I had been to Florence on a Switzerland and Italy train trip in the mid-1990s. This trip was to be my only the fourth escorted tour I've taken in my life. Despite misgivings about a possible, "Put your luggage outside your room at 7pm and be in the lobby at 5:30am", experience with an overly (but necessarily so) defensive guide, we booked the Tauck CULTURIOUS TUSCANY AND CINQUE TERRE Tour mainly for the complicated logistical arrangements and hard to book special events included. Not having to queue for hours for entry to the major touristic sites was another motivation.
DAY 0 - ARRIVE FLORENCE
A 4 pm arrival to our Florence hotel reminded me of the beauties of this city dedicated to art, culture, and, uh, Italians. The view from our upscale room window--everything Tauck does is upscale, more later--reminded me these folks have style. We took a short walk around the hotel and had an early dinner of Tuscan cured meats.
DAY 1 - FLORENCE AND START OF FORMAL TOUR
Having arrived a day early for the tour, we were not to hook up with the tour director until late afternoon. So we commenced a jet lagged walk with the objective of checking out sights not included in the escorted itinerary. This is a tourist town, Everyone nowadays takes selfies or "otheries"in front of major attractions.
We walked for a couple of hours that morning into the early afternoon. My usual, "why am I doing this" point of view caused by any overnight flight to Frankfurt and a delayed connection somehow caused me to focus on the more cynical tourist sites (top to bottom, above): the imposing but bleak courtyard of the Uffizi Gallery, Dante looking down sternly, and an international art thief attempting to fence some picture from the Louvre.
Our walk's destination of the Michelangelo Plaza across the Arno River from the main part of the city. This hilltop parking lot besides including a green bronze replica of the famous David (picture not included), it affords the archetypical, knockout view of Florence, the Arno, and the iconic Tuscan countryside. (Jet lag makes one use words like archetypical, knockout, iconic, and Arno.)
Our walk back to the hotel included an espresso (called, "coffee" in Italy) along the river. On our way home we spotted some a mom providing instruction to our son in bocci, a sport I observed in my youth played by very old Italian immigrant men in America. I guess, this kid has a long way to go to reach those goals.
We met the Tour Director and the other 12 participants mid-afternoon. The formal program stated with a a walking tour of the main plazas of Florence with pretty good local guide. After a few minutes rest there was a brief cocktail reception in our hotel in which everyone exchanged criticisms of whatever airline they flew on and a lavish dinner in a nearby restaurant. So far, so good.
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