Fabio, Robert calls the secretary of transportation, picked us up at the villa at 8:00 and deposited us at the Florence train station. Time for coffee and pastry was quickly absorbed by the fast moving Italian folks getting to their morning trains. Our train’s platform assignment popped up on the display board and it looked like everybody in the station headed for bianari 12.
Pam had anticipated a busy station when buying our seats and reserved them so we ambled to our assigned coach and boarded. Europeans have figured out train travel and offer bargain prices. 63 euros got both of us to Rome, at 150 mph with free coffee and Italian cookies. Cool.
Rain greeted us in Rome and after getting turned down by a couple of taxi guys, a broken English speaking driver said, no go… demonstration! This makes the second country we’ve arrived in to find demonstrations underway. Loudspeakers, flags, drums and lots of fireworks. Carabinieri sirens blaring and uzi toting swat forces standing around their heavy troop mover, smoking. It’s all relatively peaceful but, I admit, the fireworks might hide some more lethal sounds, but we have no option but to move along in a semblance of normal activity. The bigger issue for us is that we have no idea where the Glam Hotel is and even more daunting is the rain that is continuing to complicate our journey. We get our rain gear on and GPS connected and things calm down to making our 3/4 mile, cobbled walk to this chic uptown boutique hotel (that we had no idea was a chic uptown hotel or that it was in the middle of a very significant demonstration) and get checked into our room.
Our lodging had been recommended by Jesse Marin, our friend and our guide for tomorrow’s Roma tour. Jesse is a former pro soccer player, turned kick boxer, truly good human and solid nice guy. He also looks like a Greek god, as Pam likes to describe him. Jesse’s sister and mother are visiting him in Rome and will join us tomorrow.
We lunched late and forgo dinner for a glass of vino and Modica chocolate, smuggled in from Sicily. We continue to be more fortunate than we deserve. Jim