Contiki: Day 9 – Florence & Rome

Last night we finished our first and last night in Florence with a dinner at La Certosa an Italian restaurant which was a Contiki Optional Dinner. The dinner was pretty good, and the atmosphere was nice at La Certosa. The staff had violinists and singers serenading the women on our tour as we walked in. Some of the girls were pretty embarrassed to be serenaded in front of our whole group.

As we walked in we received a choice of a glass of red wine, champagne, or orange juice. I chose the Champagne and I finished it off before we sat down at the table. At the table there was bottles of red and white wine and the staff had us line up to pick and chose from the anti-pasto selection that they had on hand. The main meal was lasagna, pasta, and salad with beef. I thought the dinner was just okay. I preferred our dinner in Monaco much more. The dinner in Monaco was great!

After we ate, we were dropped off in the center of Florence so that we could head to Space Electronic Disco another Contiki Optional. We were warned that it would be somewhat corny, but mostly everyone came out for this event. We arrived and the place was nearly empty. Another Contiki group showed up and then the dance floor upstairs opened also. This is when the night really started to kick in. Everyone headed upstairs and danced the night away for a few hours. I think this was the first night that everyone really felt comfortable with one another and everyone was just having a great time dancing, laughing, joking and of course drinking! I had a couple of drinks, got to dancing and had a blast with everyone. A night that everyone thought was going to be a bust turned out to be really cool. Mostly everyone was glad that they chose to come out to Space.

This morning everyone woke up, some with major hangovers, and some were feeling fine and dandy. I admit I was feeling fine, but I was just so overtired! After I got home from Space last night I jumped on my computer because it was the first night that I’ve had free wifi access in my hotel room! I made a few calls back home on Skype and ended up getting to bed around 4:00AM. Breakfast was scheduled for 7:00AM, so that means I had to set my alarm for 6:45. I had just over two hours sleep and I knew that today would be a big day in Florence, and Rome!

As we drove into Florence to spend a half day I slept on the 30 minute bus ride in. I awoke immediately as we walked off of the bus and to be honest I think I was still sleep walking. I felt like absolute junk due to lack of sleep. I pushed through it and ended up having a great few hours in Florence enjoying the scenery, the statues, the art, the architecture and more. Florence was a pretty impressive city with tons of great history behind it.

At 11:30AM we had a guided tour by a man named Fabio. He was a great guide with tons of knowledge and he answered everyone’s questions immediately as they were being yelled out to him. He knew more than 5 languages and he knows Florence like the back of his hand. He absolutely loves history, and he puts a lot of effort into his job as a tour guide. Great guide, good tour, and we got to learn about many of Florence’s top sights.

After our guided tour of Florence, our tour manager took a few of us to a place where he claimed had the best steak that we would eat in Europe. I was doubtful, but by the end of the meal I realized he was absolutely right. we ate at a restaurant called Osteria dei Baroncelli. This place was amazing. The steak was out of this world. I normally don’t eat steak that is undercooked, red, pink, or anything less than medium well but the Italians don’t give you a choice when they cook your meat. They cook it one way, and that is the way you will have to accept it. They don’t believe it overcooking the meat because it “ruins the meat, and the taste”. Each piece of steak melted in your mouth and I have to recommend this to anyone that visits Florence! There is nothing like this… unless you fly back home to the states for a few days!

Once we finished eating lunch we headed back for the coach so that we could head off on a 3 hour journey to Rome where we would be staying for the next two nights. I was really excited about visiting Rome. Like Florence, another beautiful city with even more history and really cool facts. I was also happy to be able to sleep through most of the bus ride to Rome. I really needed to catch up.

We arrived in our hotel in Rome. It was supposed to be the nicest hotel on our whole trip. I agree, it’s a very nice hotel. Much better than many of the hotels that we’ve stayed in so far. BUT! The hotel is about a 25-30 minute bus ride to the train station and then another 20-25 minute train ride to the city which makes it quite difficult to do your own thing and take off to see some things in Rome on your own. I am definitely not satisfied with the location at all. I was under the impression that we would be staying maybe 10-15 minutes walk from the city center. Nope!

We spent an hour lounging around the hotel until we hopped back on the coach to head into Rome. Our tour manager gave us a quick tour of a few of Rome’s most popular sights like the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, St. Peter’s Bascillica, Piazza Navona. All of the sights were really cool and we have a guided tour in Rome tomorrow that will be taking us all round the city to some of the more popular sights. After we take our guided tour we will have the rest of the day free to go where ever we want. Ryan and I like these type of days because we like to be really productive and we try to fit in as much as physically possible on our free days.

We got back to the hotel tonight around 9:30PM after getting some dinner in Rome and we planned out our day for tomorrow. Should be very interesting and I should have plenty of great photos to show for it. Looking forward to exploring Rome tomorrow more in depth!

Ciao!