Katie (my roommate) and I wanted to go to Florence because quite honestly, it's a little ridiculous we hadn't gone yet. We had a whole lot of problems on this trip but sometimes that's just how it goes. So, let's talk about two missed trains, David, two closed tourist attractions, and a sunset.
We woke up and pre-ordered a cab that would get us to the station 30 minutes before our train would leave. Well, a lot of things went wrong in that amount of time. Our cab driver didn't show up, causing us to panic search for a last minute replacement. We got a cab and we were now starting to cut it a little close but we had faith in our driver. It then was revealed to us that Rome was hosting a marathon that day and all major roads and the tram were shutdown. Our driver started to try to take a very loopy route to eventually inform us that he couldn't get us to the station.
We were dropped off in the pouring rain further from the station than when we started and had to figure out the metro in that moment. We had 15 minutes at this point. We got on the metro and we had 4 stops until the station. So, train one wasn't going to happen. We got different tickets and made it to Florence all in good time.
The first thing we saw was David. He was AMAZING! It was a super cool experience and worth all the hassle. We spent a good amount of time in that museum before heading to the Duomo.
We got to the Duomo and it was a very impressive building. We decided not to get in line right away and investigate if we needed to get tickets/what the situation was. Well, by the time we checked and got back in line, we were informed that it was closed and we could come back tomorrow. That was a bummer but Katie and I just shrugged it off and decided to check out a museum she had wanted to go to for a class.
That museum closed early due to it being Sunday and that wasn't advertised on their website. So, that one didn't happen either.
We did enjoy a nice relaxing lunch near the Duomo and after all our struggles, we got coffee and a snack. After resting our feet and getting our hit of caffeine, we walked across the bridge to hike up a big hill for a view of the city. This was the best part of the entire trip.
The hill we had to climb was no joke. We were heavy breathing for sure but we knew we had a pretty lengthy train ride at the other end so we didn't mind. The weather was really nice at this point and it was almost getting to sunset time. The view was breathtaking and all the other things that didn't go our way didn't matter too much.
I hope you especially enjoy those pictures because about the time I was taking those photos, our train was leaving the station. The first time we missed a train that day-it was a series of unfortunate events. The second time we missed a train-we were just careless. It just took us misreading the ticket once to throw that entire leg of the journey.
Our train left at 19:15 not 9:15 because #24hourclock is a thing and we forgot about that. We were looking at the board trying to find our train, patting ourselves on the back for at least getting this right. Then we realized our mistake and that our train left two hours ago. We literally just laughed. There was nothing to be done at that point so, we got a different ticket and were on our way.
Florence dished out a lot of L's for sure but we just took them and moved on with our lives because that's all we could do. Hopefully, I will be able to go back and experience the city with fewer conflicts but despite all our struggles the city was wonderful.