People come to Florence to see the past glories of the Medici family whose DNA now runs in the veins of many European royals. The family produced many popes and married 2 daughters into royalty. We toured their gardens and palaces. Then, The Husband asked me why I planned Florence into the itinerary just to see rich men's houses.
Ok... point taken.
Then, people in Florence were aggressive. There were many leather shops with aggressive touts. When we refused to buy, they got angry! In Gubbio, the same leather jacket they were trying to sell us for 500 euros, retailed for 220 euros. Then, there were so many tourists. One restaurant we went too filled up entirely with PRC tourists. It did not feel Italian at all.
It did not help that our AirBnB in Florence here, was awful. We have always had great experiences in AirBnB but this one was the other extreme.
The place was cold in winter. On the first night, I could literally feel dust mites crawling on my face as I tried to sleep. My face was itchy! The Husband's back exploded into red welts and he itched terribly. The Son sneezed non-stop. One bathroom window could not close and it happened to be the unheated bathroom. Another toilet door could not lock so we had to be careful not to walk in on each other. The listing advertised a washer and there was one but there was no place to dry clothes because the host was so stingy that she bought the tiniest drying rack possible. So, I had to hang my laundry all over my bedroom like a refugee.
The house is 200 years old. The sexy Florentine art deco style furniture you see in the listing is about 100 years old and smelled musty. The whole house smelled musty because it was winter and the host was too stingy to open the windows and doors to air the place. You see, once you let in the cold, you incur more costs in re-heating the home.
The worse thing was that we were forbidden to touch the heater controls. The house was cold but we could not adjust the heaters. The host pointed to some old and tired looking blankets and said that if we were cold, we should use more blankets.
Gee... if I wanted to get warm just using blankets, why not just find a cave somewhere. I don't have to book a house, you know. Luckily, we had had the foresight to bring our own electric blankets and a radiator.
I wondered if the host themselves lived in such squalor or were they just very poor business people who believe that advertising alone will guarantee a good pipeline of customers.
Then hor... Italy has a robust recycling programme. Each house has separate bins for plastics, metals, paper, organic waste. In every other house, proper bin liners are used. This host was so stingy that she used supermarket bags 1/3 the size of the bins. I kept having to pick garbage out from the bins in order to cram into the tiny bags.
Most AirBnB hosts expect that their guests will arrive near nightfall. They are considerate enough to provide coffee, some cake and some jam. This host provided a bottle of tap water and instant coffee powder. Right now, I am sitting in an AirBnB near Orvieto, looking out on a stunning view, with a glass of wine provided by my host here. I am also listening to music wafting out of Bose speakers and my food is in a SMEG fridge. It is a huge contrast from our lodgings in Florence. The irony is that I am now in the middle of nowhere, with wild boars grunting down the hill from our AirBnB. In Florence, I was in one of Italy's largest cities.
Moral: Do NOT look down on kampong living ok.
In Florence, I really felt like a refugee living off the scraps of the stingy host's heat resources and having to use stuff that I would not even dare to donate to charity. It was such a relief to get out of that house and it left all of us with awful memories of Florence.
See lah! This is my retribution for wanting to see a dead rich man's house and wanting to live in a place that looks royal. Royal looking could well mean slum dwelling!
I will never go back to Florence again.
No comments:
Post a Comment