It was now time to go the Italy. We had previously planned this trip in April 2020, but COVID forced us to cancel. Then we had planned to go to Thailand and Cambodia, but our flights were cancelled on us last minute and we couldn’t find a new route that could work with our time constraints. We put together this Greece and Italy trip quickly and went for it.
We woke up at 5:15am to head to the Athens airport for a quick direct flight to Rome, Italy. We arrived on schedule and made our way to the train station. It was initially a bit confusing as gates are only announced around 10 minutes prior to the train and then you make your way to that platform to find your seats. Our first train was just an express train to the main train station in Rome, Roma Termini. We would then be picking up a train to Florence, Italy.
We were in the Executive car for the 1.5 hour ride up to Florence. We were served a nice meal, better than any airline.
We arrived in Florence to beautiful weather, about 65-70 degrees and sunny. We walked from the Firenze Train station to the nearby Westin Excelsior hotel to check in. Once we dropped our luggage we started exploring.
The first two things we noticed were the amount of people that smoke or vape, and the huge amount of people in the narrow streets. It was a very nice day and a weekend, so we assume that was the main cause.
Another thing that is typical to Europe cities are small cars. I really liked this small Fiat.
The city has a very small feel, we just walked various streets and alleys, exploring the shops and sites.
We came across a little Pizza shop. I couldn’t resist trying my first Italian pizza slice. It was amazing! I was very excited for the rest of the trip and the food we might have.
For dinner, we ordered Florentine steak for two. It is a large steak, with roasted potatoes, for two people. While the steak was very good, bits of it were VERY rare. More than we would typically like. The rest of the meal was fine.
After we finished eating we headed to the room to rest a bit and get ready for the next day. We would be taking a day trip to Modena and Maranello to visit Ferrari and Lamborghini!