{"id":148,"date":"2008-04-10T17:37:08","date_gmt":"2008-04-10T16:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/?p=148"},"modified":"2008-04-11T18:42:42","modified_gmt":"2008-04-11T17:42:42","slug":"a-room-with-a-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2008\/04\/10\/a-room-with-a-view\/","title":{"rendered":"A Room with a View"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well we made it and for some photos check out Joe’s Panoramio<\/a> section. Or his Google <\/a>web album.<\/p>\n

First stop St Pancreas which is lovely. I had my first real walk and gawp around the station since it’s been redone and it is quite nice. We also got to see a Harris hawk and it’s handler taking a break from chasing pigeons away. Lovely way to get rid of pigeons.<\/p>\n

The train ride to Paris was uneventful and we got the RER to Gare du Lyon and then walked. Had a sandwich in a very nice little sandwich shop and then waited. And waited. And waited a bit more. At least we were in the nice lounge, as our train was about half an hour to an hour late. When they announced the train (well, the attendant in the lounge came in and said ‘it’s there, the only train out there, have fun!’) we joined the throng waiting to get onto the platform. And waited a bit more as a whole horde of children in red baseball caps were ushered onto the train.<\/p>\n

When we were finally allowed on and found our carriage it was nice and we had a good dinner on board. As usual however, very little sleep and up early a bit worried we’d miss our stop. Turned out we could have stayed asleep as the train was about 2 hours late into Florence! Still, we were due in so early it didn’t much matter. We found the hotel after a lovely walk (the city is beautiful) and they held our bags as we headed out to explore (as it was too early to check in). (More on the hotel in a bit.)<\/p>\n

We walked around the city until about 3pm and saw (as I remember it) the Duomo and Campanile, the Uffizi, the Palazzo Vecchio, Ponto Vecchio, loads of churches and bell towers, loads of lovely houses, loads of little streets, and just loads of everything. The only place we went into was the Cappella Brancacci inside the Basilica di Santa Maria del Camine to see the frescos by Masolino, Masaccio and Lippi.<\/p>\n

After all the walking we headed back to the hotel (by way of the hordes of tourists on Ponto Vecchio) stopping on the way for an ice cream (a must have, it was lovely). Got taken to our room which is lovely. The whole hotel is beautiful, but the room is wonderful. We have a little balcony, with table and chairs shielded from the wind, but standing up you can see the river, the Ponto Vecchio, and beautiful views out over southern Florence. Out the other window you can see the tower of Palazzo Vecchio and the Uffizi. Lovely. So we really do have a room with a view!<\/p>\n

So now getting ready to go out for a bite to eat (once Joe has his photo of the sunset and Ponto Vecchio).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well we made it and for some photos check out Joe’s Panoramio section. Or his Google web album. First stop St Pancreas which is lovely. I had my first real walk and gawp around the station since it’s been redone and it is quite nice. We also got to see a Harris hawk and it’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[14,4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4T97-2o","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":468,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/30\/meeting-up\/","url_meta":{"origin":148,"position":0},"title":"Meeting Up","date":"Saturday, 30 June 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"K - So Friday went slowly, slower than a normal Friday. Once I finally finished work I grabbed my bag and headed off for Liverpool Street Station to get to Harwich and the ferry. Got to Harwich too early to board, so had a biscuit and a coffee while I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":432,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2010\/09\/06\/and-home\/","url_meta":{"origin":148,"position":1},"title":"And Home","date":"Monday, 6 September 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Went out for a very nice meal last night. Joe got a recommendation of a place in Amsterdam, Castell, so we went to try it out. Very good steaks and we had a good time. Up early this morning, breakfast and last few things into the bags before checking out\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":292,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2009\/09\/13\/sunday-rock-n-roll\/","url_meta":{"origin":148,"position":2},"title":"Sunday – Rock n Roll","date":"Sunday, 13 September 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Goals for the day: get to EuroDisney, get checked in, have lunch, ride the Rock 'n' Rollercoaster (as it would be closed the rest of the week). So we're up early, too early for a Sunday, and head out to the station. Get the train, change at Lille (interesting as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":34,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/19\/amtrak\/","url_meta":{"origin":148,"position":3},"title":"Amtrak","date":"Thursday, 19 October 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Monday Woke up early and after coffee started to pack. Got everything into the two bags (who got all this crap?) and was ready to go quite early. So sat and talked with Karen. We got to the Metra train station early in plenty of time for the train we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":152,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2008\/04\/14\/home-again-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":148,"position":4},"title":"Home Again","date":"Monday, 14 April 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"We made it. Very tired when we got to Paris but walked from Gare du Bercy to Gare du Nord. As the train was coming in it was dark and wet looking, but as we walked along the river the sun came out and it became quite a pretty day.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":90,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2003\/05\/29\/yea-we-made-it-we-are-in-japan\/","url_meta":{"origin":148,"position":5},"title":"YEA! WE MADE IT! We are in Japan","date":"Thursday, 29 May 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"YEA! WE MADE IT! We are in Japan and I'm sitting in a tiny little cubical trying to deal with an unusual keyboard layout. Any mistakes are due to the keyboard. No honest, they are. The ferry crossing was fine. It was interesting going up the Huangpu River out of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}