It’s hard not to become enamored with transit systems in Western Europe! We were out of our flat in Flumserberg just before 7:30 this morning because we wanted to play things safe when it came to our train out of Zurich. We waited for less than 5 minutes for the bus for a ~20 minute ride to the train station in Sargans, which was geographically away from Zurich, but all part of Benton’s master plan, which was to catch a train that would take us all the way to Zurich without any changes. We spent less than 10 minutes in Sargans—plenty of time to buy tickets and amble to the platform for the train.
We arrived in Zurich a couple of hours before our scheduled 11:30 train to Milan, so we left the train station and found a cafe to have a second mini-breakfast in. From there, we decided we might actually be able to find a shop where Tim could buy a replacement Fitbit, and there was one: in the mall/shopping center under the train station! So, we walked to that, bought the Fitbit, and then found a bench to hang out on while awaiting our train.
The Zurich > Milan train was a little late getting into Milan, which meant our connection was 30 minutes rather than 40 for our Milan > Florence train, but that was still plenty of time to grab some open-faced focaccia sandwiches for lunch.
We then got into Florence 10-15 minutes early, at which point we looked up what our options were to get to our flat and discovered…it was a 5-minute walk!
We got settled into the flat, and Benton got a load of laundry going, and we then headed out for what has become our customary “initial perambulation.” We walked to the Arno River and then down the river to Ponte Vecchio and on to Uffizi before turning into the old city and walking past Palazzo Vecchio (which Tim could ID by memory from his architectural history course back in… 1992?) and on to Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. There were multiple squares, statues, and old buildings passed along the way.
After sufficient rambling to get us to the 8:00 dinner hour, we…grabbed dinner! And then we headed back to the flat to call it a night.
An interesting/memorable experience of the day:
Benton: the Milan-to-Florence train…and it seeming like everyone was riding a train for the first time ever. Plus, the guy in front of us who seemed to be moving his entire house!
Tim: Benton inadvertently being the arbiter in a dispute between two couples as to which train car they were on (Benton: “This is car 2.” We didn’t even know which of the couples thought what, but the American couple pretty much put their tails between their legs and exited the car).
