Up in the Air…and down again

July 12: It was time to begin the final act of Cindy and Kate's Grand European (Sampler) Tour. Next stop, Italy; more specifically, Tuscany.

We rose very early, finished packing our bags, lugged them downstairs, and picked up the breakfasts-to-go that the hotel had very kindly packed for us. We stepped out in the early dawn light and made our way to the U-Bahn station a couple of blocks away. Within a short time we were at the station for the special train to the airport, which was (of course) right on time, and presto! We were at the Wien Airport, where check-in was contactless and smooth as butter. This left us plenty of time to eat our box breakfasts and get some hot beverages to help us finish waking up.

Oh, and for the first time since we had begun our adventure six weeks before, we were not dragging our luggage behind us. What a luxury! The flight to Florence was short and without changes, so we felt pretty safe letting our suitcases out of our sight for a few hours. This felt so strange: no trains, no suitcases, looking out the windows at airplanes...

Tuscany from the air:

We arrived in Florence on time...

...found our luggage, and then struggled to figure out how to get to the train station. Discovered that there was a light-rail train that went directly, with only a few stops, to the Santa Maria Novella train depot, where we could find a train to Pistoia.

The train depot was chaotic, and we first had to wend our way through a huge shopping mall to find the actual station--and once we found it, we then had to figure out, with our very limited understanding of Italian, which train we needed to board. Success, and without much delay found the right train.

Upon arriving at the Pistoia train station, we debated finding a taxi--or perhaps a bus, as Cindy had done her research in advance. The problem was navigating that bus system. There was a ticket office across the plaza, and Cindy had a lengthy discussion with a helpful agent. It didn't help a lot.

Oh...I would like to mention it was HOT!! Over 90 degrees, and this was just the beginning of an amazing heatwave that was to follow us through the rest of our trip in Tuscany.

Our efforts to get to the farmhouse from the train station were fraught, involving buses, a long and fruitless wait at a bus stop, another bus, and finally a taxi. The taxi was ultimately the transport of choice--that day and on many days following.

In the process of sorting out the Pistoia travel, we did get an initial view of a lovely, spare church that we saw frequently during our visit and went into later that week:

And a heroic statue:

All the while, I'd been communicating with our Airbnb host about when we would arrive. At first she agreed to wait for us to get there, but as time passed and we still hadn't figured this out, she let me know that she would have to go out and she would be back around 3:00, the posted check-in time.

When we finally arrivded at the farmhouse, the kind driver dropped us in front of a house that didn't look like the Airbnb photos--but it was right next to a house that definitely looked like our place. A woman (whose name I can no longer recall) came out of the house, explained that Gianna, our host, was out and should return soon. It was only 2:00 at that point so we settled into a couple of chairs she offered from her porch that we placed in the shade of a tree there. And we waited and sweated. This lovely, generous woman came out with little bottles of cold fruit juice--a very welcome gift. We were grateful.

Trying to chill...

Gianna finally arrived, and she was delightful. Even more delightful was coming into our farmhouse, which was air conditioned and very comfortable. Gianna was quite talkative and we could understand about a third of what she said--enough that we got the general gist of it. She brought us a bottle of the olive oil they produce on their farm. They're part of a special agriturismo program, where working farms can supplement their income with a bed and breakfast operation.

Some of the best pictures of the house we were renting can be found on its Airbnb listing: https://abnb.me/Yy6m5dcn8Cb. We'll have photos later, but I'm hoping you can get to the listing to see what lured us way back in November 2022 when we found this place. It was a comfortable house, without glitz or glamour but with everything we could want. The walk to the road to catch the bus took about ten minutes. The walk back up that same road would have taken about 20-30 minutes if we had chosen to do it. But we realized almost immediately that we would not choose that--partly because it was simply too hot while we were there to do that kind of climb.

Gianna showed us through the house and told us a bit about the town of Pistoia, including where we could find the closest grocery store. As best as we could understand, that was only a couple of miles from the bus stop where we could board No. 15 to go into town.

After Cindy and I had cooled down a bit, we decided that we should take the bus to the grocery store, as we needed to stock up on food for the week, or at least for our first couple of days.

We walked down the drive to the road and found the bus stop, the bus driver made the appropriate stop, and we tromped over the field to get to the Panorama shopping mall, which had a huge store, similar to our Walmarts. Once again we benefited from the kindness of strangers and made it through the shopping and checkout process.

We called for a taxi because we had purchased a lot of food and had no idea how long we would have to wait for a bus or even if a bus would come by at that point in the evening. Calling for a taxi without any Italian was interesting.

Here's the big thing: on the next day Cindy's sister Terrie was flying in from Philadelphia to spend the week with us, so we really wanted to be ready with some provisions at hand. We were also concerned because of the challenges we had faced in getting from the Florence airport to the house and we wanted to give her as many tips as possible, in addition to having food on hand. Our anxiety was a bit high--so we had some wine...

And thus ended our first day in Pistoia. Full of new challenges and anticipation of the Tuscan adventures to come.

Late afternoon view from the east patio: