Mission impossible in Rome (how prescient) and Dante's Duomo

August 24th 2022, Wednesday

Just packed, ate leftover lunch and left to the airport by 4pm. Took bus 23 and reached airport pretty soon. Security check too, went over well, no hassle. 

The plane ride was good enough...

Got off and had to walk quite a lot to reach the train station connected to the airport in Rome. Booked tickets at the airport itself, from the machine. 14 euros per head, it came to 70 euros total. Reached the Fiumicino Aeroporte station (connected to the airport) just in time with three minutes to spare. They were pretty strict about mask in the train.

In half an hour reached Roma termini and our next train to Firenze was in half an hour

So picked up some sandwiches at pannera to eat in the train...

Here's my ham and cheese sandwich

My dad took the tomato, aubergine sandwich, they were good enough. The train was rather empty, so it was comfortable. 

Nam took this pic of me sleeping in the train.

Just us and we had to wear our masks here too or a fine for 500 euro. We reached Hotel Desiree in Florence close to midnight and it was not what we expected. But we were tired, so we just crashed. 

Aug 25th 2022, Thursday

Spoke to the reception at Hotel Desiree about the sorry state of the rooms and the bathroom, about how the photos online were deceiving and she was rather rude. She said you can go to another place, they were pathetic and manipulative. Anyway, we complained on booking.com and went about our day. 

This is the breakfast room... 

Then we went to an old apothecary in Italy, Santa Maria Novella.

It was established in Firenze in 1221

Apparently monks used to make medicines here from the herbs they grew themselves.

So it still has relics of the past lying around...

Just some dried herbs

Table display

Pretty apothecary

More posh than pretty...

I took an exact same picture here, in this mirror, in 2017...

Here's the 2017 picture... 

We looked around the apothecary then walked back to our rooms to meet a few friends for breakfast.

Met Fr. Francesco and his brother Leonardo, and we went to a nice cafe for breakfast where I of course ordered the pistachio croissant.

And the cold coffee that churns in a corner... sat some time, chatted and then went to visit the defining symbol of Firenze.

The Duomo (church 37)... I did not take a lot of pictures this time, as I took enough the last time I was here in 2017 (click the link to see more).

This is the famous Florence Cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore (Holy Mary of the Flower).

This is the insignia that Fr. Francesco's father created for the cathedral.

We went inside to pray and while looking up I remembered Dante and his wicked sense of humour.

Then mom and dad wanted to attend mass, so we walked to another church

This is the church we went to for mass (church 38)...

Mom and dad attended mass here, while Nam and I sat outside...

The brothers gave us this Florentine baked specialty with raisins...

Paintings outside the church...

I saw this shop with pretty posters inside, but no time to buy anything... because heated conversations were happening with booking.com where we would send pictures of the room and the hotel people would tell blatant lies that we did not show up and that's why we wanted to cancel. Anyway, we decided to vacate the rooms and move into another nice place. Which is where most of the time went on our first day in Florence, but I can't complain. The way we were rushing to catch trains last night felt like a Tom Cruise movie, and I'm just glad that we caught everything on time and that our flight was not delayed. My family kept telling me that we should stay in Rome the day we land, but I was kinda adamant that we should head straight to Florence and like the mission impossible theme, we walked, ran and scrambled to reach all the stations on time... and I'm grateful we made it and no one lost anything. Apparently, these places are traps... an organised crime network works to loot your stuff (I was just reading about it).

While walking back to the hotel, we spotted the nice place we had breakfast in...

Just a nice street corner, I took a similar picture back in 2017... 

This is the new hotel, Globus urban hotel and they were a class apart. We dropped mom and dad here, then walked to the old hotel and vacated. Had to pay city tax of 4.50 per head, which came to 22.50 euros. Till the end the person at the front desk did not accept that they made a mistake. 

Anyway, took the luggage and came to the new hotel... me and Nam slept here.

Mom and dad stayed here.

Then went nearby to Café Mercanto to eat lunch. I ate some bread based veg soup, it was good. 

Mom had this... I don't remember what it is.

The siblings had this... they are extremely fond of fish.

Seafood... Nam's choice of food.

My dad had the veg burger...

Some dessert...

Then while the parents rested in the afternoon, me and Nam went to

Paperback exchange... a book shop.

A nice place, but didn't buy anything...

Then came back to the hotel and I had arranged a cab for five to go to San Miniato (church 39) at 5:10 pm. We reached the place in a few minutes and the fare was 25,50 euros.

Then went to the cute shop at the monastery, bought some stuff. This is the view of Florence from San Miniato. Then we attended mass and the monks sang some vespers, but it was ordinary, not the Gregorian chant from behind closed grills that we heard in 2017. 

All of us... I was a wee bit disappointed. In 2017 the Gregorian chanting was a highlight, it echoed around the closed church and it felt good, like we stepped back in time. 

Anyway, walked down from San Miniato and met Leonardo near the Ponte Vecchio bridge.

Walked a long way to reach this cafe inside a library, and the view of the Duomo is amazing from here.

Just had some snacks and drinks

Duomo in the fading light...

The cute cafe place... cafe oblate.

Walked back to our rooms. Mom and dad were really tired with all the walking, so Vinod bought some shawarma sandwichs for them. I picked up some peaches from a market nearby and that was my dinner.

We then reached our rooms, took a nice warm shower and went to sleep, thoroughly exhausted but incredibly alive.