A NeoFodorite’s Trip Report—Adventures (and Misadventures) in Paris, Venice, Florence, Rome, and Madrid

Very enjoyable! Looking forward to more.

Thanks for sharing, Y.

Looking forward to more. Go Pads!

"The next day we were to find out how “pervious” to jetlag we really were."

Ah, sounds like someone else who gets hit by "day 3" jetlag. I know the feeling.

Looking forward to reading more about your trip.

Anselm

Looking forward to hearing more! How was the Air Comet experience?

Thanks for the props everyone. Here's the next installment:

This may serve as a testimonial to the quality of the Hotel Monge curtains and double paned windows: on Sunday we slept in until 2:30 pm! Imagine our dismay when after stretching luxuriously we checked our watch and discovered the time! We should have already showered, eaten, seen a couple of sights, and eaten again by that time! We had slept for more than 14 hours.

Needless to say, we cut a few corners on our beauty routines and raced over to the Louvre. We had to get our free Sunday’s worth, after all. It was quite a line to get in at the center pyramid. The next day we found out that there are two other entrances on either side of the pyramid toward the mini Arc. Oh well, you win some, you lose some. We waited for about 20 minutes, and then raced around to see the Mona Lisa and Venus De Milo. That’s right folks; we just checked those off of our list, Philistine-style.

Cut us some slack, though—we were on a tight schedule thanks to our beauty sleep. We then hailed a cab and raced over to Sainte-Chapelle. We probably could’ve walked just as fast, but we didn’t really know where we were going. We got there before the 5:30 pm last entrance cut off, but the place was locked up. There was a nice Spaniard who told us that they had been letting people in, but then they had closed the doors when they were full. Undaunted still, we zipped over to Notre Dame to check it out. We got there as mass was starting, so as we quietly admired the splendor, we were serenaded by some lovely a Capella singing. Then we headed back over to Sainte-Chapelle to wait in line for the concert. It was a real trial of faith waiting outside a locked church, especially with others in the line muttering, “I doubt they’re even putting on a concert tonight.” But, when a gentleman ahead of me started talking in French on a walkie talkie marked “S.C. Concerts,” I knew that we were good to go.

The best part about the concert was that you are seated in the chapel before the sun goes down, so you can kill two birds with one stone: drink in the beautiful stained glass and listen to a wonderful concert. I was too cheap to buy the programme (it was in French anyway), but it was a chamber orchestra and choir and I believe they performed several pieces by Mozart. I was amazed by the quality of the music in such a gorgeous setting. My husband on the other hand, took the opportunity to snooze throughout the performance. As if he hadn’t slept enough that day!

We then stopped back at Hotel Monge to ask for a restaurant recommendation. This time we had them make a reservation so we wouldn’t be left out in the cold again. Le Jardin d’Ivy was great. It’s on Rue Mouffetard, and has a charming garden visible from the back windows. We were seated right at the window, so we could enjoy the view of lovely spring flowers. They also have funky sparkly art works all over the walls. It was a nice atmosphere. We got a couple of prix fixe menus. Edgar got the appetizer, main course option, and I got the appetizer, main course, dessert option. If you go here, forego the dessert option, their fruit tart dessert was laughable with canned fruit cocktail. However, the appetizers and main courses were wonderful. I had the duck. It had an intriguingly spiced sauce that made it memorable. My husband liked his food too… I think he got something with scallops.

More later…

Great report-thanks for sharing. I did the sleep til the afternoon by accident thing my first time in Madrid. I remember how bummed I was I had slept 1/2 the day away.

The latest I have ever slept in my life was in Paris! It was New Years' Day. We had been up until 4 am. Our hotel room had little natural light coming in, and it was a dreary day. We made it up to Sacre Coure just in time to see it get dark!

Yeah, it is horrifying to realize you've missed out on the amazing things you were planning to see. But we tried to put it into perspective: we were on vacation, and sleeping in was only natural... Of course we made sure to schedule wake up calls on mornings when we had important reservations from then on!

More, more! It is such fun to read your report.

I did the same thing in London one time, I slept until about 2pm. We woke up when the maid was banging on the door. My internal clock really got mixed up after that.

Great report!!

Great report, so far!
Thank you!

A quick question:
Is the creperie "next to" the Versailles train station easy to find?

