(by Carol)
Sooooooo: the plan was to catch a train from Florence airport to Pisa, and spend the first few nights there. Why? Just because! Pam said that she wanted to go to Pisa, and I thought that it might be nice to be in a slightly quiet, somewhat country setting for a few days, to recover from all that flying and adjust to this adventure.
MY OH MY! He’s so strong!
Besides, I wanted to get a picture of Pam doing what this guy is doing, or maybe have her appear leaning against the tower, or maybe some sort of actually original humor picture that I can’t even think of at the moment.
Anyway, we arrived at the Florence airport. Baby and grandma were once again awake and bouncing. I looked across the aisle at Pam, who had this look on her face that made me think that she was getting fed up with flying, at this point, and I think I returned the look with a “me too” look of my own. We had to climb down steep steps from the plane, and at the bottom, my walker was nowhere to be seen. Pam hailed an official, who informed us that my walker would be waiting for me at the baggage claim. “No!” I said firmly, “I checked it in at the steps entering the plane. I need it now!” So she scooted away to the back of the plane, where they were unloading luggage, and brought me my walker. It was sunny, somewhat hot, and slightly humid. We were exhausted and ready to pass out (I imagined) in comfortable beds in well air conditioned rooms. That was, however, not to be.
Florence’s airport is tiny, stuffy, not well ventilated. We entered at the baggage claim, collected our luggage, and walked a little bit into another large room, that was clearly the exit room. So, there’s my (admittedly poor) impression of the airport: a short landing strip, a small room that held three baggage claim terminals, a little hallway, and a larger and very crowded room from which people exited to catch a bus or, more reasonably, a taxi.
Our taxi driver was a delightful and skillful driver, who informed us that he has been driving a taxi for twenty years. In the front passenger seat was a young man (with awesome long hair, by the way), who was in training—learning the streets and their various connections. They took us to the Santa Maria Novella train station, which is situated in the historical center of Florence. It was packed. I mean: PACKED! There were various groups of young people sitting
When does this train station ever look this empty? When?! WHEN?! I say never!
on the floor because there was nowhere else to sit. We figured out how to get tickets to Pisa and found our way to the right track—weaving our luggage, cane, and walker through the crowds. The train had steps: in each train car, you could take three steps up to a level of seats, or you could take three steps down to a level of seats. We really enjoyed that challenge, throwing suitcases, bags, a walker and a cane into seats beside us. And then we were off!
Pisa Central Platform
At this point, we were so exhausted (and my ripped toenail was really hurting) that we were pretty much hanging to the ends of our mental ropes, maybe even ready to hang ourselves with them. Okay, maybe that’s a bit too dramatic, but I was feeling pretty dramatic at the time. Pam watched the countryside float past the windows. I fell asleep.
And then we arrived! We pulled all our baggage off the train with high hopes of release and returned happiness, and this is what we saw: stairs going down from the platform into a dark abyss. No elevator, and thus (for us, with our luggage, walker and cane) no exit.
The humidity had increased. It was hot, cloudy, and sticky, and we were hot, sweaty and miserable. I sat with the luggage and my walker while Pam took her cane and bravely huffed down the stairs to seek help, or at least directions to an elevator.