Wednesday Eric and I took off on Air France with a brief stop in Paris on our way to Florence, Italy. Five minutes into the drive to the airport, I got an alert on my phone saying our flight was delayed 4 hours, so we went back home. We were going to miss the second leg of our trip, so I nervously waited for everything to be rearranged and rebooked, and fortunately it was all smoothed out in time.
The flight and stop were uneventful, though Paris CDG airport was under construction and we felt very rushed going through security a second time and making our way to the other concourse. The Thursday midday landing in Florence was extremely abrupt, and I overheard the flight attendant mention to a mother with small children that the runway was very short and to be prepared. As if in a movie, the planes brakes were slammed immediately after touchdown and all the passengers simultaneously threw our hands up to the seatback in front of us to avoid a faceplant. We disembarked and walked across the hot tarmac directly to the very small baggage claim and waited. And waited. And waited.
We saw this by the vendors next to H&M and made sure to rub his snout, but didnt know about the coins at the time. Read about the legend here
We finally realized our luggage was The airlines app showed our luggage was still in Minnesota. I didnt think that was accurate, but after waiting in line at the customer service desk, the attendant confirmed that our bags indeed did not make it on the plane. She did say our bags would be delivered to our hotel the following day, so I provided our hotels address and we made our way out of the small airport, oddly not even going through any sort of customs/immigration or even getting our passports stamped (they did get stamped in Paris, so I suppose that was good enough).
You know how they say to always pack a change of clothes in your just in case? Yeah, Ive never done that, and I sorely regretted it this time. By the time we found Hotel Nella after taking the tram, wandering around the station then going down the wrong street, hiking up two flights of stairs and sweating our butts off in our masks in the hotels office while the more than kind concierge person showed us all the important places we should visit, shop at and eat at on
the map, we were exhausted and decided to just take a short nap before heading out to buy new clothes. Unfortunately, all the shops were closed when we woke up, so we wore our long pants and out to dinner, having already been in them for 24 gross and sweaty hours. Dinner was at LImperatore Ristorante Pizzeria - I had a mushroom/truffle crostini appetizer (Id never had anything like it, usually love mushrooms and things, but the texture of the topping on these toasted breads was nearly inedible, but I sucked it up and downed it with the most poise I could muster) and Eric had an authentic caprese salad with a huge ball of fresh mozzarella (he similarly didnt like his app and noted he was absolutely not a fan of wet cheese), then I had the best pesto gnocchi (easily the best gnocchi Ive ever had and so far the best meal in Italy Ive had so far) and Eric had a pizza with sausage; desserts were chocolate mousse and tiramisu - both very good. Id tried tiramisu once and didnt like it; for some reason I remembered it tasting alcoholic, but this one was all coffee
and no booze and all the things everyone has raved about - Ive definitely been missing out all these years and wanted to swap desserts with Eric.
Friday morning after a decadent breakfast of flavored croissants, caffe lattes and pineapple juice at Caff deglInnocenti at the end of the block, we walked to H&M and found acceptable replacement clothes, then all but ran back to the hotel to shower and change. The concierge asked if we knew when to expect our bags, and reminded me that if they came after 6:00pm they wouldnt be there to answer the door and the courier would have to contact me directly.
