The streets of Florence were steaming hot, but they paled in comparison to the heat basking inside our Airbnb. We arrived home last night and thought the place would be cooled down from turning on the AC, but it was hotter than when we had left. The unit was clearly not conditioning our air to do anything but cook us alive. To try to get any amount of sleep, we had to resort to our emergency sleeping-in-the-heat protocol.
Phase 1 started with pounding three large glasses of water. We were going to sweat profusely; there was no way around it. To not wake up with a pounding headache and cottonmouth, we had to get ahead of the dehydration storm. Next, we took showers as cold as our bodies could stand and then got into bed immediately to try to retain a cool shield to the heat. Unfortunately, I was sweating within a matter of minutes, and the frigid feeling of moments earlier was long gone. It was time for Phase 2.
Phase 2 required teamwork. This was not ideal at 1:00 a.m. We were both exhausted and annoyed by the heat, but we had to find a way to fight the temperature together. We grabbed ice cubes from the freezer and took turns giving each other ice cube wipe-downs, gliding the frozen water across our backs to cool off. This seemed to cool us enough for sleep to be in sight. Time for the knockout punch of Phase 3.
Phase 3 was drugs. When in doubt, rely on man-made drugs. Our drug of choice (and only option) was melatonin. We each took two pills and hoped for the best. It worked for Ash; she fell asleep in fifteen minutes. I did not have such luck. It was hours before I tricked my body into not being awake.
Around 9:00 a.m. we exited the boiling room. The fresh air and cloudy sky was as refreshing as a cool shower on sunburned skin. We agreed to play the Google Maps Monument Game. Oh, you’ve never played? Here’s how it works: we opened our map and walked to random monuments that stood out nearby. First was the Piazza Massimo D’Azeglio, followed by Piazza Cesare Beccaria, and lastly the coolest of the three, the Basilica di Santa Croce.
This Basilica di Santa Croce was not as stunningly beautiful as the Duomo, but it held the tombs of Michelangelo, Machiavelli, and Galileo—three of my top five Italians. The other two obviously being Mario and Luigi from Super Mario Bros.
Our next stop was the Uffizi Museum to get tickets to see the statue of David the following morning. This was the “must-see” in Florence, and arguably the most famous sculpture in the world. Ash bought the tickets while I grabbed espresso so we could refuel for the evening. She returned and told me we had a date with David at 8:30 a.m. There’s nothing like massive stone genitals for breakfast.
When Ash was here studying, she’d frequently gone to an amazing overlook of the entire city, and she wanted to take me there. There was no wonder this view was going to be amazing; hiking to the top was grueling. There was a long staircase that looked never-ending from the bottom, and there were vendors selling selfie sticks, stickers, paintings, and sculptures at each platform between flights of stairs. These were smart salesmen; they knew people were going to be making plenty of pit stops.
At the top, we walked along a path that led to a stunning view of Florence. The only problem was everyone seemed to know of this view. Ash commented that almost no one was here when she’d visited four years ago. This was the main difference between Italy and Croatia: Croatia had almost the same amount of beauty with exponentially fewer tourists. Unfortunately, the food didn’t even come close in Croatia. If you want advice on your next trip, I would do both. Go to Italy to eat, then cross the Adriatic for peace in Croatia.
We took pictures (along with literally everyone else) of the beautiful city and sat on the large amphitheater-style steps until the selfie sticks and fellow view-enjoyers became too much to handle. At one point I went to take a picture of Ash, and she was sandwiched between two selfie sticks. The couples responsible for the sticks didn’t even notice her. I snapped the symbolic shot.