pretzlaff

A couple of logistical notes regarding transport and food.

The shuttle does now, indeed, go to the square to the side of the main train station. It is now, tho, a full size white bus with a couple of small “Hilton” printed signs in the windows. It is easy to miss among all the tour busses there. It is not the little 23 pax bus from before.

While it does come and go, it is about every 1.5 hours with a big break inthe middle of the day. It is not convenient.

On my prior visit, I noted buses parked on the road in front of the mall next door. These go every 13 minutes or so to the tram line that runs every 6 minutes or so. We took this approach about six times.

From the train station, get on T1 heading south/ west. The tram stops on both sides of the train station. Go about 7 stops to “Federiga”. Cross the street to the right and get on bus 77. In about 5 minutes, it stops in front of the mall next to the Hilton.

To go into the city, get on bus 78 in the opposite direction, 5 minutes to Foggini Street where the Federiga tram stop is in the center of the road.

This worked out far better than walking past the train station and waiting too much time for the Hilton bus. ...or spending 25euro for a cab into town. There seems to be a 6 euro dispatch fee to the hotel.

The hotel is not close to much. Actually, this is probably good given the chaos that is Florence. Eating is an issue. Next door is a mall with three places to eat. Old Wild West is a Texas themed burger/ meat place. It is open for lunch until 3pm, then opens for dinner at 7pm. The food is only adequate. The Benoit amber beer, tho, is very good. It does not actually serve steak, but cut up tough meat.

There is a Mr Wok and Grill that is open the same hours. It is very bad. Everything is deep fried frozen fish-like stuff that is not what it appears to be. There are also raw seafoods that you put on a plate and they then grill for you. These are all low end cuts, and they add over-powering seasonings. Horrid.

The last place is RioGrande which appears to have changed from a lunch and dinner Tex-Mex place to a dinner only Brazilian steakhouse. This place is wonderful! There are the usual salad and potato type things. Then you can either go up to the grill to get the many different meats, or you can put up a flag and they will bring the big skewers to you. Truly perfectly done meats. The beef brisket is the best that I have ever had....and I lived in Texas for a few years.

Again, the Florence Hilton has challenges but is priced right. Using the bus/tram and eating dinner at the Rio Grande make it more useful.