just read about this hostel in the New York Times and it sounds like a perfect fit for us.  This is a big hostel/hotel, comprising of 2 buildings.  Yes, there are rooms where they are shared by many travelers but they also have private rooms.  We booked a private ensuite room for two, which means we have our own bathroom and shower.  It was not fancy but it was clean and comfortable.  It costs us about €145 for two nights. cheaper than a hotel in Venice.  Many of the travelers staying here are on a budget.  So many of them choose to cook their own food in a central kitchen.  We decided to take a 5-minute walk to a nearby supermarket and bought some groceries and cook our own dinner.  We shared our dinner with another American from Boise, Idaho, who is on a motorcycle trip around Europe.

A nice clean room with two beds.

a&o Hostel/Hotel in Venice Maestre

In the morning we took a 15-minute bus ride to the main bus station in Venice.  It's right off to the side of the Grand Canal, near the Ponte della Constituzione or Constitution Bridge.   We had bought unlimited bus and boat ride tickets for the day for €20 each so we just hopped on one of those water taxis plying the canal and took it to San Marco Square or St. Mark's Square.

Grand Canal with Ponte della Costituzione

St. Mark's Square is the center of attraction in Venice.  Almost all tourists congregate there or pass through there.  Lots of pigeons also love the place.  Surrounding the square are a few restaurants and cafes but expect too pay a hefty price if you decide to eat or drink there.  There's the beautiful and famous St. Mark's Basilica but in my many visits to Venice I have never gone inside the church.  There is always a long line waiting outside.

St. Mark's Basilica

Tourists hanging out at St. Mark's Square

More Tourists

There is not much to see in Venice except wandering the narrow streets and watching the gondolas go through the narrow canals.  Riding a gondola is expensive, about €80 for about an hour.  You can get one that can take more passengers and share the ride with other tourists.  If this is your first time it might be worth the money.

Another popular spot is the Rialto Bridge where there is a market and many souvenir stands.  Again there are many tourists hanging around the area.  From the bridge you can get a nice view of the Grand Canal.

View of the Rialto Bridge

Rialto Bridge from a different angle

We wandered through the narrow streets.  There are many shops and restaurants catering mainly to the tourists.  There are residences here too but from the looks of it, the locals must be hiding from the tourists.  We also took the water taxi to Murano, one of the islands.  Another popular island is Burano but we did not have time to go there.  Murano is not as crowded.  It gives a different perspective of another part of Venice.

An UPS delivery boat in Murano

Gondolas on the Grand Canal

A popular thing to do - riding on a gondola

Gondolas going through a narrow canal

Gondola waiting for passengers

One of the narrow streets and residences

The canal through Murano

Buildings along the Grand Canal

The Grand Canal is like a major highway

One of the churches along the Grand Canal

If you come here with a tour company they will likely take you to a glass factory.  Glass blowing is very popular here and has a long history.  The glass pieces sell for a lot of money.

A few sad notes about Venice.  The city is sinking and they have been trying to figure out how to prevent it from doing so.  But the worst thing is it gets flooded frequently.  About a month after we were there, there was a big flood for many days.  Many of the shops have to close and tourists were floating their suitcases through St. Mark's Square.  One of the major complaints by the locals are the cruise ships that come to Venice.  They are gigantic and seeing them anchor next to the city is quite a scene of contrasts.  They dumped a few thousand tourists into the city for the day.  They don't stay at the local hotels and not many of them eat at the local restaurants either because they get fed when they go back to the ships.

This is another place that I hope I don't have to come back again.  There are many more beautiful places in Italy that are starving for tourists.

Tuscany

Tuscany conjures up an image of rolling hills, ancient mansions, old cities, old churches and vineyards.  It's everyone's favorite part of Italy.  Florence is the capital of Tuscany but to enjoy Tuscany you have to get away from Florence.  There are many beautiful and ancient towns to choose from:  Siena, Lucca, Pisa, Arezzo, San Gimignano, Livorno, etc.  There is not much public transportation options if you want to explore the region so the best way to do it is to rent a car.

Driving in Italy is very different from the US, or other parts of Europe for that matter.  Italians are much more aggressive drivers, especially in bigger cities.  You have to be able to drive a manual transmission, although automatic transmissions are available for a much higher cost.  Not only you have to be able to shift gears, you have to shift without thinking because your speed changes very quickly with the sudden traffic.  You also have to know how to drive through roundabouts, which are almost at every intersection.  At the same time you have to listen carefully to the GPS.

