My first bus ride!

Friday afternoon, Anna, Chelsea and myself decided since it was such a nice day out, to take a trip to Fiesole.  Fiesole is a little town outside of Florence that sits on a hilltop.  Many towns in Italy sit on hilltops so this many not seem all that interesting but, Fiesole's hilltop over looks the entire city of Florence and is known to offer some of the best views of the city.  The best part about this town is that its only a 30 minute bus ride away and it only costs 1 Euro and 20 cents!

I looked up where to catch the bus and discovered that it leaves from Piazza San Marco which is literally a block from my apartment, and it leaves every hour!  We walked to the piazza and discovered that not only the Fiesole #7 bus leaves from there, but so does basically every other bus.  We walked around the entire piazza looking for the right sign for our bus and of course it was the last one.  We stood there in the sunshine excited for the bus ride until we realised we didn't have any tickets...and we didn't know how to get tickets.  Luckily, a kind Indian man over heard us discussing this little problem and pointed us in the right direction to buy a ticket.  Of course we walk to the little stand and everything on it is written in Italian and everyone is speaking Italian.  Again luckily, a man working for the transportation system asked us where we were trying to go in broken Italian.  I somehow managed to properly pronouce Fiesole and bought a round trip ticket!  He tried to explain to us how to validate our ticket but we just couldn't understand him so we went back to our bus stop and waited.  The bus came and filled up quickly but we grabbed some seats and tried to look around at how the other people were validating their tickets.  NO ONE DID ANYTHING.  We were all nervous becuase there is a law in Italy that says if you have a ticket but its not validated you will get a fine.  I don't think I want to risk Italian court.

We patiently sat through the pretty bus ride to the top of Fiesole and we lucked out since there wasn't anyone checking tickets on the bus.  When we got off the bus, I had directions on how to get the tourist office since they offer free maps of the city and tips for walking tours.  We grabbed the maps and set out on our journey.  Somehow we got terribly lost and the map made absolutely no sense.  We walked around narrow streets and tried to look for Florence on the horizon with no prevail.  By chance we made it back to the city center where the bus had dropped us off and decided to walk toward the skyline.  Too bad the road to the skyline just went down the hill the bus had brought us up.  We finally made it to a clearing on the hill only to see that the city was covered in smoke. (Side note: Apparently people in Italy burn the center of trees on their property to get rid of the dead bark and allow room for the new growth.)  Not understanding how it was so difficult to find the location we were looking for in the teeny town, we trekked back up the hill.  We stood in the city center defeated for a few minutes wondering if we should just head home when we saw some signs in an area we hadn't been to yet. 

We started up yet another hill and actually started seeing people which was a major improvement.  We heard people laughing so we followed the path into a clearing of woods that reminded me of Syllus Park.  It was very pretty but STILL not the view we were searching for.  We ventured into the deeper woods and at the top found a pretty yet small church.  After looking around in the church, I turned around and discovered a path that looked like it lead to the view of Florence!  We walked DOWN a hill and TA-DAAA a park with a breathtaking view of the city.  There were people sitting on the ledge talking, tourists taking pictures, and a group of young adults sharing lunch and a few bottles of wine.  The birds were singing, everything was green, and the sun was shining;  in short it was springtime and it was beautiful and refreshing.  We sat for a while, then took pictures, then explored the gardens and of course took even more pictures.  The bus ride home was uneventful but we were thankful for that.

For dinner, Anna and I planned to get 5 Euro amazing pizza at a pizzeria near Santa Croce.  Too bad we got there and were told that they don't open until 7 and it was only 4:45.  Early dinner would be an understatement since Italians don't typically eat dinner until 8 or more likely 9 o'clock.  With out stomach's deeply upset, we walked in search of somewhere else to get pizza at such an early hour.  This tasks proved to be difficult since lunch is usually served from 12-3 and dinner from 6-11.  We were right in the middle so not many places besides cafe's were open.  We finally found a place offering pizza and wine for 8 Euro, sold.  Inside this pizzeria was so cute, it was decorated as if it was someones birthday party complete with balloons, but it wasn't!  We decided to split some bruschetta and ordered our wine and pizza.  I was daring and ordered some red wine; it was a good thing since Anna's white wine tasted like pennies!  The bruschetta was simply strange but my pizza hit the spot!