Stating The Obvious

Another slow travel day through the countryside from Roma to Firenze (Florence). Today's scenery brought more sheep, goats, grapevines and farms. The change in scenery from Lazio (province where Roma is) to Tuscany was marked by an increase in hills turning to mountains and more houses built out of rocks from the fields. The majority of houses were still the classic Italian stucco or concrete sided multi-story houses, but I don't recall seeing many if any stone houses in southern Italy. Up in the hills you could see remains of stone towers and the old walled parts of cities. The green tones ranged from bright yellow-greens to deep verdant teals. More farms had freshly tilled dirt. It must be getting closer to planting time. There are far more deciduous (leafy) trees here in the hills. Down south it was definitely more conifers (pines).

Transit was relatively smooth today. The train ride was the usual--a few bumps and lots of pressure changes as the altitude shifted as well as when trains passed by us at high speeds. I ended up at the main train station, which is always helpful, and worked on finding the bus toward the hostel. I had to ask a very helpful Asian woman for directions as the place I ended up using the ticket counter guy's directions was not right. She had this fantastic, magical map of all the bus lines and exactly where they go. I wish I had maps like this for all the places I go and need a bus. I'm terrible with bus schedules and where they go. It's my public transit weak spot. In the end I found the right bus and made it to the stop I wanted.

The hostel is quite unique. It's a former convent from the 15th century. Walking around inside is like going through a maze or like being in the movie Labyrinth where David Bowie is walking upside down and such. There's no set 1st, 2nd floors and the like. A staircase can go up here, but to no other part of the building. To get to my room you take the added steps from the lobby through a door, up another flight that turns right, around the corner, up 1 step and down 2. The added bonus for this week is the opera being performed each night in the former church next to the hostel. Each night for a few hours I am serenaded with lovely music and very high notes.

I wandered around the local area to see if I could get tickets in advance to see Michelangelo's David and for the Uffizi Gallery. Everything was closed up tight. I did find a grocery store and picked up some staples for the week. Tonight I made a pouch of pasta e fagioli which turned out like soup because I had no way to measure 750mL of water. The kicker was that I started out with a leaky pot and it went downhill from there. It still tasted relatively well. Oh, and when I returned from my walk about I discovered that there is literally a grocery store right next door to the hostel. Good for future notice.