Thank goodness it was the weekend and not a lot of drivers on the road because Annie and I rented a car to get to Vinci to go to the Leonardo di Vinci museum and house. We got a little black fiat with a GPS that we called mio buddy. He immediately tried to take me the wrong way down a one way street which I fortunately didn’t take because with my dyslexia when it said right, I turned left. We ended up circling all of Florence before we finally got on the Fi-Pi-Li – the highway from Florence (Fi – Firenze) Pisa – Pi – Livorno - Li . It sounds like Fee Pill eee. Annie and I had a lot of fun saying it. One of us would say it and then the other and then the other – Fi-Pi-Li, Fi-Pi-Li, Fi-Pi-Li, Fi-Pi-Li, sort of like the seagulls in the movie “Nemo” saying mine, mine, mine, mine.
We made it to the Leonardo museum and I tried to parallel park but could not get the car into reverse – had a stick shift. Fortunately we found two spots and I just pulled in. The museum was cool because they had built models of many of his drawings. He had so many interesting inventions, including a flying machine and a scuba diving suite. He understood that there would be pressure from the water down deep. This was in the late 1400s??? When we came back to the car, luckily the car parked in front had left so it was easy to get out. We then drove to the next town to the house that he was born in. It was a pretty big stone house of three rooms. He was the illegitimate son of Ser Piero da Vinci and it had been later purchased by his birth father’s family. When we got back to the car, I had realized that I forgot to park in such a way that I could pull out, without reversing. I was parked kind of on the edge of a cliff. I kept trying to put it in reverse but I was not in gear and I inched forward. We were both sort of freaking out and finally I pulled up on this ring that held the fabric around the stick and I felt it go into reverse gear. Phewww! We also figured out that the way to lock the doors was to push in the door handles as there were no door lock buttons.
It was only about three o’clock so we decided to make the drive to Pisa which was about an hour and a half further west. We finally got there and were following the signs to Torre Pendante (tower leaning) which took us to the outskirts of town and out of town. We were kind of confused when we saw this HUGE McDonalds with free parking so we pulled in and decided to eat and figure out how to get to the Leaning Tower. Mmmmm, a filet-o-fish, hamburger, fries, chocolate shake and sprite really made us feel at home. We asked the girl at the counter and she told us where to go to park. After a few wrong turns we finally parked in a big supermarket parking lot and went to the Torre. Wow it really leans!!! We took some pictures and then went back to Firenze by way of the Fi-Pi-Li (fi-pi-li, fi-pi-le).
When we got back to Florence, we tried to fill up the tank on the outskirts of town where all the gas stations are. At 8:30 pm on a Saturday they were all closed and you had to use the machines. It wouldn’t take my visa or my atm and we had to use cash. I lifted the handle and rested it in the tank. I went and pushed 2, our pump, and put in 15 euros. I then went to pump and nothing. I pushed cancel and all kinds of buttons. A paper came out that said something like credit not usage. I only had 50 Euro notes left so I didn’t want to put them in. I was a little upset because they stressed that I should fill up the tank before I got back. I called Tom and he said don’t worry, so we headed into town using our GPS mio buddy. (Later, we learned that we need to push the button for the tank, pay, then lift the handle and pump. We were charged an 18 euro fine for not filling it up and about 50 euros for the half a tank of gas. oh, well. )
As we tried to make it back to the hotel, we eventually had to fire mio buddy (the GPS) because he kept taking us in this one area and bridge that the Polizia (Police, or the Po-po as we called them) had blocked off because of a big concert. (We later learned it was the White Nights (or Knights) whatever that is) It just kept rerouting us into this area and the bridge called Ponte Amerigo Vespucci – the explorer that America is named after. We were joking saying, come on, we’re American we should be able to go on the Ponte Amerigo Vespucci. We turned off mio buddy and went in the opposite direction. We started to go up this long dark winding road in a forest. Oh my gosh, where are we? Finally there was an area where buses parked and we pulled in to look at a map. We had just gone through a big park – giardino boboli. We turned down the hill on another street and saw a big derriere as we went past a large replica of the David at the Michelangelo Piazza. We eventually got across the Arno on the Ponte Grazia (and we were grateful) and Annie had to navigate us home. We were pretty close when we had to turn on this street that was very crowded with people walking in the middle of the road. There was a sign that said AREA PEDONALE, whatever that means. I was kind of annoyed at all these people – stupid tourists! Then two female Polizia walked over shaking their heads. I rolled down the window and they said something like you can’t drive here. I showed them our map and told them our hotel and they looked at it and discussed it. The younger one was trying to tell the older one something. Finally they said okay, yes turn right here and then next left. We were only a block away. Later we realized Area Pedonale means pedestrian area but it was actually the only way to get to our hotel. I remember the taxi had come that way. The hotel staff parked the car in a nearby garage that we had to pay $28 euros for, and in the morning we had to drive the car to the rental place which was another adventure, but we did it!
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