Jeff was in Newark, NJ, ready to make the jump across the “pond” when the news came that Joel was injured in a motorcycle accident and the wedding had been cancelled. He decided to come anyway. There would be a gathering at the wedding site Tuesday night, when the rehearsal dinner was to have happened, and maybe he would get a chance to travel to Frankfurt and visit with Joel before Jeff returned home. Because Jeff flys standby, he is never sure if he will catch a flight, so he puts himself on many different flights and gets on the first one that has a seat. He had his chits in on flights to Venice, Florence, Frankfurt and Rome. The first plane to fly was to Rome. Although it was his least desirable location, he hopped on. Better to take a flight than wait for the perfect one that might not have any empty seats. He was scheduled to land in Rome at about 7:45 am.
We woke about 7:00 am, showered, packed and ate breakfast. We left the house about 8:15 am to walk to Europcar to rent our car. We left all our stuff in the B&B, no reason to carry it 3/4 of a mile when we could just drive back and get it. Once back at the B&B, we loaded all our stuff, left our key on the kitchen table and drove away, heading for Florence. Other than a missed turn getting out of Mestre, we were soon cruising down the freeway.
All the freeways we have driven are two lanes. The right lane is a steady line of freight trucks. The left lane is where most of the cars drive. Speed limit? 110 km/hr. Of course, very few Italians go the speed limit, except the trucks, which travel 5-10 km/hr less than the speed limit. These conditions make driving a pain. If you get in line with the trucks, you are doing 10 under the limit. If you move into the left lane and try to go the limit, you have cars less than 5 feet off you bumper honking at you to go faster. Driving becomes a game of lane changing. Pull into the left lane (110Km/hr) to pass trucks in the right lane, all the time watching the rear view mirror. When a fast approaching car is seen coming up from behind, move into the right lane (95Km/hr) to let it pass, then switch back to the left lane (110 Km/hr). This cycle is repeated about every 30-45 seconds. For hours at a time. The fast moving cars in the left are going in excess of 150 Km/hr. They pull up upon you real fast and are pissed if they have to brake because you are not moving fast enough for them. I have changed lanes more times driving in Italy over 4 days than I have in a year of driving in the states. Keeps you awake, and alert.
Just before we left Venice, Jeff texted to say he would arrive in Florence at 11:30 am via train. The earliest we could arrive, baring traffic and wrong turns was about 12:45 pm. We pressed on, but we knew he would be waiting a couple hours for us. Florence is a bugger to drive in, especially near the train station at Santa Maria Novella. For this reason, we decided to park outside the downtown area and take the tram to the station to meet Jeff. We found our parking lot, bought our tram tickets and boarded the tram, which comes by every 10 minutes of so. About 1:00 pm we met Jeff outside the Victoria Secrets shop at the Santa Maria Novella train station. We had agreed to meet at the McDonalds, but Jeff found free WiFi at the shop next to Victoria Secrets shop, so he hung there, using the adjoining business’s WiFi to communicate with us. As good as it was to see Jeff again, it was really disappointing he didn’t bring Robby. It has been 5 weeks since we have seen him. When we made plans for our long tour of Italy, it was with the understanding that Jeff, Jackie and Robby were coming, and that we would watch Robby for a week during the wedding time. Jeff and Jackie cancelled their plans of bringing Rob. Somehow, having a 15 month old energetic boy on your lap for 14 hours of flying was too daunting. We were disappointed, but we understood.
We walked a couple blocks from the train station to a restaurant for lunch. We did not have anyplace to stay tonight, so while lunch was being prepared, we searched the web and found an apartment for rent just outside Cararra for 90 euro a night. We reserved it while sipping frizzante and beer, then enjoyed our meal. By 2:30 pm we were back at the tram station. We boarded a tram and 5 stops later were back at our station. Across the street was our parking lot. €2.50 freed our car and we were soon back on the freeway switching lanes all the way to Carrara.
Sally had wanted to be on the coast so she could go swimming. Imagine her delight as we left the freeway, paid our €10.90 toll for using it, and began driving on the shoreside road, passing swimming beach after swimming beach. Our apartment was a little inland, only a couple hundred yards, from the shore. Although quite stark, it was very roomy. We settled in, turned on the AC and made ourselves at home.
We researched the Carrara Mine tour possibilities, then headed to the beach. Because it was a little late, 6:30 pm on this Friday night, there was parking available right near the beach. We slipped into a spot that was under netting, affording the car shade and keeping it cool. We walked the beach road passing private beach after private beach until we found the sliver of beach that was public, dropped our towels and shirts in the sand and wadded out into the very warm and comfortable Mediterranean waters. We swam and floated for 15-20 minutes, then retraced our steps to the car. We drove to the local Conad grocery store and stocked up for dinner, breakfast, lunch and some goodies, then drove back to the apartment and cooked a repeat of last night’s delicious dinner.
Jeff had made it now to 9:00 pm. He had been fighting the effects of jet lag. Having reached his goal of 9:00 pm, he let himself go to bed. Sally and I were right there too, although Sally stayed up and Facebooked a bit before crawling in.
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