Ciao!
To say I have been bitten by the travel bug is an understatement. I have always been fascinated by different cultures and gorgeous landscapes with the dream of seeing a lot of the world during my lifetime. As many may have experienced, sometimes life goes by and you never really make time for your travel dreams. The fact that I made my first European trip happen by going to beautiful Italy gives me the motivation to make this happen a lot more often!
Though traveling is an amazing time to learn more about the place and yourself, there are many different types of experiences depending on your personality, your socio-economic standing and who you are. I cannot speak for many points of views, but I can speak about being a black American female traveller and circumstances you may encounter. I personally feel like you need to be even more hyper aware of your surroundings and social cues when you are a black female in a majority non-black or brown country. I usually go into these areas still super excited, but prepared to encounter some form a racism or lack of understanding. Mix that with being America and you are in for an interesting time! We unfortunately get a bad reputation for being loud, privileged, dumb and obnoxious. Yikes! But even with those in mind, I still go to my destinations fully ready to soak in as much culture as I can, even if I do not agree with some of the customs. I know I am an outside observing and learning, and there is no place to judge what I do not understand.
With all that being said, I was super excited for Italy! On day 3 of our trip, we stayed in beautiful Florence for the weekend. It had been raining cats and dogs in Venice, so being welcomed to Florence by sunshine and slightly increased temperatures was our first treat! In this post I will highlight our amazing time and our encounter with racism.
See more about my time in Venice in this post.
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Where to stay
We arrived to Florence on Saturday and spent the weekend. My girls and I stayed at the Hotel Mona Lisa which had a very romantic, rustic feel to it. The dining area looked straight out of an old English movie and the outside garden off to the side of it was picturesque! We moved in-between raindrops as we took turns taking cute photos out there. It was late so we could not capture the full beauty of the garden in my photos but take my word for it, it was a sight to see.
Where to eat
We had dinner at the Ristorante Sant’Ambrogio and it was AMAZING (see below)! We sat in a room towards the back of the restaurant that was a bit secluded, which was perfect. The waiters were 2 handsome young men who kept us entertained. They even recommended some parties and promoters in the area for us to continue the fun night after we left. The hospitality was spot on. The food was so flavorful and delicious, I am still thinking about my dish! Let’s just drool over these images of food for a moment!
Let’s quickly flash forward to the following day where had lunch at quaint restuarant. Looking for delicious pizza as you are on your way to the Piazzale Michelangelo? Well have lunch at the Bastions of St. Nicholas Trattoria and Pizzeria (see below). It would not disappoint! You can catch a glimpse of the oven where the pizza is being baked and see the chefs in action. They also have a an extensive wine collection, displayed so elegantly on the wall, if you are a fan.
If you are not in the mood for pizza or not in that area, try having lunch at Cocina Torcicoda. Their food was delicious and they had a variety of items on the menu.
food pics
Where to party
Let’s bring it back to Saturday evening. After our delicious dinner, we walked back to the hotel to freshen up and change for the night. We’ve established that most of us are what they called “washed up” and cannot party like we used to. Perks of growing older I suppose. But we shoved our internal old ladies into our luggage and made it out to partayyy! We partied the night away at TAB nightclub. The music was a mix of house, top 40, a bit of hiphop and what sounded like the Italian version of top 40. The crowd was mixed with tourists and locals, and there was one side of the building for 16+ and one for 24+. We obviously were mingling with the older crowd. It was almost as if we had a “Hey, I’m not from here!” sign on our heads or something because some of the men kept hounding us to dance, no matter how many times we said no and shifted over. They were persistent to say the least, so occasionally we would relocate to another corner of the party for some much needed space as we continued to dance with each other and celebrate the birthday girl. We danced the night away, then hopped in a cab back to our castle-like accommodations. We were not used people smoking indoors so when we were finally in fresh air we realized how much we stunk of smoke. It was so strong, the only way to shake it is to wash each item when we return home, including the coats we wore that night. But we had tons of fun!
What to see
On Sunday the sun finally came out to play and it was time to see the city. We could not wait to see the museums that travelers often visit but we were limited by time. So we decided to visit the Galleria d’ell Academia that houses the authentic statue of David by Michelangelo (not to be confused with the other replicas found in Florence). We also enjoyed the gallery housing the 19th century plastered cast sculptures by Lorenzo Bartolini and Luigi Pampaloni. They all have descriptions about them and many affluent Europeans in the 19th century would have these made of loved ones, even as they are dying, to have a figure of them on their property.
I am a sucker for a good view, of either landscape or overlooking a city. So if you are into walking up beautiful stairs on a hillside and gazing over at gorgeousness, you should visit Piazzale Michelangelo (where the David statue replica lives). The walk up was not as bad as I thought it would be, especially if you are laughing and having fun on the way up. There is also a decent view as you are going so it keeps you motivated for the final destination. And to make it better, there is also delicious gelato sold at the top!
