Florence 2003

Florence trip.
Went to Florence in 2003, at the time couldn’t really find suitable accommodation and ended up staying outside in a Camp site near Figline. For some reason I don’t like to just arrive and book at the last minute. Back to the camp site, he accommodation was of the chalet type. It wasn’t ideal and it got very hot at night and opening the windows meant plenty of bugs and bites all night. Initially getting there was a long drawn out affair. We had booked to fly to Pisa airport, then a train to Florence, and another local train to Figline. Following booking instructions there was supposed to be a ‘free’ minibus up to the camp site. However there was no sign of anyone at the station. I rang the site and eventually a minibus arrived to pick us up and a Dutch couple who arrived on the same train. Arriving at the site our taxi driver demanded payment or a tip. Well he had no English but he stuck his hand out, obviously asking for payment. Two euro was given the look of disdain so I upped it to four euro, no response so I decided to offer the international sign of having no more money, which is the two hands held out apart. He then decided to release our bags and then the same tip was asked from the Dutch couple to release their bags.
We did ask when checking in at the site about the free bus service and we were told its only free as in its ‘freely’ available upon request depending if a car or minibus was available or not. The camp also had devised its own system for paying for meals and buying things in the on site shop. You were given a special credit card and you bought credit in advance. Apparently this was to avoid having to carry cash and to prevent thefts etc. We were told you couldn’t use cash on the site. Later it turned out the system was just Italian nonsense, all the shops took cash if you asked. No one wanted to turn down cash, I imagine the camp site got a cut from all the purchases on the credit cards which the shops wanted to avoid?
Most days we did manage to get a free lift down to the train station as most of the staff was much friendlier than the minibus driver and we also availed of cheap coach trips to Siena and San Gimiano. Again going for the cheap coach trip meant the coach invariably had non-working air conditioning. I guess the air conditioning hadn’t worked for years.