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| Returning to Florence was comfortable, as we already knew where to get the fresh fruit and things we liked there |
| Erin's Cinque Terre Journals 5-21-02 We left Pompeii a little later than planned, but ended up being fine. We walked from our hotel to the local Circumvesuviana train, which we took into Napoli (1 hour). Then we found our way to the Napoli train station, which we passed accidentally on the Circumvesuviana. We bought tickets to Florence, planning to get off in Rome to check for the mail we'd had sent there, and get back on the next connecting train up to Florence for the night. Our train left Napoli at around 11am, and we arrived in Roma around 2, which means we took a EuroStar. These trains are usually significantly more expensive, but they get you there much quicker, as the regional trains stop at every dinky town along the way. So once in Rome, we found a spot for me to hunker down with all the bags and wait for Glenn to get back from running over to the post office to check for mail. It took a little over an hour for him to return, frustrated and angry that we'd stopped for nothing. Over a month, and still our package hadn't arrived! So we called that one a loss and looked for the next train to Florence, and found we'd just missed it. We waited for another hour, and caught the next one. During that 3 hour ride, the conductor came by to check our tickets and scolded us for doing a connection. As it turns out, you are required to make specific seat reservations for Eurostar trains, and purchase each stop separately. We'd heard you could get on and off at will within 6 hours of validating your ticket as long as you were somewhere between your starting point and destination, but that is only true for regional trains, apparently. Oh well; he was very nice and let us off without paying the penalty this time. Once in Florence, it was like going home. We walked back down our old street to the Archi Rossi hostel where we'd spent so many nights a month prior, said hi to the guys, and finding that they were (of course) full, we got recommendations from them right down the street and were allowed the special privilege of coming back for dinner at the hostel, even though we weren't staying with them. They must like us there. Even our artist friend was on hand to say hello! No new wall paintings, but we did get to see his sketch book later! More in a minute on that. We checked out the recommended hotels, and found them all to be full. So we walked back checking each hotel along the way until we found one with a double room in our price range. It was only 2 doors down from the Archi Rossi, so we were happy and checked right in. Our room overlooked the street, but was clean and had good bathrooms right down the hall, so we called it good. After resting a bit, we cleaned up and went to the Archi Rossi for some really cheap pizza and a movie. The artist who'd sketched me was sitting there watching a Led Zeppelin video that he personally owned and clearly adored, so we chatted only a little, previewed his sketch book, and promptly turned it off as soon as he left the room. It was a little loud and strange after such a long day of travel, and none of the other hostel-goers seemed into it either. So I popped in 'For Love of the Game', a Costner movie which drove out most of the guys right away, and happily finished out the evening. Glenn was kind enough to wait the movie out and accompany me back to our hotel. |