Our Room with A View at the Albergo Merlini

Albergo Merlini, via Faenza 56, Firenze, April 24-28

 We arrived in Florence at around 4:45, on Tuesday afternoon…..and made our roundabout way to Hotel Merlini, on via Faenza. We are walking down the street, and on one side, the numbers are going upward from 89-91, so I figured we needed to go one block over, since we were going to number 56. But no. In that quaint Italian way, numbers and streets make no sense to tourists, I’m sure, however much there is a reason which Italians know. However, they can be inscrutable. Also you will sometimes see two numbers in close proximity, while the next number could be half a block away. It is ultimately endearing, and we reached via Faenza 56 (with number 88 two doors down….see??? I don’t get it. Across the road was a completely different decade of numbers…)in good order, bumping our luggage along cobblestoned streets, and reassuring ourselves that we would be very strong when we got home, after hauling our stuff around all day. Fight the pain.

One thing you quickly grow to love about Florence is the pedestrian precedence in traffic. There are many areas which are strictly pedestrian, and even those that aren’t the main roads often have very little traffic so you can walk down them most of the time. You can also pretty much step in front of traffic anytime you want, at the multitude of crosswalks. It takes some courage at first, but pretty soon you become almost blasé about it.

 Hotel Merlini was not located on the ground floor, nor was it on the first floor, nor the second, but yes, on the third, with two flights of stairs between floors. There were no elevators. At this point in time you wish you had a Harry Potter spell that could make a small bag to hold an infinite number of items, and be weightless. However, we persevered and huffed and puffed our way up the stairs. I thought my arms were going to fall off, somehow my bags seemed to weigh twenty pounds more, but there we finally were at the top of the building, and we buzzed at the door for entrance. The woman who let us in had a slightly frazzled look, with frizzy brown curls, and it smelled like we were walking into an ashtray. We later realized that the high prevalence of smokers in Italian meant that lots of smoking in doorways occurred, so it was not uncommon to enter or exit a place with a hint  (or cloud) of cigarette smoke in the air…..You get used to it.

Barb tapping away at the laptop at the open window.

We checked in, and were given Room Key number 2, while being shown to room 8. See how cute that is? The key (old-fashioned, where you wonder if you could open any door with it…) was attached to a very heavy  black ball, which we figured would come in handy if we needed to defend ourselves. You could do some serious damage with that thing.

 Our bedroom was charming and quaint, with three pale yellow walls, and one pale green wall, and two twin beds. The iron bedsteads were painted a cream colour, with the headboards hand-painted in a folk style (kind of like the one I used to play around with).  





There was an antique armoire against one  wall, with that faded, streaky mirror, which was extremely flattering compared to the harsh bathroom light. I almost felt like I had a Boticelli-like complexion…..(I wish). The armoire also had one of those old fashioned keys and I struggled to open it and when I finally did and hung up a few things, hoped that I would be able to unlock it again, since it seemed to not stay closed when you shut it. Anyway, we did….

The Duomo at night

 Two chairs, a desk, and two small endtables (of a perfect size for recharging my laptop), completed the furniture arrangement, and we declared ourselves extremely pleased with the room. Golden bedspreads complemented sheer golden curtains which hung alongside a sheer ruffled curtain, and yes, we even had a view of the Duomo. Just the dome, mind you, but that was more than good enough for us. It was lit up at night, so we always could see it.

 On the second last day of our stay, I went down to the end of the hall which was just around a corner, just to check it out, and realized that this was where breakfast was served, but by then we had already discovered a favourite local coffeeshop, (more on that later), so we never ended up having breakfast there.

 The hotel is located on what is an extremely large building that takes up a very large chunk of the neighbourhood (in fact there were two hotels per floor). Along the hallway, were other antique tables….there was reading material on one (who has time to read in Florence??!! We sure didn’t. I didn’t even have time to blog).  Most days, after about six hours of sleep, we were up around 7:00 and getting ready for the day.

On another table, in case you run out, was a nice full package of toilet paper (with none left by the end of the stay, lol). Why do I notice these things? And at the entrance of the hotel was a large, extremely beautiful mirror, which caught Barb’s eye when she booked our hotel, and which Elinor asked about that night during our Skype session back home.

 As I write this, we have left Firenze, and are riding the train through the sunny Tuscan countryside….we are truly under the Tuscan sun, and have been all week. We never saw a drop of rain, and while the week started off fairly cool, it is now about 30 degrees Celsius.  (I apologize, and again wish that you could all be here with us…..).

 We spent some time after a bit of last-minute shopping in the giant outdoor market that lines many blocks of Florentine streets, chatting with the man who runs the hotel (with I presume his wife, son, and mother…..I wanted to take a picture but forgot  to ask, of this sweet old lady who almost always answered the buzzer (....I'm pretty sure this black-clad nonna  was the one slipping out for smoke breaks too...lol.…)…and with always a smile and a “buon giorno” or “buona sera”. This man was helping us figure out which train we would need to take to get to Amelia, and after we had spent some time talking, him in broken English, us in loud gestural English, he asked Barb if she would write a referral on the hostels.com site through which she had booked the hotel. Certo!!! (Of course!)

At this point,  we are trying to haul all of our luggage, which now included extra carry-on bags (I had to buy one, but Barb had smartly packed into hers inside her large suitcase), and another whole bag full of fragile goods that we didn’t want to cram into our luggage. Mr. Merlini (probably not his name, but we didn’t learn it), called his apparently lazy useless son, who merely helped us out the door with our luggage, but Merlini senior then rolled up his sleeves and carried both of our large suitcases down behind us, three storeys to street level, as we carried our carry-ons and other bits. It was so great. To us these bags weigh a ton, and even though he was sort of a sterotypical short Italian with a few buttons undone on his shirt, he carried the bags down the stairs without a pause, and then of course, gave us the kiss on both cheeks…(which he had already done upstairs, but when opportunity presents itself, why not go for it again).

 He urged us to return to Florence, and while we can’t say for sure when, we know we will be back again. If Rome has style, ancient gods, and the Vatican city, Florence is endlessly magical and charming, a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, and oh, yes, is a cultural and intellectual Italian Mecca…..I will be going on and on about Florence, since just describing our hotel took up a giant blog. I love Florence!!