ちなみに英語ではフィレンチェとは言わず、フローレンスと言います。
駅からすぐ近くの素敵なホテルにチェックインします。素敵なんですが、冷房があまりきいてない…。まぁ、外よりは明らかに涼しいんですが、なんか最高に冷やしていてもそんなに冷えてない感じ…。ロケーションは最高なんですが、そこがちょっとマイナスでした。
ホテルの近くにあるサンロレンゾのマーケットや中央市場の辺りを歩きながら行きたかったレストラン発見です。なんかちょっと不可解なものを頂きましたが、まぁまぁ美味しかったです。期待が大きかったのでちょっとがっかりだったかも？
調べた情報によるとフィレンチェに滞在中、今日しかリチャード•ジノリのアウトレットに行けないとの事。ジノリは市街からバスで２０分辺りの所にあると、下調べしていたのでバスにのって出発！ 途中バスの運転手さんにここでおりなさいと言われて、訳の分からない所で降ろされてしまいます。イタリア語で「２」がなんやらかんやらと言っていたというジョンの記憶を頼りにバス２番に乗り換える（こんなんでいいのかしら？後２分歩けとか後２ブロック先だと言われていたらどうしよう？）でも大正解！ ２番のバスに乗ったら行きたい所に到着しました
が…………。
閉まってる。アウトレットが閉まってる。完全に閉まってました。ウェブのインフォメーションはなんだったんだ？ バス乗り換えてまでして来たのに閉まっているとは…。もう嫌だ。暑いのに、もう落ち込みました。でも仕方ないのでホテルに戻ってジノリの本店に行く事にしました。７時まで開いてるって書いてるので６時半に到着。はい、またです。６時半で閉店しますって…。 どういう事ですか？？？ 調べた所によるとイタリアでは夏の営業時間っていうものがあって変わるんだそうです。でもそれならホームページに載せるなり、店の入り口に書くなりして下さい！！！ いきなり行ってサマーアワーですって言われて閉店になってしまう…。私はもうテンション下がりまくりです。
テンションが下がった上に気分まで悪くなってきて、もう吐きそう。
でもジョンが行きたがっていたレストランがあるので気合いで歩きます。歩いて歩いてやっとついたレストランも…。閉まっていた（これはジョンが見落として日曜が定休日だと言う事に気づかなかっただけなんですが…）これだけしんどくて気分悪くて歩いたのにまたまた閉店です。 結局近くにあったレストランでディナー。（といっても私は胃が痛くて何も食べられない）もうとぼとぼとホテルに向かっているとなんだか馴染みのあるにおいが…。イタリアで日本のラーメン屋さん発見。 普段は海外に来て日本食なんて食べようと思わないけど、今日は例外です。胃がキリキリする時にあったかい醤油ラーメンなんぞありがたい。という訳でイタリアでラーメンを食べてしまいました。でもこの後ホッとした気分になってお腹もおさまりました。
それにしてもWhat a day!!!
June 28th. (Sat.) Rome to Florence
8:50 am ES 1st class
10:30 am Arrived in Florence
12:00 pm Lunch at Trattoria Mario's by the Central Market
then our interesting day starts...
Today we took Eurostar from Rome to Florence. The guy who "helped" us at the station was begging for his tips with "unspoken body language" as we were leaving. These people were working for their tips... The ride was smooth and nice. If you get a first class seat, they give you some drinks and cookies...just like airplane...so that was nice.
Our hotel was 5 min. away from the station, but since we are with Globus now, they have to take us to the hotel by bus. (almost waste of our time...but oh well.) By the way, you can drink tap water in Rome, Florence and Venice these days. Though we bought lots of water while we were there because restaurants still don't give you free tap water. You have to buy bottles...
This is our breakfast area...
Right by our hotel, there were San Lorenzo market and central market. Lots of street vendors at San Lorenzo and REAL Italian food at Central market. We went to eat lunch at Trattoria Mario's right by the central market. Definitely local food... We ordered some stuff that we were not sure of... but it was pretty cheap and exciting.
