Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
15. Florence
I went on the world's slowest train to Florence. It limped across the landscape like a runner with a pulled
muscle, and it had no buffet. At first it was crowded, but as afternoon gave way to evening and evening
merged into the inkiness of night, there were fewer and fewer of us left, until eventually it was a businessman
buried in paperwork and a guy who looked as if he was on his way to an Igor look-alike competition and me.
Every two or three miles the train stopped at some darkened station where no train had stopped for weeks,
where grass grew on the platforms and where no one got on and no one got off.
Sometimes the train would come to a halt in the middle of nowhere, in the black countryside, and just
sit. It would sit for so long that you began to wonder if the driver had gone off into the surrounding fields for a
pee and fallen down a well. After a time the train would roll backwards for perhaps thirty yards, then stop and
sit again. Then suddenly, with a mightly
whoomp
that made the carriage rock and the windows sound as if
they were about to implode, a train on the parallel line would fly past. Bright lights would flash by - you could
see people in there dining and playing cards, having a wonderful time, moving across Europe at the speed
of a laser - and then all would be silence again and we would sit for another eternity before our train
gathered the energy to creep onwards to the next desolate station.
It was well after eleven when we reached Florence. I was starving and weary and felt that I deserved any
luxury that came my way. I saw with alarm, but not exactly surprise, that the restaurants around the station
were all closed. One snack bar was still lighted and I hastened to it, dreaming of a pizza the size of a
dustbin lid, drowning in mushrooms and salami and olive oil, but the proprietor was just locking up as I
reached the door.
Dejected, I went to the first hotel I came to, a modern concrete box half a block away. I could tell from
the outside that it was going to be expensive, and it contravened all my principles to patronize a hotel of
such exquisite ugliness, especially in a city as historic as Florence, but I was tired and hungry and in serious
need of a pee and a face-wash and my principles were just tapped out.
The receptionist quoted me some ludicrous figure for a single room, but I accepted with a surrendering
wave and was shown to my room by a 112-year-old porter who escorted me into the world's slowest lift and
from whom I learned, during the course of our two-day ascent to the fifth floor, that the dining-room was
closed and there was no room service - he said this with a certain smack of pride - but that the bar would
be open for another thirty-five minutes and I might be able to get some small snack-stuff there. He waggled
his fingers cheerfully to indicate that this was by no means a certainty.
I was desperate for a pee and to get to the bar before it shut, but the porter was one of those who feel
they have to show you everything in the room and required me to follow him around while he demonstrated
the shower and television and showed me where the cupboard was. 'Thank you, I would never have found
that cupboard without you,' I said, pressing thousand-lire notes into his pocket and more or less bundling
him out the door. I don't like to be rude, but I felt as if I were holding back the Hoover Dam. Five more
seconds and it would have been like trying to deal with a dropped fire hose. As it was I only barely made it,
but oh my, the relief. I washed my face, grabbed a book and hastened to the lift. I could hear it still
descending. I pushed the Down button and looked at my watch. Things weren't too bad. I still had twenty-five
minutes till the bar closed, time enough for a beer and whatever snacks they could offer. I pushed the button
again and passed the time by humming the Waiting for an Elevator Song, puffing my cheeks for the heck of
it and looking speculatively at my neck in the hallway mirror.
Still the elevator didn't come. I decided to take the fire stairs. I bounded down them two at a time, the
whole of my existence dedicated to the idea of a beer and a sandwich, and at the bottom found a
padlocked door and a sign in Italian that said
IF THERE IS EVER A FIRE HERE, THIS IS WHERE THE BODIES
WILL PILE UP.
Without pause, I bounded back up to the first floor. The door there was locked, too. Through a
tiny window I could see the bar, dark and cosy and still full of people. Somebody was playing a piano.
What's more, there were little bowls of peanuts and pistachios on each table. I'd settle for that! I tapped on
the door and scraped it with my fingernails, but nobody could hear me, so I bounded up to the second floor
and the door there was unlocked, thank goodness. I went straight to the lift and jabbed the Down button. An
