Sabato, November 23, 2024

Firenze – Torino

Travel Day

Good morning. Today we are headed to Torino. We got notice that today is the train strike. But it won’t start until we are already in Torino. We are on the Frecciarossa 9532 which departs Firenze Santa Maria Novella train station at 13:55 and gets into Torino Porta Nuova at 17:00, the strike starts at 23:00, so we should be good.

I got up early and went to the breakfast room and did my Italian lesson and worked on the blog. Mary came over to the breakfast room at about 9:00. We finished up breakfast, returned to the room and packed up. Then we took the suitcases down to the luggage room and dropped them off. After that Mary wanted to go by the site of the first school we went to for Italian lessons with Serena so many years go.

It was tough to remember where it was but the route was still implanted in my mind. We did find it after a couple false starts. We found the restaurant where we had our very first bistecca fiorentina so many years ago.

Even found the little electronics store where we went in a bought a fan. It was great fun because back then we didn’t even know what “fan” was in Italian. By-the-way it is ventilatore, i.e. ventilator. Makes sense when you think about it.

Then we walked back towards the hotel. We decided to stop at Trattoria Toto next to the hotel for lunch. No bistecca this time. Mary got the Pappa al Pomodoro – a thick tomato soup. We shared a salad. I got a prosciutto and funghi pizza. After lunch we headed to the hotel and called for a taxi to take us to the train station.

The train station was a little bit of a zoo, but then generally it is anyway. However, to day it may be a little worst because people are trying to get somewhere before the train strike. We got on board, stored our luggage, took our seats and got out the canasta cards. It is a three hour train ride to Torino from Firenze.

Three hours later we are in Torino. Off the train, into a taxi, and at the Airb&b before 18:00. I headed to the store to get a few things, like milk for our cappuccino in the morning. After that it was straight to bed.

Buonanotte e Ciao, Enrico e Maria