We rested at the hotel (which has 4 stars and great location yet not so great AC system) then we HAD to go to this china outlet, Richard Ginori. According to the website, today is the only day that we can visit this place while we are in Florence, so I really wanted to go there. I love Richard Ginori stuff and they are usually really expensive but since they make them in Florence, it will have 50-70 % off. That was the main event for me in Florence. So we took bus 28 just like the website tells me. Showed our map to the driver and he told us to get off middle of nowhere. Right. He only spoke Italian and trying to tell us to get off the bus. (after riding it for 20 min. from the city) John picked up "2" in Italian from what this guy said. I had no clue what he told us. so...is that mean, 2 blocks from here? 2 min. from here? 2 hours from here?
So imagine, we have no idea where we are. And it is 3:30 pm which is super hot...llie 104 degree outside. All we know is that we have to do something that relates to 2. We waited and waited at the bus station and got on the bus number 2. I mean, I could not walk more so we got on the bus again. Sure enough...John's guess was RIGHT. We made it to the place where we wanted to go!
So when I found the Ginori outlet, my heart was jumping! but more we look at this place, it seems VERY closed. The gate is locked, nobody is there. My heart was not jumping anymore. According to the website, today was the only day that I could visit...and now it's closed? I checked the time and everything...how could that happen??? I was so disappointed. So we went back to our hotel. But I knew there was another Richard Ginori store close to our hotel (this one is not an outlet store, but I just wanted to see), so wanted to check out before it closes. According to the website, they closes at 7:00pm so we were going to go before we eat dinner. So we get there at 6:30 pm...30 min. to look around this Ginori place...However, as we entered the store, they told us that it is closing in a min. What? you are supposed to close at 7:00 pm, not 6:30 pm! But of course they graciously kicked us out. You should have seen my face...John felt so bad, too. So I was like...what kind of people are they? They just decide when to close the store??? If you don't want to work, you can just close the store??? Turned out that they have summer opening hours. which they don't really advertise on the website. I am not sure why...but that was the reason both stores closed on us.
Summer hours!
I HAD to take a picture of this...I was there!
So...I was not too happy, but we still had to go to eat dinner. John really wanted to go this restaurant called Trattoria Sabatino. Rick Steve's book said it was disturbingly cheap and locals eat there. On the other hand, I was not feeling well at all. My stomach was hurting and I felt like I needed to throw up. But when my husband wants to try something to eat, I won't give up...so we walked and walked to find this restaurant. When we found it...yeah, are you ready? Yes, it was CLOSED! Not again! 3 places that we tried to go today...were closed on us.
At this point, I was feeling super sick. But we went to this restaurant that we found (Pizzeria Il Tiratorio) and John ordered clam spaghetti and tomato salad for me. I did not feel like eating anything but I tried to eat tomatoes but I could not eat that much.(John tried to make us go back to our hotel, but I wanted him to eat dinner. I mean...he loves to eat!)
Then as we were going back to our hotel, I saw something really familiar to me. Japanese writings. Smells like Japanese food. Yes, I know I don't like people who are stuck with their national food wherever they go. But tonight, I had to change my policy. I knew when my stomach is not feeling good, good Japanese ramen noodle would save me...and it did. I ate Japanese noodle in Italy! Yes, I said it. Can't believe I did that, but it was so nice for my stomach. I felt so much better after that.
Then we went back to our hotel, thought about our day....and we both said..."What a day!"
6 comments:
Such a day is right!! but at least you only had one of those the whole time -- at lest, I think so! Your hotel sure looked nice!
yeah, that is so true. It was the perfect vacation for us after all. :)
that sounded like an exhausting day keiko! despite you not feeling good you still got great pictures. and i KNOW what it feels like to be sick while traveling, that's how i felt one day in prague - it is a horrible feeling. i wish japanese noodles would have helped me feel better :) no wonder you felt so bad, walking in sweltering heat all day. your pictures are great!
Thank you so much, Amy! We laughed when I took pictures of our food even when I was so sick...I was on mission. haha. But yeah, this was the only time I felt sick during the 2 week trip so I guess it was not too bad. But stay tuned because we will make up our bad day soon!
Your stories are cracking me up - you keep such good records of everything! Bummer that you were sick, but at least it didn't last long.
Karin: I am not usually good at remembering these details unless I write them down...so I did when I was there. Now I can remember most of the stuff and want to write the details. :) I think I am going to keep doing this.
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