Dina

dina4--Yes it is! As a matter of fact I had fortuitously found out about it on a fodors thread that morning before we left! How did I access the internet? By tapping into an unsuspecting person's unpassword-protected wireless internet connection, of course! Here's the info that I gleaned from that thread:

"Author: SusanP
Date: 11/10/2004, 04:56 pm
elaine, We had delicious crepes at La Coiffe Bretonne. It was directly on the street between the palace and the train station. If you're walking from the palace back to the train station, it's on the right-hand side, set back just a little bit from the sidewalk.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Author: elaine
Date: 11/10/2004, 05:16 pm
thanks, here's more info

A la Coiffe Bretonne
10 avenue Charles De Gaulle
(that is indeed the street that leads from the train station to the chateau as
SusanP said)
open daily lunch served 10-4, dinner 6pm to 11pm
prix fixe menu 10-18 euro for lunch or dinner, plus a la carte
tel 01 30 21 78 22"

I highly recommend it--the meal crepes were hearty and the dessert crepes divine.

Thank you!!!

Can't wait to hear more of your adventures!

waiting for your return...

The next installment:

We rolled ourselves out the door of Le Jardin d’Ivy and down the street. My husband insisted on getting a dessert crepe at one of the many little crepe shops on the same street. Then we headed back to our hotel to prepare our luggage for check out the next day. I also used my anonymous friend’s free wireless internet connection to do a little advance preparation for Venice. I found out about the bus from the airport to the vaporetto, and about the 72 hour vaporetto passes, and cut and pasted a bunch of Venice restaurant suggestions into a word document so that we would know where to eat. I also scheduled a wake up call so that we wouldn’t miss our Fat Bike tour of Paris in the morning!

Miraculously our jet lag was gone and we woke up before our wakeup call. We woke up so early in fact, that we had time to checkout, stow our luggage in the Hotel Monge lobby, sit down for breakfast, take a quick jaunt to the Pantheon, get lost in the Jardin du Luxemborg, and take a cab to the Eiffel Tower to meet our bike tour.

Our Fat Tire Bike Tour was fun. It was a sunny day, the tour guide was very informative and friendly, and we got a kick out of seeing all the sights in such an active way. The only caveat is this: every one says that the tour is 4 hours. As far as actual touring time goes it’s probably more like 2 ½. First you have to walk from the Eiffel tower to the tour office where they keep all the bikes which is about 10 minutes away. Then everyone who didn’t reserve in advance has to pay, and everyone has to get fitted for a bike. That’s another 20 minutes or so. Then the tour is about 2 hours, and then you stop in the park next to the Louvre (Jardin des Tuileries) and eat at an overpriced, tourist trap crepe place for a full hour! And the crepes there are horrible compared to the crepes I ate near the Chateau Versailles. My crepe had canned mushrooms in it! I may have been especially aware of time because it was our last day in Paris, but that hour really dragged by. We then concluded the last half hour of the bike tour and turned the bikes in.

My husband and I had planned to head back to Champs Elysees for some more shopping, when this girl who we met on our bike tour invited us to check out Printemps with her. We hopped on the metro and headed over. I was half expecting some sort of cheesy discount emporium, but this was a designer label paradise! I had never seen that many beautiful designer purses in one spot in my life! It was then that my husband pointed to his watch and I realized: we had a plane to catch. Dear, sweet Printemps, I will be back, oh yes, I will be back.

We grabbed our bags from Hotel Monge, hopped on the metro to the bus station and took the Orly Express bus to the airport. I know it may seem silly to put ourselves through all that hassle instead of taking a cab, especially if we can afford the cab, but it’s a matter of pride to me. I like to figure out the public transportation and I also like to save money for future splurges. An unnecessary cab ride represents half of a delicious dinner out, or a cool souvenir…

In the line for our MyAir flight to Venice, we started to get a little nervous about the weight of our carryon luggage. We had brought everything but the kitchen sink after all. But, our fears were unfounded and they didn’t even weigh our bags, let alone charge us extra for them. We checked our two 22 inch rollers, and carried on our back packs. The trip was uneventful and we landed in Venice at 9 pm. After collecting our luggage we headed outside to find the bus. The girl who had sat next to me on the flight happened to be out there, so I asked her which bus would take us to the vaporetto. She pointed it out to me and I asked the bus driver if we paid for our tickets on the bus. He said we had to buy it about 50 meters away, but they were about to leave and this was the last bus of the night. I desperately sprinted to the ticket kiosk and fumbled with my euros, but managed to buy our tickets and race back before he drove off. I think he took pity on me and waited.

