After another hearty breakfast at the hotel we decided to wander around
town our last day in Innsbruck. Taking in as much as we could; before we had to
head to the station for our train to Florence.
We headed down the Maria Thereisen Strasse, it was a beautiful
sunny day but very cold. Even with our layers we could feel the cold seeping
through. I was glad of my woollen stole which helped keep my neck warm in the
last few days.
Entering one of the pharmacies on the street we tried to
locate a Vichy cream Mansi was hoping to pick up, we didn’t find the one she
wanted but the pharmacist gave her another option which we bought. Walking
further down we picked up some chocolate and cream cheese bagels for the train
journey. We decided to head to the river and get some nice pictures, along the
way I ventured upon a pet store and picked up some cat food for my feline
friends. It was colder near the river with the breeze making us shiver so we
abandoned those plans and decided to head back to the hotel.
There was an Arko chocolate store just next to our hotel
which was like a chocolate heaven with some amazing varieties, I had been
wanting to pick up some Austrian chocolate and decided to pick some single
origin chocolates to try out, both of us picked up bars as gifts and now arms
laden with goodies we headed to our room.
Since it was very cold we decided to take a taxi to the
train station, the receptionist had told us that it cost around 7 Euros which
we were more than happy to pay to avoid the hassle of dragging our luggage through
the chilled streets. She ordered the cab for us and we settled our bill and
departed for the station.
Our train was from Innsbruck to Bologna at 11.27pm and then a change of
trains onto Florence. We had a long train ride of over 6 hours scheduled to reach Florence at 5.30pm today. At the station we met with this Italian woman travelling
with her mom and daughter. On the platform they had these warm rooms,
basically all glass structures with benches inside to protect you from the
elements. Mansi and I wheeled our luggage inside and joined them and started
chatting, she was from Bologna, married to an Austrian and currently settled in
Innsbruck. She was going to Bologna with
her mom and daughter. The daughter was very cute with blond hair and carrying a
pink Barbie suitcase. They were excited to meet us and asked about our trip.
Soon our train arrived and we headed for our compartment,
this was a different train than the kind we had travelled in before with
individual cabins having six seats each closed by a glass door, with a corridor
running across the length of the compartment. We located our seats and placed
our large suitcases in the corridor just outside our cabin, we had seats near
the corridor both facing each other. Our travelling companions were an Italian
couple who were chatting away and other single male passengers busy on their
laptops. I decided to finish the book I was reading the new Sherlock Holmes –
House of Silk.
As the train approached the station of Brenner around 30
minutes from Innsbruck we could see snow quite close to the tracks, the
mountains on both sides had snow fall on them almost up to the tracks. It was
beautiful to see the trees with snow tipped leaves on the mountains bordering
the tracks. The train halted for a short while after it left the station and we
were worried about delays and missing our connecting train.
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| Brenner Station with snowed mountains on both sides of the train tracks |
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| Snow Fall on the mountains |
We got chatting with the couple who turned out to be
friends, they thought we were American.
Both of us were amused with that one. I liked her Prada shoes which were
comfortable looking yet very fashionable. I have to say all the Italians we met
were very fashionably dressed; everything was matched from nail polish to
scarves to ear rings. We felt a bit dowdy in comparison!
All the train announcements were in Italian so we had to
rely on our Italian co-passenger to tell us when our station arrived, luckily
for us he was heading to Bologna too.
We again passed Verona Porto Nuovo where we had switched
trains earlier, the train moved on to Bologna. It was running a bit late but we
still had 30 minutes to catch our train. Our connecting train was a local
Italian Trenitalia train from Bologna to Florence, which was also running a bit late so we had to wait.
Hopping on board we again had to deposit our bags near the entrance, there was
a proper luggage space here but it was full as the train was coming from Rome.
This train was much narrower than our Austrian trains and the aisle was rather
cramped with people going across the cabin with their luggage.
It was a short 40 minutes journey which sped by thru high speed tunnels
so we didn’t have much of a view for most of the journey. I decided to continue
with my book. The cabin was not completely full and there were several empty seats
including the two in our cluster, we had one of the four seats facing a table
arrangement. Both of us had window seats facing each other. The
only annoyance was this woman, who we thought was an Indian but turned out to
be Pakistani (pure speculation, based on pakistani cities names heard in her conversation) talking loudly on her mobile all through the journey in Urdu. The whole compartment could hear her!
The train had electronic display screens across the
compartment showing the next station which was Florence SMN and the train speed
as it zoomed across the countryside. Our train reached Florence and went past
several stations on the outskirts like the Florence Rifredi one.
Florence station (Firenze Santa Maria Novella) turned out to
be like VT station, huge with multiple trains arriving and departing from
platforms simultaneously, local and long distance trains; large signage’s
announcing the various arrivals and departures. Large population of ethnic
people with lots of African immigrants selling knick knacks around the station.
We enquired with a local police woman on the way to our hotel and she pointed
us in the right direction. Since our hotel was just outside the station and I
had checked it out on Google Maps well in advance of our trip I was not
worried.
We located it soon enough on the side of the street facing
the station. Club Hotel looked pretty modern,
the receptionist quickly checked us in and we were shown to our room on the 2nd
floor by the bell hop. Again we had a room facing the back streets but we loved
it; all modern and grey. The walls had lovely black and white photographs of
Florence and Pisa, the bathroom was thoroughly modern and huge, the room was
quite spacious as compared to our earlier ones. The only downer was that our
bathroom door wouldn’t close. We freshened up and decided to grab some dinner
as we were both very hungry having had just our bagels and rolls on the train.
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| Club Hotel Florence |
Our friendly receptionist gladly drew on a map he produced of Florence and showed us a couple of options close to the hotel for our dinner. We chose the closest one Osteria D’Oste which turned out to be a good choice. With one wall decorated with wine corks, this lovely restaurant had a nice vibe to it, the smell of freshly baked bread wafted through the place. Our waiter seated us next to the cork wall and we ordered some table wine to start. Mansi ordered ravioli filled with spinach and I took a grilled chicken dish. We split a mushroom soup which was a house specialty. They brought some warm bread which was some of the best bread I had on this trip, crusty with bits of salt on top and delicious. The food was hearty and warming. The restaurant was sparsely filled when we entered but soon the tables started filling up with mostly tourists, a Japanese couple joined us on the table next to us.
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| Osteria D'Oste - Florence |
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