Day 11: Train to Ostia and Ostia Antica

Today we woke up, packed up, and left our Air Bnb in Florence. Despite being on a kind of noisy road I slept well the past two nights, although for not quite as long as I would have liked. I think walking 10+ miles a day makes it easier to sleep well. On the walk to the train station we stopped by a tabacchia, which is like a minimart and bought a stamp. Edon picked up a Christmas card yesterday at the Christmas market and spent yesterday evening writing a note to his favorite podcast, Hello Internet. We mailed it at a post office we found and all hope it makes it to the UK before Christmas. If it does, they might read his letter on the podcast.

Our train was running a few minutes late, so I started writing yesterday’s blog post. I continued writing on the train back to Rome while ridiculously beautiful snow-dusted mountains and Italian countryside passed by outside.

From Tiburtina station we made our way to the metro station underground. While we got our money’s worth with the Firenze card, we definitely could have saved money by buying the kids single metro tickets when we were in Rome rather than the 72 hour metro card. It is just 1.50 euro for a 100 minute ticket, but 18 euro for the 72 hour pass. 

From Tiburtina we got off the metro at Piramide. With the same ticket we got on the Ostia Lido train just upstairs. It is actually really cheap for Romans to get to the beach. A single 1.50 euro ticket takes you all the way there. 

Once in Ostia we dropped our bags off at our Air Bnb and got a ride from the Ai Bnb owner’s son to the ancient Roman archeological site of Ostia Antica. If you can’t make it to Pompeii, Ostia Antica is supposed to be the next best thing. It is a Roman town that was abandoned, buried in river silt, and therefore left largely in tact. It was excavated in the last couple of hundred years.

I am so glad we got to visit this amazingly preserved place. The kids ran around and had a blast. 

After Ostia Antica we took a sunset walk back to our Air Bnb. 

We had the best and cheapest pizza we have had here for dinner from a local place. I guess this is why people who visit small towns complain when going to the cities where the food is more expensive and less good. Honestly, all of the food was good though!

Then, we need to try to get to bed super early. The Air bnb host’s son will drive us to the airport around 4:30 am for our 7:25am flight. We have a 5 hour layover in Gatwick Airport. Then, a 9ish hour flight to Orlando. We pick up a rental car there and have a 2 hour drive home. We should get there about 10pm Florida time (or 4am Rome time). Planes, trains, and automobiles but not necessarily in that order. See you all soon!

Day 10: More Florence

Today was jam packed as usual, but with a little more variety. We woke up and walked to the Duomo to reserve a time to climb Brunelleschi’s magnificent dome. The weather was overcast so John suggested we book an afternoon climb in hopes the weather would be clearer at that time. John and I purchased the expensive Firenze card when we arrived in Florence. It offers skip the line privileges to most of the sightseeing spots of Florence. It isn’t needed in the off season, since there are rarely ticket lines and cardholders still have to wait in the security/metal detector lines. The security lines are still present in the off season, but not horribly long. The reason we got the card though was because Edon and Ezi get in free everywhere John and I visit since we both have the cards. All state museums are free for minors, but the Duomo complex and Galileo Science Center charge reduced kid admission. So, the Firenze card was a better option for us in Florence. 

After reserving our climb time, we headed to Santa Croce. This church houses the tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo, and many others. It has a large monument to Dante. It also has a statue that is said to have inspired our Statue of Liberty. It also has cool, old art. The church was flooded in 1966 and much of the art ended up under mud and water. They have done a good job restoring the art and now have major works on pulley systems that will raise if water from a flood is detected.

Outside Santa Croce was a Christmas market. There were so many delicious looking treats and adorable holiday decorations for sale. John got a hot cider and we headed across the Arno to the Bardini Gardens. My guess is the gardens are more exciting in seasons other than winter, but they were still nicely laid out and had amazing views of Florence.

The Bardini Gardens and Boboli Gardens of the Pitti Palace are linked via a greenway. We took this nice walk, which led us to a back entrance of the Boboli Gardens. These gardens are huge and also have excellent overlooks. We only saw a small part of the gardens before we had to leave to cross the Arno again and go to the Galileo Science Museum. This science museum has thousands of old scientific instruments on display, including two of Galileo’s telescope. They even had a couple of his fingers and one of his teeth!

We definitely could have spent longer at this museum, but we needed food and to get to our Dome climb. We hoped to get falafel, but the restaurant we had found via Google that advertised falafel only had sit down service. We didn’t have time for a sit down meal, so we went to the grocery store which was fortunately next door. We got bread, olives, sundried tomatoes, and vegan gelato sundae cones from the frozen section. We ate next to the Duomo and made it into the 3pm line for the dome climb. 

The climb was long and my legs were tired pretty much from the start. Fortunately there is a stop halfway to see the paintings on the inside of the dome. Below the angels and heaven are lots of crazy, people-torturing demons and one giant demon eating someone. Interestingly, when we went down into the cathedral later it was hard to see anything except the heavenly pictures. I guess the priest got the good view of the demons? The view from the top of the dome was magnificent, even though the weather hadn’t really cleared much. We even saw tall, jagged snow-topped mountains in the distance. 

Next, we visited the Baptistry. This space was probably built in the 7th century and has columns stolen from Roman buildings. The floor and ceiling mosaics are so intricate. Then, we visited the Duomo cathedral and crypt below. The crypt has the remains of the old church (replaced in the 14th? century). The original mosaic floors preserved there are beautiful and were the work of North African craftsmen. 

We decide to climb the Bell Tower adjacent to the Duomo next. It was sunset and despite the long climb (another 400+) stairs the views were worth it. It had panoramic views of Florence and the surrounding hills and Brunelleschi’s dome.

The Duomo museum was our last stop. It was interesting to read the story of the amazing doors of the Baptistry that are housed there (replicas are now on the Baptistry). 

Historically, there were doors depicting Bible scenes on one side. A contest was held to have doors made in the same style for another side. Ghiberti won the contest to design and make the new set of doors. This contest was said to have started the Renaissance. Once his doors were completed 21 years later everyone was so impressed they gave him artistic freedom to make a final set of doors. It took him another 27 years to complete themThese became known as Gates of Paradise after Michelangelo said: “They are so beautiful that they would grace the entrance to Paradise.” 

The museum had other interesting things, including giant choir books and more Donatello statues. An unfinished Pieta by Michelangelo was there, too. It was his second to last piece. He worked on it for a few years and then damaged it after finding faults in the marble. It was put back together later. Kind of a sad end, but a good reminder that things aren’t perfect. 

We walked home and made another pasta dinner, showered, and did our best to pack for leaving tomorrow.