When we got to the main vaporetto stop I left my husband with the luggage and went to buy our 72 hour vaporetto tickets. We got on the vaporetto and started the slow haul to the center of Venice. My husband seriously doubted my sanity at that point. He kept saying, “Couldn’t you find something closer? Is it that expensive that we had to get a room this far out in the boonies?” He didn’t understand that the airport was the boonies. We finally got to our stop, rolled our luggage off and followed the hotel’s directions to Locanda Barbarigo.

We were beat after our long day of saying goodbye to Paris, navigating public transportation, and flying. So beat in fact, that when a couple of 40 something Italian men saw me walking toward them (sans DH, when I was buying the vaporetto passes) one of them said, “Ay Amiga!” as if he couldn’t believe any self-respecting woman would leave the house in such a state of disarray. If it had only happened once I would have called it a fluke, but it happened a second time with a different set of middle aged Italian men. I wasn’t prepared for the Italian men to be so picky! I felt that I was entitled to look a little rough around the edges, considering my eventful day, but it did hurt my feelings a little bit. So, I resolved that for the rest of the trip if I saw any Italian men looking a little disheveled I’d say, “Ay amigo!” Oh yeah, and also put a little more time into looking pretty. Those reverse vacuum hair dryers aren’t as effective at taming frizz as our good old’ American hair dryers are.

Anyway, I digress. When we got to the front door of our hotel it had a note on it that said they closed at 8 pm, and we had to walk over to another hotel to check in and get our keys! So, since it was a dark lonely alley way, we went together, over two little bridges and down another alley, with all our luggage, tired and hungry, to get our keys. Then we had to go back down the alley, over two bridges and down to our hotel again, with all our luggage, tired and hungry, and annoyed that they didn’t tell us in the first place that if we came after 8 pm to go straight to the other hotel to check in. Oh, and on the way back to the hotel we saw two rats. And all the restaurants in Venice closed early so it took us about 30 minutes of wandering around to finally find a restaurant to eat in. And that restaurant, “Bacaro Lounge,” had unappetizing food. It was a challenging way to start our visit in Venice. We made some friends in Venice and they had an even worse introduction to Venice: they also arrived at night and got lost for 2 hours while looking for their hotel! Word to the wise: arrive in Venice during daylight.

waiting for more!

I can relate to your looking a bit worse for wear after that long day. We took our three kids to Paris a couple of years ago and took only public transportation. On the way home, by the time we pulled our luggage through the steets to the train, rode the train to the airport, found the checkin, etc. I was frazzled and exhausted; our bags had gained weight. I said "never again." When we arrive in Rome, I am going to spring for a shuttle to our hotel. And although the prices are outragous, I think I'll pay for a water taxi to get us from our Venice hotel to the airport.

great report-will check back for more

missypie--
You were a real trooper to do that with 3 kids! I think you deserve to splurge on a water taxi after your valiant efforts on the last trip.

The time I came closest to losing it on the Paris trip was after we had taken the train from the airport into Paris and were attempting to get to street level. One of the escalators was broken, and my husband just walked up the stairs with his bag...leaving me to help the three kids up the stairs with THEIR bags! That experience (plus breaking the wheels off of one side of my bag on the cobblesones) makes it easier to part with the money for a shuttle.

Of course, when we arrive in Venice by train, I still think we'll take the vaporetto to the Rialto Bridge and HOPEFULLY find our hotel without too much pain and suffering! There is no way to dress well enough to look chic while partipating in a parade of 5 Americans rolling their luggage down the streets of Venice.

I remember I posted before you left that I was afraid your Venice hotel would not have reception by the time you arrived! But I'm glad you got the key anyway. And it is too easy to get a bad meal in Venice (I know it's quite possible to get a good one too, but the bad meals are easiest to find when under stress).

What a great report. Sorry you had so much difficulty upon arrival in Venice. We arrived late and had no problem but then our hotel was just off St. Marks Square and we did take a water taxi which was not expensive at all, this was Sept of 2004.

