Madrid to Florence

Suddenly it was October 29, just like that, and we were landing in Madrid.  I have never been to Spain before, and now I can say that I have.  But we saw no more of it than the airport, a huge nearly-empty building with high, wavy ceilings, like something out of a dream.  And we were both a little sleepy at that point as we made our way to where we thought our connecting flight might be.  There were not many people about, and at the one Información window open I realized that, although I had learned a few words of Italian, I had neglected to learn any in Spanish, such as “Where is our flight?”  We were told that we should go to the “Welling” desk, whatever that might mean in Spanish, and somehow we found our way to the American Airlines window, which was not open.  Martha somehow pulled a miracle and printed our boarding passes, and we went over to a little airport café for a coffee and a croissant while we waited.

The American Airlines window opened, we located our gate, and finally we found ourselves boarding our connecting flight to Florence.  The name on the side of the aircraft was Vueling, pronounced “welling” – mystery solved.

Travel is an exciting and mysterious and frustrating and exhausting struggle for those of us who are not as seasoned as some of the travel companions we would soon be meeting on the first chapter of our trip.  

It was sunny and mild when we landed in Florence, and there were taxis waiting at the Amerigo Vespucci Airport.  My Italian was good enough to pronounce the address of our hotel, where we finally arrived at 1:00 p.m.  That would make it 7:00 a.m. Charlotte time, but I’m not sure what time it was according to my body - sitting on an aircraft for hours on end is not a good thing for a long-legged man accustomed to regular exercise.  After we settled in a little, we located a place to eat, a pizzeria just around the corner called Da Saba Pizza Novoli.  It was loud with Italian pop music and throngs of young people were gathered outside, and it seemed to be operated by a single employee, a young man who spoke as much English as I spoke Italian.  We enjoyed a quickly-prepared thin crust pizza and glasses of very good vino della casa rosso.  We finally felt like we were in Italy.

 
Across from our hotel was a pretty little park in which we could see people walking and running and children playing.  And the sun was shining.