We’re going to be in Florence for a few days. The obvious way to get to Florence from Venice is to take the train – it’s comfortable, fast, and cheap. But our travel agent, Dave Natale, suggested we do something else – take a DayTrip so that we could explore a bit of the countryside on our way to Florence.

Duccio, our driver, picked us up at the port just before 9am and we began our adventure. We’d chosen two stops – the first was about an hour down the road in Arquà Petrarca, home of Petrarch‘s house and tomb. We visited both; we also enjoyed a cappuccino at the local bar.

Our next stop was about an hour later in Ferrara. When we told our cruise director that we were stopping there, she suggested we try a local specialty, Cappellacci di Zucca (a pumpkin-stuffed pasta with sage), and our driver said we should have it at Al Brindisi, which claims to be the oldest tavern restaurant in the world. The visit was a success, though I’m not sure that their musical instrument collection really fits the “old restaurant” theme.

We also made a short trip through Ferrara’s old Jewish Ghetto and wandered around the downtown for a while. It was a busy weekend in Ferrara – they were holding an “Open Monuments” event, giving free admission and guided tours to twenty or so of their ancient buildings; unfortunately, we didn’t have time to take advantage. There was also a Dark Arts festival featuring Goth and Steampunk cosplayers, and as we drove out of town, we saw signs for a tattoo festival, too. An interesting place indeed!

It took another couple of hours to reach our apartment in Florence; the only real sight we saw on our way was one of the old city gates.

Taking a DayTrip was definitely more interesting than taking the train would have been, but it did take a lot longer and cost significantly more.

We spent the rest of the afternoon getting settled; Florence is a busy place (our apartment is just across from the main train station), but we did manage to find a quiet spot for dinner and a supermarket to pick up breakfast supplies.

Tomorrow, we start exploring the city; we’ve bought tickets for the Duomo complex for tomorrow and have Uffizi tickets for Tuesday. Onward!

We had planned to take the “Row Venice” excursion and learn how to row a gondola, but it got cancelled due to the weather forecast, so we joined the group heading to Ca’Macana to learn about the history of masks in Venice and how they’re made today. The shop was a short walk from our dock.

When we reached the shop, we were greeted by Victoria, who’s been making masks for 15 years (a veritable newcomer!). She showed us a short presentation about the history of masks, demonstrated how to make a mask, and let us handle some masks (which turned out to be a problem for me – my hand turned red and started to itch; fortunately, Venice has fountains everywhere and I was able to rinse off whatever was bothering me as soon as we left the shop).

Some people stayed at the shop to make their own masks, but Diane and I wandered back to the ship for lunch.

The weather was better than the forecast, so we decided to take a gondola ride. We’d passed a gondola stop on our way back from the mask shop, so we walked there. There were two gondolas parked at the stop, but no gondoliers!

We waited for 15 minutes and were ready to give up; then my phone rang. It was Jean, one of our new friends who wanted to go out exploring with us (her sister wanted to stay on the ship and Jean didn’t want to explore on her own). We went back to the ship to meet her and then headed back to the stop – there were still two gondolas parked, but now there were gondoliers, too. Off we went for a quick tour of the Dorsoduro and the Grand Canal!

The gondola ride was short but fun. We walked around for another half-hour until it started to drizzle fairly seriously; we returned to the ship before the skies really opened up.

Our farewell dinner was enjoyable and delicious. Diane and I had had our waiter Ion on our Rhine cruise last year; he remembered that our table always ordered French fries for dinner…so he brought a bowl for us to have with the main course (beef tenderloin or pan-fried branzano), though it wasn’t on the menu.

We leave Venice early tomorrow. The week here has been excellent, but we’re ready for something different.