Above is my friend starting the very long staircase up to our destination! I think she under-estimated this hike.
Shop this look below!
What tourist traps to look out for (and police to avoid!)
After gazing down at the sights of Florence below, we decided to catch the bus back down and get as close to our hotel as we could. We would then pick up our luggage and head back on the train to Venice. Little did we know, that our night just took a turn for the worst! Who knew that our seemingly innocent bus ride would result in us being followed by rude men recording us on their cell phones and rude cops who would outnumber us and herd us like cattle. More details to come…
So there is an area where a few buses would come to pick up passengers but there were no shops that we could see to buy a bus ticket. We asked the other people around (some locals, mostly tourists) where we could buy a ticket. They all said they did not have one either but would buy one on the bus or simply said they don’t know.
We are in the middle of the line to enter the bus going our direction and we see every. single. person. in front of us get on and not show or scan a bus ticket. They all walked straight on and into a seat, so we did the same. The people behind us also just walked on. And off we went.
2 stops later 4 angry men with flashlights and badges start shouting “everyone show me your tickets, show me your tickets”. So my friends and I all look at each other like oh shoot, we don’t have one. The people in the front part of the bus either showed their tickets or stated they did not have one (mostly the latter). The bus then stopped and more than half of the full bus exited because they did not have a ticket. The aggressive men doing the ticket search would not let my friends and I off though. They kept shouting at us that they are calling the cops and we are stealing. So keep trying to explain we were told to just get on, as all the people you just left off the bus did, and we did not know we needed a ticket. We said we have no problem paying on the bus, and they we were prepared to. They continued to shout at us that we did it on purpose and wait for the cops. Meanwhile, all of the White and Asian tourists were allowed off of the bus. Additionally, there were 2 young Asian women right next to us without tickets that got to stay on and was not being harassed with us. Interesting. At this point, we are yelling back saying let us go, you let everyone else off so we are getting off too. We then pushed past them and got of. And of course they followed.
So we walk for what seemed like 1.5 hours, basically in big circles, to try to get them off of our trail or to find a bus ticket to buy. Of course, no tickets were sold in the area. And they refused our money from when we were on the bus. The men proceeded to follow us and harassing us, then recording our faces with their phones and of them yelling at us about calling the cops. We eventually encountered the cops that they called specifically for us and it did not get any better from there. They kept saying if we paid 50euros each they would leave us alone. The bus ticket was only 1.5euro…
There were 6 or 7 cops there, and we attempted to explain the situation. At first they let us tell our long story just to pretended not to speak English. They then said they would use the guys following us as translators and we said we are not comfortable with that. So they call a translator on the phone and we attempted to explain ourselves again, of course being cut off by the cops every so often to say something to our translator and laugh with him. Very professional. At the end, the translator explained that what we did was a horrible offense and they need our passports and home addresses. We had our passports on us but we said we did not. We did not know who they really were and what they would do with them. It was night time, they were extremely rude with us, and we did not want to end up on the news! So we told them we need to get them from our well lit hotel (with witnesses around) and we will provide our information there. They of course did not want to do that but they were willing to drop it if we all paid cash…. Yeah right! So after going back and forth for a bit, they settled for getting our hotel information to call and verify that we were staying there. The hotel verified over the phone. They must have mentioned that one of us were born in Jamaica, because the leader of the police pack kept repeating (Jamaica, Jamaica, Jamaica..) and kept laughing about it. Meanwhile the bus goons, assumably transit security, were having good old laugh and story time with the other cops because they obviously do this often and are some kind of team. We then write down our names, city and country of residence. Then promised us a HEFTY fine in the mail and after almost 2 hours let us go on our way. We then had to rush back to the hotel, grab our belongings and catch the last train out of Florence!
Much later on, one person in our group looked us bus scams in Florence to see if this is a common occurrence. Low and behold, it is something that people have written about in their experience in Florence, specifically on the bus! This is a common target for tourists because many would be so frightened and pay the money they asked for. We unfortunately got caught up in the same scam, except we did not pay one cent.
The long train ride back to Venice was surprisingly upbeat. After a much needed nap, we were able to laugh about the situation and speak on why we KNOW we were targeted. We honestly were not too surprised because we were all warned about possible blatant racism from other black and brown travels who were there before us. It also did not help that we were all dressed nicely in very loud colors making us easy targets to spot. We of course would not let that one ugly incident tarnish our views on Florence and all of the beauty is has to offer.
So lesson number 1: Read up on known tourist traps in the area you are traveling! I sure will from now on.
Lesson 2: Always purchase a bus ticket BEFORE getting on the bus, even when you are told you can buy one on board…
Well I hope you enjoyed my recommendations and personal story! Have you been to Florence? If so, what was your experience like? I would LOVE to know. Leave a comment and say hi 🙂
With love,
CoCo
