What you should NEVER do in Florence

Florence is fantastic, we could talk about it for a very long time and also very briefly. I have been there often. By car. On a journey. This time we flew from Amsterdam to Florence airport. And there we booked a rental car that would take us to Volterra. And that, dear readers, you should not do. Never do it.

First of all, the autonoleggio (car rental) is not on the airport premises, but you have to take a shuttle bus to another area. That will cost you at least a quarter of an hour. On the way there, that’s not so bad. You’re looking forward to the holiday, you have no deadline. The hotel will not beep or cease to exist and turn into a mirage if you are not on time. But the other way around is a different story. The airport of Florence is already indicated as if they used the wheel of fortune app to decide at which exit they would place a sign and at which they would not, finding the parking lot of the rental cars is really like searching for a needle in a haystack. I had Waze in my left hand and Google Maps in my right hand and still had to stop my beloved at least twice at a Y-split to figure out which path we should continue on. Were there signs? Sure. Occasionally. Or they were bent so that the crucial P was not readable.

Once we had returned the car, we waited for the shuttle bus. Thank goodness it came around the corner after about five minutes. What we didn’t know is that they had just attempted to get into the Guinness Book of Records by cramming as many people as possible into a shuttle bus. They had to get out first. Strollers, suitcases, half villages. It took about seven minutes before we could get on.

So that was actually the moral of this piece. Don’t rent a car in Florence at the airport. But then we came – I’m glad I don’t have Ronaldo’s heart rate monitor because I think it would have exploded – and there we saw a line for customs so long that my courage sank into my slippers. Speaking a little Italian can sometimes help, as it did in this case. A nod and the belt that separated us from heaven went down for a moment. We were allowed to pass. After that followed a treasure hunt through the airport where the information boards didn’t work and where it said you were walking to gates, but not which ones exactly. Do you know the cavia race from Fred Oster’s weekend quiz? Where guinea pigs had to reach the end through wooden gates? That feeling, but with stress.

After that, there was another lovely half hour in the shuttle bus that would take us to the plane, but which had no driver and where a man and a woman in a wheelchair had to figure it out themselves. The thought that I might have bad luck and the bus would leave exactly when I stepped out to help them didn’t bother me at all. And now I’m sitting on the plane waiting for the moment we take off and I can order a glass of wine.

Have a nice weekend and be warned.