Florence Detours, Damage Waivers, and a Date with David

Hot Springs, Hidden Views, and the Winding Road to Florence

Usual process for the morning – nice breakfast to start the day. We were heading to Florence, so thought we would just head off whenever we finished. This was around 10:30am by the time we finished and got everything ready to head to the car.

We thought we might see two things on the way to Florence: Cascate del Mulino (waterfall from the hot springs) and Saturnia. The waterfall was just South of us so we went there first. You couldn’t actually see anything without parking 1km away and walking down. Not for us today. We continued up the road to Saturnia to see what we could see where the spring was meant to start. A short drive later we were going through the town and out the other side. Oh well, maybe another time!

Our drive to Florence took us back up the road we had just been on towards the waterfall and past where we stayed. A short drive up the hill we got a vantage point looking down on the waterfalls. It was spectacular, a better view than we would have had if we had parked.

The road to Florence was very winding. It felt like at one stage that all I was doing was speeding up, slowing down on repeat. We finally made it to bigger roads that were less winding. I learnt one thing about how to tell whether the people overtaking me were Italian drivers: did they indicate when they overtook and merged or just merged (and nearly take out the car). If they indicated, they weren’t Italian.

Driving Misadventures & Déjà Vu in Florence

As we approached Florence the GPS gave us the ‘best’ option to get to the drop off point of the main train station. The first option took us straight to a road that had “ZTL” in red. I decided not to go through it and instead turned around and tried to find another way. The second way was a bit more of a trek, but seemed better. As we got closer to the train station, the map said to go right, but in reality I should have gone left. I should have gone behind the ambulance instead and followed him. Turning to the right the only option I had to get to where I now needed to go was through a ZTL. The route looked familiar – it was where we drove in 2019 to the accommodation. We swore back then that we would never drive through Florence again …

There were so many pedestrians around and the streets were narrow, but we had to push on. It wanted me to turn left, but there was no chance in hell I was going to make a really sharp left turn in a vehicle as large as the ones we had. Instead it took us up a little further then a sharp turn to the right. A little bit down the street we turned right and headed down the street it wanted us to do a sharp left into. We finally made it through the zone to the main road. Rather than going straight to the train station (which was on the left), we stopped at W Florence to drop off our bags first.

Finally at the W Florence (with a Bump Along the Way)

The train station was just 300 metres up the road but I had to do a u-turn to access the car park. As I reversed out of the front of the hotel, the car was beeping lots (more than the drive we had done). Some of the beeps were sensors on the front and others on the back. I saw the person dart behind the car, but a split second later it was still beeping. I put on the brakes, but it was too late – I had backed into the corner of a truck. There was no damage to his vehicle, but ours had a slight bit of damage.

Finally we got into the car park and down the 4 levels to the garage to return the car. Thankfully the guy at Rome had talked us into taking out the damage waiver and it didn’t matter if we did any damage to the car. By the time we walked back to the hotel, the report was back in and it noted “no new damage”. Maybe this was all a figment of my imagination …

The hotel was nice – it had only been open a week or two so was still in soft opening stage. The rooftop bar and sauna weren’t open yet, but the rest of the hotel was. It was quite central and a nice location. We had a bit of rest and relax before our tour started at 5pm.

A Private Audience with David

Just before 5pm we headed off towards Galleria dell’Accademia. We arrived early so decided to get a gelato while we waited. Ros was aware we had a tour, but not what it was. This was a tour, just for the two of us, of where they have the statue of David. The advantage of this tour was we didn’t have to deal with 10 other people being shepherded through and listening to the guide.

The guide introduced herself – Ros thought she said her name was “Lasagne”, but it was actually Anna. Quite a difference lol. We followed Anna towards the line, skipped one of the lines and then the attendant stopped others going in and let us through. The same happened for the security line. What an entrance!

Ros still hadn’t twigged by this stage what we would be seeing. Anna was talking about the history of Michelangelo. It was quite interesting and wasn’t stuff that we had heard before. After Anna mentioned “and shortly we will go see David”, the look on Ros’s face was priceless – she finally realised! The last time we were here in 2012, they didn’t allow photography and it was very silent. Since 2014 they lifted the ban and you could take photos. All we could remember from the previous visit was the guide yelling out “NO PHOTOS”.

Anna gave us a lot of detail about David and it was fascinating to hear the context we didn’t know (or forgot) from our previous visit. It was just as spectacular as our first visit, except this time we were able to get a photo!

Evening Strolls, Pizza, and Nicolas Cage

After the tour we headed off towards the Duomo. It appeared they were doing some work on the building as parts were covered. It was still spectacular though. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at Piazza Di Santa Maria Novella at a restaurant and had some pizza for dinner. I went with a prosciutto one while Ros had mushroom. Quite nice.

It was a big day today so we just went back to the hotel to chill out and watched a Nicolas Cage movie that was on.