We rented a car from Sixt Car Rental.  We found the rental through a portal called Autoeurope.  After specifying your rental requirements, the website gives you choices from different car rental companies, like Hertz, Avis, etc.  Sixt does business mostly in Europe so it's not well known to Americans.  But I've read that it's a good company.  However, Autoeurope is a money-making company so even though the rate may be reasonable, Autoeurope add on their own charges.  Like many car rentals, it's "caveat emptor" or buyers beware.  Sixt has a booth inside the Florence train station.  It's a big building and it took me some time to find it.

Our plan is to spend 3 days and 3 nights in the Tuscany countryside.  We had a lot of recommendations on where to go.  I finally decided that we'll go to Assisi, Siena and Chianti.  Our first stop is Perugia, not far from Assisi.  Both are actually in Umbria province.  We arrived there in the early afternoon and checked into the Sangallo Palace Hotel.  It's a very nice 4-star hotel at a reasonable rate.  After checking in we headed for old-town Perugia through a series of escalators that took us up to the hilltop.  There were some old buildings and a cathedral (always in Italy) but not much else.  It was a disappointment.  We thought there will be more to see in Perugia.

Old Town Perugia

Restaurants lining old town

We parked our car in the garage a couple of blocks away.  In the morning when we drove to the hotel to pick up our luggage we found the road to the hotel blocked.  We didn't know why but we circled the area a couple of times through winding streets but the police would not let us through.  Eventually we called the hotel to bring our luggage to another street and picked it up from there.  Such is the frustration of driving in Italy.

Our next stop is Assisi, about 30km away.  Assisi is made famous by St. Francis, who left a privileged life to become a priest.  St. Francis started the Franciscan Order.  Much of the town is on a hilltop.  We found a parking lot where we could take the escalator and walked some stairs up to the town.  We could've driven up there but I didn't want the challenge of navigating through some narrow streets.  Many Italians told us that Assisi is their favorite town.  We can see why.  The town has a done a good job of preserving their buildings, especially the churches.  We headed for the Basilica of San Francisco d'Assisi.  Its a beautiful church at the edge of the hilltop.  The grounds were well-maintained and the church itself was also very clean and well-maintained.  Surprisingly, there was no admission charge, except to certain parts of the church.

Tasty looking canoglis

A Restaurant in Assisi

Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi

One of the streets

Looking into the court-yard of the church

Another church closer to the main square

From Assisi we drove to Siena, about an hour away.  The Albergo Cannon d’Oro hotel is supposed to be right in the middle of old town.  That's why I picked it.  It's not a very nice hotel but it's close to where we were going.  However, finding the hotel is a big challenge.  The narrow streets of the old town just goes round and round.  Finding a place to park was a big challenge.  Eventually we found a parking spot we think it's close to the hotel.  We took our stuff and walked about 20 minutes and found Via dei Montanini, one of the main streets in old town.  We checked in and then took a walk through the busy street.  There were many shops, banks, restaurants, etc.  Some are upscale and some are just middle of the road.  We ended in the very big main square, the Piazza del Campo, where there was supposed to be a concert that night. We waited for a long time.  The concert started at about 10pm.  By then we were fairly tired and ready for bed.

Buildings around the main square

Fortress

Duomo or Cathedral, away from the main square

A panoramic view of the main square

In the evening we moved our rental car to a park where the parking is free.  This way we won't have to get up early and put money in the parking meter.  Our next destination is Chianti, the wine region, only about 60 minutes away.  We were going to take SR222 through beautiful vineyards grown on rolling hills.  Five minutes into the highway we were stopped at a roadblock.  We were told that there was a classic car race on highway, which means we'll have to take the country roads and join SR222 north of the section where the race is being held.  Well, that was a bigger challenge that we expected or bargained for.  However, it took us through some of the most beautiful Chianti countryside.

We stopped and posed next to several grapevines.  In September, this is harvest season and the grapes were all riped and bursting with juice.  We picked a few of them and tried them.  They are not sweet like table grapes.  We took a wrong turn onto one of the country roads and ran into 3 women trimming the grape vines.  They told us there were no through roads but they picked some grapes for us to try.  It was so generous of them.

After driving around for 3 hours, with the GPS keep wanting to take us back to SR222, we finally found the part of the highway that is north of where the race was being held.  It was then a short beautiful up and downhill drive to the Albergo Casa Al Sole, a small hotel on the main road.  There are several small towns along the highway and Greve is one of them.

