The morning of July 10th, we leave Florence and head to the last city of our wonderful European excursion, Rome.
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| Walking into the Firenze train station. It starts out pretty calm and then becomes really crowded. To the right under the yellow signs are where people board their trains. |
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| Yup, we could have had McDonald's in Italy. |
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| Bryan found a small patch of bench for Grams to rest. They are guarding our suitcases while Alex and I look for the ticket "clicker" that will verify our tickets. You HAVE to do that before you get on the train. OR ELSE. |
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| Reader boards to the left, more to the right and out of sight. And boy, it is crowded. Trying to walk between people to get anywhere is tough. |
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| People in line to purchase tickets at the kiosks. There is a blue and silver train in the middle through the archway. |
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| Grams (blue shirt, coral capris) and Alex on the far left trekking to our train car, notice the red sign above, 5. 1 is close to the waiting areas, we are assigned car 13. We have assigned seats on this leg of our journey. Bryan waited for me to get the tickets verified. I couldn't find one of the machines until late. |
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| Car 11. Almost there. The trains only stay in the station a very short time. Hustling. |
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| We are going to the last car (wouldn't you know it). YES, I am coming!!! |
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| We MADE IT!. The overhead bins are nice. The signage shows we are in Firenze S.M.N. and in two stops we will be in the Rome main terminal. This is an express train. |
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| We have seats facing each other and a table. Parts of the table fold up or down, depending on what you'd like to do. Alex must be teasing Grams about something! |
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| Alex is studying the map as we zoom through towns. Some towns we do crawl through, but don't stop. A red train on the opposite platform. |
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| The Italian countryside between Florence and Rome. Looks like Oregon might look. :) |
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| Another view as we zip along. Trees and shrubby hedgerows divide little fields. |
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| A village on a hillside. Other train tracks crossing below. |
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| A large building of some sort in the middle of the far hill. Pretty green field. |
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| Mystery lunch. |
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| A field of pretty blooming sunflowers. There were many fields like this, but we were rolling right along and I had trouble getting a clear photo. |
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| I have family back in Oregon who are making hay at exactly the same time of year as this. These bales of hay are rather large. |
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We have arrived in Rome and here awaits Mario to drive us around on a tour of the sights before we check in to our hotel. I have always dreamed of being met and driven around. He looks excited about it, doesn't he?
Our three hour car tour of Rome follows. We did see amazing things. It was a very hot day and he knew his history and streets!
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