Florence and Tuscany

"DUDE, THIS IS AWFUL. LOOK AT THE REVIEWS OF THIS HOTEL!"

It was Sunday evening, and one of my roommates, Scott, and I had gotten back from our respective weekend trips (he in Dublin, and I in Paris).  We were going to knock out Florence and Tuscany for the first two days of Spring Break, going by train leaving on Monday morning and coming back on Wednesday to Rome.  

We were going over the logistics for the trip, printing out train tickets, reading maps, etc.  Then we got to the hotel part of the logistics.  I told Scott that Hotel Cordova was the place that we were staying for two nights.  I'd made the reservation about a month ago, and it seemed like an afterthought until Sunday.

He typed in Hotel Cordova to trip advisor, a travel review website, and it was not a pretty picture.  Here are a sampling of the reviews:

"Don't Stay Unless you have to!"
"Wretchedness"
"Pathetic Hotel!! Would Never Recommend This to Anyone"
"Avoid this Place at all Costs!"
"Worst Hotel Ever!!"
"Hotel Crapova"

Needless to say, we were a bit spooked by the prospect of staying at Hotel Cordova.  So I put in a call to try to cancel the reservation so we could get out of it.  In broken English, they told me that they'd already charged my credit card, so we were out of luck.  We departed Monday morning by train for Florence.

We got to the hotel around 10 AM, and took a deep breath, hoping for the best in our next two nights.  The hotel wasn't on the first floor, so we climbed up three flights of stairs.  We could barely see anything on the way up, as all that illuminated the hallway was a flickering light.

We got to the hotel "lobby" and were greeted by a friendly receptionist who showed us to our room, and it didn't look as bad as we'd read on the Internet.  But we had a big day planned, so we threw our stuff down and went on our bus trip.

We had a guided tour to Tuscany to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  It was about an hour bus ride there, and was very cool to see.  We took the cliche tourist photos of ourselves holding the tower up, spent about an hour there and were on our way back.  We got dinner in Florence, where I had Gnochhi with Gorgonzola cheese cream sauce which was amazing.  We then went back to our hotel, and had a great night of sleep, around 13 hours after a long day of walking around.  So far so good in the hotel, very contrary to what we'd read in online reviews.  

The next day was a tour of Florence that I'd planned out.  We started at the Accademia Gallery to see Michelangelo's statue of David.  We'd waited in line for about an hour and half, and I started to get impatient.  We still had a few large groups in front of us, and I figured I'd give it a shot to see if I could weasel my way in to the exhibit.  I went to talk to one of the museum directors, said I had one friend with me, and she said that we could go around the large groups and right in.

Michelangelo's David was truly remarkable.  It's a 17 foot tall statue, and when you see it, it's hard to believe that someone actually took the time to sculpt it.  Along with Da Vinci's "The Last Supper" painting, it was the most impressive piece of art I've seen.  It was a good thing we got to the front of the line, because when we left the exhibit, we noticed the people behind us in line were still waiting to see David (wound up saving us about an hour!).

We walked around Florence for some more of the day and stopped in to a sandwich shop for lunch (had prosciutto, mozzarella, and tomato sandwich that was quite tasty).  We crossed the Ponte Vecchio bridge to see the Boboli Gardens.  The views of Florence from there were very nice, and we were fortunate enough to have nice weather with sun that day.  We went back to the hotel for a quick nap, then back out to dinner.  I had pizza and ravioli with truffle sauce which was amazing.  Back to the hotel for the night, and once again, no problems whatsoever!

We left the hotel around 9 AM on Wednesday for our train back to Rome.  The hotel wound up being much better than our expectations, and way better that what had been said about it on the trip advisor website.  It was a pleasant surprise.

Tomorrow, Scott and I head to Prague for the weekend.  We return on Sunday, I'll be back then with more pictures on FB and a post here.

JC