Display of Chianti wines in a wine store

Grapes are ready for harvest

Olives are also common in this region

Beautiful rows of grape vines on rolling hills

Chianti wines are popular all over the world and have been around for a very long time.  I confess that I like Chianti wine but don't know much about it.  In a 2019 article in New York Times, Chianti Classico, Eric Asimov talked about the tastefulness of Chianti.  They are not the cheapest nor the most expensive.  You can get a decent bottle for between US$10 to $20.

In the morning we drove back to Florence, about 30 minutes away, according to the GPS.  As luck have it, we ran into a roadblock as we approach the city center.  It was Sunday and there was a march going on supporting Breast Cancer.  I tried other routes to no avail.  The GPS kept pointing us back to the city center.  Finally I stopped and asked one of the policewomen.  She pointed towards the hill and told me that I can bypass the marching route by going up that hill.  As I drove up the hill I recognized the spot where you can have a bird's eye view of Florence.  I was here on one of my trips with Trafalgar Tours many years ago.  With the maze of streets surrounding the Florence train station it was a miracle that I finally found the right entrance to the garage.  When I returned the car to the desk we only had 10 minutes left before I get charged another hour or even a day.  With 2 hours left before our train depart for Venice I walked quickly to the nearby Central Market and bought some lunch for us.  What a hectic time in Tuscany!

Florence

We took the local train from Riomaggiore to La Spezia.  Not surprisingly, the train station and the train was very crowded.  Obviously, Cinque Terre is overrun by tourists.  Just like Florence and Venice.  Unfortunately, that's where we are heading next.

It was a 2-hour train ride from La Spezia to Florence.  We arrived at the sprawling Santa Maria Novella train station in the early afternoon.  I've booked a room with Florence Style Residence through Booking.com.  I called the rental agent and she told me that it was only a 5-minute walk from the train station.  But Google Maps showed me a different direction and it took us about 20 minutes to find the apartment.  What is confusing is that there are 2 numbers for each building:  the address and a commercial property number.  We were told to ring the door bell and the agent's husband would open the door for us.  The apartment is on the third floor through a narrow and steep staircase.  The agent's husband did not offer any help to us to carry our luggage up, especially Doris'.  All he said was that we brought too much stuff with us.  Well....we were trying in Europe for 5weeks!

The room was small, with the window facing the street.  The bathroom was just outside the room.  You can barely squeeze through the shower door.  You get what you paid for - we paid only about 70€ per night.  In busy Florence, that's a bargain.  The good news is the apartment is within walking distance from most of the tourist sites.  After setting down our stuff, we took a walk along the Arno River towards Ponte Vecchio, the famous ancient bridge.  Many tourists stroll on both sides of the bridge, passing expensive shops.  This is what Florence is about - expensive shops along ancient streets and piazza, museums, cathedrals, statues and monuments, and gelato shops.  This is my 3rd trip to Florence and it gets more and more crowded with tourists.

Commentary on the Ponte (Bridge) Vecchio

Shops and tourists on either side of Ponte Vecchio

Sunset over the Arno River

View of Ponte Vecchio from Ponte Santa Trinita

The most famous sight in Florence is The Duomo, also known as Santa Maria del Fiore.  It is located in the historic center, which is now considered a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  The city goes back to its glory days in the 14th to 16th century.  You can see many of the buildings that were built then and since then.

Night scene of The Duomo

The Duomo, with its famous dome the background

There are many other interesting churches, monuments, buildings as you walked around the city center.  Here are some of them:

Medici Chapel?

One of the busy streets

Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, near the train station

Palazzo Pitti

Inside one of the churches

Statue and fountain in Piazza Della Signoria

Besides the churches and other older buildings, the stores are also interesting to see.  Here are some of them:

A small pizzeria that also sells gelato

Gelato shops are everywhere

Some color candies

We heard about the Central Market and decided to give it a shot.  It's not far from the train station.  As you approach the market there are many stands selling leather goods.  Most of them are run by Indians.  Why, How?  I don't know.  But the Central Market has the downstairs selling raw stuff and upstairs is a big food court.  We ate there twice, once for lunch and another time for dinner.  The food is good and affordable, unlike some of the restaurants in the city.

Inside the Central Market Food Court

A couple of wood-fired gigantic ovens at a pizzeria

Another view of the food court

Selling Chinese soup dumplings

A delicious and affordable dinner