Looking forward to more on your trip

Love your trip report! Wonderfully entertaining and fun.
More, please!
Paule

Thanks for the continued encouragement, everyone! Here's the next installment:

To wind down after such a trying day, we snuggled up in bed and watched some of the PBS special “Empires—The Medici” and then fell into a deep sleep.

We slept so well that we missed our 10 am breakfast cut off, and 11 am housekeeping cut off (we woke at about 10:30, but couldn’t get out of the room by 11). We were a little miffed at there being a housekeeping cutoff as that had not been advertised.

But, what Locanda Barbarigo lacked in openness after 8 pm and housekeeping after 11 am, they made up for in helpfulness between 8 am and 8 pm. Armed with my list of Fodor’s Europe Forum recommended restaurants, I went downstairs to the front desk and asked the lady to help me find them on a map. She was a young lady, so she was quick on the internet, looking up the restaurants and quickly marking them on a map for me. Since it was already after 11, we headed out into the sunshine and over to a restaurant near the Accademia Bridge called Cantinone Storica. DH had the Seafood Soup and I had the Spaghetti and Shrimp. The shrimp still had the heads on! And we shared a mixed salad. The food was much better than Baccaro.

Satisfied, we wandered over to the Accademia. And what do you know—there was no line and admission was free! We wandered through all the rooms and finished in probably one hour.

Then we headed over to Piazza San Marco on the vaporetto where we saw two of the ugliest famous buildings we’d ever seen in our lives—Saint Mark’s Basilica and the Doge’s Palace. Although there were tons of Italian kids loitering all around the front of the Basilica, there wasn’t actually a line and we walked right in without paying or anything (we did pay a little to go upstairs though). What we were most interested in seeing were the bronze horse statues, as our Fat Tire Bike Tour guide had mentioned that the horses on the Paris obelisk were copies of the originals that the French had stolen from Venice, but had later returned. We like knowing the juicy gossip about museum treasures. But, museums are always sweeping those tawdry details under the carpet.

Lured by the live music from the Piazza cafes, we headed out on the square. My crazy husband bought some birdseed and posed with the pigeons. I took pictures, but kept a wide berth, as I had an emotionally scarring bird poop grenade experience when I was 10. Then we ate a snack at the famous Caffe Florian while we listened to a surprisingly good string quartet. Our guidebook had forewarned us of the music surcharge on the drinks, but still we couldn’t help laughing out loud at the 11 euro music fee! We were glad that we had taken our sweet old time listening to the music and people watching in the spring sunshine.

We did a little souvenir shopping, relaxed at the hotel and then we had dinner at Trattoria Alla Madonna. We panicked when we saw a group of twelve pile in right before us, but it is a large restaurant, so we were seated quickly. Even though there is a lot of seating, most of it was taken. It is a popular restaurant! The food is very simple. The mixed veggies are steamed and not al dente at all, but not disgustingly soft either. We also had the mixed salad, which was a typical Italian mixed salad—fresh mixed greens with carrots and tomatoes. My husband had the lasagna which had peas in it, of all things. He liked it, though I thought it was a little plain. I had the roast chicken which was much too salty and dry. My husband said that as soon as I ordered the chicken he wanted to write on a piece of paper, “Krysti’s not going to like this,” and hide it to show me after I tasted it. I guess I’m pretty predictable. All in all, it seemed like banquet food to me, pretty good quality, but made in too large of quantities to be great. The best part of the night was the dessert—gelato in a shop on the vaporetto stop side of the Rialto Bridge, not the one perpendicular to the bridge (we didn’t try that one) but the one in a street parallel to the bridge. I think this was my favorite gelato shop out of all the ones I went to in Italy.
Of course, it was my first gelato in Italy, and you never forget that first creamy taste! My favorite flavor was melone (cantaloupe).

LoL I did the bird seed thing too first time in Venice and actually bought a pix from a guy with a camera.
Standing by for the rest.

Very enjoyable trip report! Looking forward to more . . .

I have to beg you to cut back on the carry-on luggage. It might be more convienent for you, but it's really not enjoyable for everyone else. Maybe you've never experienced not having enough room for your one crummy little bag because others brought on more than their allowance? I know a lot of people on Fodors like to make the trip with everything in one carry-on, but personally I'm a fan of checking my bag and boarding the plane with one small bag of plane necessities and a change of undies. It's so much more enjoyable for me to not struggle with my baggage. Totally worth the extra time at bagage claim. But that's just me.

