Getting to Florence - a comedy of errors, or, don't pack your Bugaboo

First vacation with FDR involving air travel!

So of course, it was a series mistakes compounded with a few mishaps. We made it to Florence safe and sound but it was a long day. 

Mistake #1 - the 9:25am flight from Gatwick. This means a 6:25am departure from home, which means a 5am alarm. As far as FDR goes, this wasn't much of a problem - he stirred briefly when we changed him and got him into the taxi, but went back to sleep thanks to the motion. It's more punishing on me and Tom since there's less opportunity to nap inflight.

Mistake #2 - packing our stroller in this monstrosity. Believe me when I say that however it looks online, it is about a million times larger in real life. The only positive was that the bag is so big you can fill it with a bunch of the baby's other stuff. The drawback of that, of course, is that you've now packed your stroller.

Mistake #3 - packing our stroller. So now we're carrying/holding a 6 month old for two-ish hours at the airport. Doable, but not super convenient, especially while going through security while he's tired and restless.

Mishap #1 - flying into Pisa rather than Florence. The Florence airport is relatively small and we were told in the process of shutting down, so most flights into the area land in Pisa. Unfortunately, Pisa was experiencing severe wind that day, so after an aborted landing (about 20 feet from the ground, then the the pilot pulled up), we had to land in Genoa and wait on the plane for an hour before we could try Pisa again. Now, everyone told us to have a bottle ready for FDR for landing, to help with the air pressure in the ears. We did. But we used it up on that first landing attempt. So all we had for the other two landings was his pacifier, so as annoying as this was for us adults, poor FDR was really unhappy.

FDR on the tarmac in Genoa, expressing his thoughts on the situation

Mishap #2 - getting from Pisa to Florence. This is actually quite easy on the train. What is less easy is doing that with a baby, a (packed) stroller in a giant case, a duffel bag, a rolling suitcase, and a diaper bag. Fortunately we had the presence of mind to leave the car seat at the left luggage office at Pisa Centrale station because we knew we wouldn't be driving in Florence, so at least we weren't lugging that around.

Final mishap - our hotel in Florence is an 8 minute walk from the train station (Firenze Santa Maria Novella). At least it is without the aforementioned baby, stroller, stroller case, duffel bag, suitcase, and diaper bag. I wish we had a picture but I'm sure we looked like terrible parents, or at least, idiots.

I think we got to the hotel around 6:30pm. This included a few hours in Pisa to see the Leaning Tower (see next post!), but like I said, a long day.