December 4, 2025
We are off to Florence this morning. I am writing this on a ITALO high speed train heading to Florence where we will stay one night. I went to bed at 8:00 PM and fell asleep fast and hard. Unfortunately, I woke up at 12:45 AM and tossed and turned the rest of the night until I got up at 5:30 AM to shower and get ready to leave. We caught a Water Ferry at 7 AM at CA ‘D ORO dock that took us to the train terminal for our 8:05 AM departure. The trip is supposed to take 2 hours and 20 minutes. We shall see. I guess getting up so early was a good thing as I received an email from the Stake President saying that they had not passed along a temple cleaning assignment and asked us to try and find 3 active temple recommend holders to work tomorrow night at 9:30 PM. I passed the assignment on to one of my counselors and then sent a GroupMe message out asking for volunteers to support this. We shall see how it goes. Anyway, being up at 3 AM I was able to try and get something going on this.
One thing that I did not write about that I’ll take a minute to document was a man on our flight from EWR to VCE. He sat 2 rows ahead of me, 1 row ahead of Jeff. The moment this man’s bum hit his chair, he was asleep. And for 7.5 hours he snored so loud that roosters seemed quiet. He definitely had a sleep problem. He was a big man and as he slept his head would bob all around. At points, he was sliding out of his chair with his arms and head in the aisle way. He’s wake up, adjust and immediately began to snore loudly again. I kid you not, this went on for 7.5 hours. I’m so glad that Jeff and I had ear plugs. The man sitting next to him HAD to be his friend. But nonetheless, he still had to be miserable. I wish I could have taken a picture at times to have documented it. As I said, I’ve never seen anything like that. People all around him were in shock at what they were seeing too. I wanted to offer him my CPAP machine to see if that could help!!! 😜 Oh well, we all survived and I hope he gets that dealt with!
Venice…I like Venice. But two nights here is plenty. We packed in a lot in the day time hours seeing things. The whole Christmas market idea was a bust…no Christmas markets that I saw. Just lots of little trinket shops that Michelle and Denise could not refrain from. Burano, in my opinion, was kind of the highlight. Colorful small town with nice shops and things to enjoy. Now on to Florence for a quick visit before heading to Pisa and then to Rome tomorrow.
We arrived in Florence at the exact time told to us…10:20. It was a 10 minute walk to our ‘hotel’ down a very busy street. The host checked us in and told us to come back at 2 PM and the rooms would be ready. So off we went to discover Florence. It is a much more bustling town than Venice. The streets are jammed with people and cars. We decided to first go to the museum where Michelangelo’s David is found. After waiting in the non-reservation line for about 30 minutes, we got in. The museum was ok. But the statue of David is amazing. They say they don’t know if it was David before or after the battle with Goliath. My question is, ‘Whas he naked when the fight occurred? ‘Cause…he’s surely naked here.’. Anyway, we spent an hour or so walking around the museum.
We left the museum and headed to the Duomo Piazza. Wow, that’s a building and cathedral. It is huge. We just did the free entrance thing even though Denise kept saying she wanted to pay some money and go up the bell tower. Honestly, if she had, she’d still be climbing as it is 422 stairs straight up. That makes me sweat just thinking about it even though it is a cool day here. The Duomo is pretty on the outside more than on the inside. However, the dome on the inside is amazingly painted and quite striking.
After our duomo visit, we needed food. We decided to adventure back to the hotel looking for food along the way. We came to a plaza and found a food truck that made Smash Burgers and large Tacos. The young man working it was from Egypt and had only been here in Italy for 2 years. Nice kid. The large taco was like a burrito with chicken, French fries and other stuff in it. It was pretty tasty. I am now in my room resting until we go out to do an evening walkabout (my feet scream out as I think about it). Denise wants to go to a Christmas market some 20 minute walk away. I think it will be nice to see the Christmas lights here along the way.
We caught a quick 45 minute nap/rest and then headed out on a walk to a Christmas market. As we walked, the sun set and it became dark. But the streets are lit up so well with lights and many Christmas lights. There are many large churches in downtown Firenze making it seem really impressive. The Christmas market was nice…lots of food options. It was located on the piazza of Santa Croce (Jim Croce’s saint cousin! 😉) None of us were hungry though. But Jeff and Michelle did get some yummy Churros with chocolate and we bought something from Hungary called Kurtos. It is a spiral bread cooked over coals that is then rolled in whatever you like. We did cinnamon and sugar. They then put Nutella throughout the middle of it. It was amazing. Anyway, the girls suitcases are filling up quickly. Michelle is thinking about buying another one to check home. Not sure if she is teasing or for real.
I want to come back to Florence! It has been amazing and we are only giving it 22 hours including sleep and rest time. I want to be here to try the really good Italian food. But I won’t this time. I’ll have to come back!
Lots of pictures from today:
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