“French-looking” (and smelling!) people. Was that really necessary? Would your new friend, Daniel, who treated you with such kindness appreciate hearing that? I could have completely misunderstood though and you really meant they all smelled of Chanel. Which would be cool.

I'm sorry you missed the fountains at Versailles. They are spectacular and nothing at all like Las Vegas. The history of the place just comes alive for a bit when they turn those fountains on. It's one of our favorite memories of France. But different strokes for different folks...

I'll be reading the rest of your report! I hope things got better as the trip went along--it sounds like a lot didn't turn out too well.

I love your trip report...all the details both successes and challenges! It helps me in planning...I've already cut and pasted two hints. Please keep it coming!

Thanks Zydecoqueen! I didn't want to sugar coat any of the details of my trip, so I'm glad that my learning experiences are helping you to plan your trip.

The next morning, with the help of a wake up call, we woke up on time for our breakfast! That’s when my love affair with nutella on packaged toast began. It was the simple Italian breakfast that I expected thanks to everyone’s reports, but the orange juice was good, the coffee made to order, and the yogurt had a good flavor selection. We didn’t see any other guests at the hotel the whole time, so they were either very quiet early risers or we were the only guests.

We decided to take the vaporetto a couple of stops to the Santa Maria della Salute. We took our time exploring the beautiful church. As we were headed back to the vaporetto, I saw signs pointing us to the Peggy Guggenheim museum. We got there just in time to listen to a brief introduction to Peggy Guggenheim’s background by an intern. It was a nice change of pace to look at modern art after all the religious art we’d been staring at the past few days. While we were sitting in the patio overlooking the canal my husband exasperated me by saying he could easily make silly sculptures like the ones we were looking at. Shortly thereafter a retired couple stood by the same sculpture and we overheard the husband saying, “When I worked in the railroad we always had scrap metal just like this—I could’ve made this myself!” His wife and I exchanged knowing glances about our husbands, who could easily copy modern art, but would never bother to dream up their own creations.

We had worked up an appetite trying to figure out all the amazing modern art in the Peggy Guggenheim collection, so we headed over to Acqua Pazza for lunch. I remember someone on Fodor’s saying it was the best pizza in Venice, so we ordered a mixed salad, a pizza with smoked ham, mozzarella and arugula, and some ricotta filled pasta shells with fresh tomato sauce. They gave us some free bruschetta, which was delicious with fresh sweet cherry tomato halves. They also gave us some kind of free fruit wine, but we don’t drink alcohol at all, so I can’t say whether it was good or not. The pizza was very simple with tomatoes as a base, herb greens, mozzarella and the smoked ham. The pasta shells were also very simple, just pasta shells boiled and then filled with ricotta with some plain fresh tomato sauce and fresh basil. Also, they charge a 5 euro/person coperta. I would definitely go again, but I probably would not order the filled pasta, as I only like homemade pasta for filled pasta dishes. The service was wonderful and the food very fresh.

Then we headed over to San Marco and checked out the Palazzo Ducano. When we got there it was about 4:30 and overcast, so we couldn’t see the art on the walls and ceiling that well. It was interesting to check out the prison cells and the bridge of sighs, but we were kind of bored there. Maybe a tour would have made it more interesting.

On our way back to our hotel for some downtime we stopped at an internet café. Edgar had complained about my underwhelming restaurant choices thus far (he was harshing my tour planning gig the whole time we were in Venice. We were in Paris for such a short amount of time, and still could have seen so many amazing things, so he was disappointed by the simple charm of Venice. To him it seemed like a Hollywood movie set, and he was constantly asking me “So how many days are we staying here?....” which made it a little stressful for me to try to keep him happy.) so I looked on Fodor’s for something more exciting for dinner that night. I found a recommendation for Alle Testiere that cross referenced chowhound.com, so I decided this had to be a good one. We went back to the hotel and asked the older lady at the desk to help us, she wasn’t internet savvy like her younger associate, so she couldn’t find it at first, but by searching the phone book using different beginnings (ristorante, etc.) we found it under “trattoria alle testiere.” Phew! She made a reservation for us two hours in advance. It’s good thing that she did, because it is a very small restaurant, and it’s popular. It was wonderful. There were no menus, the waiters just told you the menu of the day. We got a penne pasta with tomatoes and shrimp which was yummy and not too fishy tasting. We also got a gnocchi dish with asparagus, which was amazing with a subtly delicious sauce. I had the seared tuna with a balsamic vinaigrette sauce and Edgar had the monkfish. Edgar’s fish was seasoned very well and much tastier than the monkfish I’d had at Bofinger in Paris. For dessert Edgar had a wonderful chocolate mousse and I had a green apple ice cream dish. Everything was great from start to finish. We also had one coffee and two medium bottles of sparkling water and the total came to 92 euro. They didn’t charge a coperto or servizio. The service was very efficient, and the waiters spoke English. I highly recommend this place for eating in Venice. It is the only place that really stood out. Make sure to get reservations, even if it’s the day of.

I absolutely love this travel log. Your info is great and very amusing. I am so glad you aren't sugar coating it as I have gotten some not so great suggestions from people who I assume might have been doing just that. Where's the report from Madrid? I got to the end of Venice and I couldn't find Madrid.

youngandrestless - I'm thoroughly enjoying your travel tale - keep it up!

Artgirl and dorkforcemom:

*In Eyores Voice*: Thanks for noticin' me.
I'll finish my report, I promise. I just wasn't sure if the Fodor's community was ready for more of my first-trip-to-Europe shenanigans yet.

On our last full day in Venice we overslept our breakfast again. Shucks! When we walked outside around 11 it was raining cats and dogs and freezing. But we were starving, so we headed over to a restaurant recommended on Fodor’s: Casin dei Nobili. We were the first customers there for lunch, but by the time we left 20 more people had trickled in. The waitress didn’t speak English, so we struggled a little. Our Rick Steve’s Italian phrasebook didn’t have a translation for “we need a few more minutes to decide” so under pressure I order some spaghetti with tuna in the Amalfi style. It was very fishy tasting. I like fish, but I don’t like things that are too fishy. So, I didn’t even eat a quarter of my dish. DH ordered the pork tenderloin with bacon and a lovely sauce. He noticed I didn’t like mine (neither did he) so he shared some of his pork with me. What a sweetie! We got a chocolate crepe for dessert which had a very rich sauce. Yum. After that we went back out in the cold miserable day. I was leaning toward going back to the hotel room to watch our PBS Medici Empire DVD, but DH wanted to go to Murano.

We jumped on the vaporetto to the San Marco stop, and almost took the Serenissima tour which was next to the canal at San Marco, but we ran right past it and caught the Murano vaporetto. It was free with our 72 hour pass, after all. We were a little nervous about giving ourselves a self guided tour, but the island is so tiny that it was no sweat. We wandered around, stopped at a café for something hot to drink, browsed in some shops. We walked by the glass museum, but didn’t feel like shelling out for a tour. We even managed to find a free glass making demonstration. It was neat to see how the glass is made. The reason the demonstration is free is because the glass at the demonstration shop is extremely overpriced. For a similar item the price was 4 times as much at the shop where we watched the demonstration. That convinced me to go back to the shop where I’d first seen a really interesting piece for what I now realized was a reasonable price. I applied all my public transportation savings toward a lovely teardrop-shaped, Caledonia style glass. The store owner wrapped it really well, and although it took up ¼ of the room in my 22 inch roller, I was able to squeeze it in. Good thing I brought a folded up duffel bag in my suitcase!

After that it was getting dark, so we headed back to our hotel to relax before dinner. I wanted to go back to Alle Testiere, but my husband wanted to go back to Trattoria Ala Madonna. I’d been calling all the shots thus far, so I let him have his way. It was a very busy night at Ala Madonna and we had not made a reservation, so we had to wait for about 15 minutes to be seated. This restaurant is very popular with large groups of people! We probably saw about 5 groups of eight or more people being seated while we were waiting. We assumed they had reservations. We were seated right next to some friendly British ladies we’d been waiting next to in the foyer, so we continued to chat with them throughout our meal. I ended up liking the food better this time. I think I ordered spaghetti with meat sauce.

We then headed back to our hotel to pack our bags for Florence.

Oh, and I forgot one detail about our last night in Venice. We wanted to take a gondola ride, but it was $150 for a 10 minute ride! We tried to get him down to $60, and we would have spent $80, but he was firm on his price. We walked away to get a gelato and 15 minutes later he was still standing there waiting for a $150 fare. That stubborn guy could've made $80 off of us during that time!