Firenze vs. Florence
 

Hey there! I am looking at the website for Trenitalia and wanting to travel from Florence to Rome.

I believe the train station I need is SMN.

My question what is the difference between Firenze vs. Florence?

And is there only one train station in Rome?

thank you!

8-)

Florence is the English translation of the Italian city of Firenze.

Hi cw,

>what is the difference between Firenze vs. Florence?

Firenze is a city in Italy.

Florence is a city in Alabama.

Yes, you want the Santa Maria Novella (SMN) station.

((I))

"Florence is a city in Alabama."

She was also one hell of a nurse.

((H))

cwozo99

Florence is the English name for firenze, in Italian, just like Rome, in Italian, is roma.

Yes there is more than one train station in Rome. If you are travelling from firenze to roma, you will arrive in Termini station, the main station. The Tiburtina is the other station which serves some out-lying towns. It is also next to the bus station.

Florence is also a prison in Colorado, USA.

If you are on the English pages of the websites when searching for trains, the English translations should work but don't always. Use the Italian original names and spellings to avoid hassles. Milano for Milan, Torino for Turin, Venezia for Venice, etc.

Genoa (Italian) is Genua in German and Genova in English, Gènes in French...

Geneva is English for Genève (French), Genf (German), Ginebra (Span.), Ginevra (Italian)...

With cities like Munich the plot thickens: Munich in English, München in German, Monaco in Italian (the other Monaco is called Monaco-Monte Carlo), Münich in French.

Nürnberg (German) is Nuremberg in English and in French, Neurenberg in Dutch...

Switzerland (English) is Schweiz in German, Suisse in French, Svizzera in Italian, Zwitserland in Dutch, Suiza in Spanish...

Variety is the spice of life.

"Genoa (Italian) is Genua in German and Genova in English"

I think you've switched Italian and English there.

'Milano for Milan'

The famous football club AC is actually called AC Milan (with accent on the first syllable) because it was originally formed by English expats from Nottingham in 1899 as a cricket club!

'Genova for Genoa'

Another famous football club Genoa CFC has retained its original English name of the city, with CFC standing for Cricket and Football Club.

"Author: jahoulih
Date: 02/08/2009, 05:52 pm
"Genoa (Italian) is Genua in German and Genova in English"

I think you've switched Italian and English there."

Yep, and thanks, somebody is paying attention!

We actually were stopped by some people in a rest stop on the highway between Salzburg and Vienna. They were positive they were lost since all the signs said Wien - and they asked us where they had gone off course.

If you're going to europe you should really learn the local names of the places you;re going.

I have an Aunt Florrie.

<Florence is also a prison in Colorado, USA.>

Arizona, actually.

"...Arizona, actually'''
Not "actually" but "as well as".
The United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX) is a supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, USA. It is unofficially known as ADX Florence, Florence ADMAX, Supermax, or The Alcatraz of the Rockies.[1] It is operated by the federal government and is part of the Florence Federal Correctional Complex (FCC). ADX houses the prisoners who are deemed the most dangerous and in need of the tightest control.
Home of the Unabomber Kaczynski, Blind Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and Ramzi Yousef (1993 World Trade Center bombings), Terry Nichols (OK bombing conspirator), and on and on.

With all these Florence prisons all over the place, is there one left for Firenze?

Yes indeed there are prisons in Florence, Italy. I know as good friends that live there spent some time driving me around the city to show me..why they thought that would be a great sightseeing tour I have no idea but it was interesting. They also told me that non EU citizens are seperated from the EU citizens when in prison. Was that a warning I wondered, lol.

Ira - thank you! That was funny! :) Definately not going to Alabama!

Thanks for the insight - as you can see I will be fumbling through the language on our trip!

8-)

Sure, there are multiple train stations in Rome, as has been pointed out.

Note too, though, that there are 2 stations in Florence: SMN (S.ta Maria Novella) and the suburban Campo Marzio.

You definitely do not want to descend at the latter when heading to the former.

BTW; Since the enonymous nurse was mentioned: Florence N WAS named for the city of Florence by her rich parents, who were travelling in Italy and fell in love with the place.

No woman was ever called Florence before -- thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, were named Florence thereafter.

Sorry: eponymous

FN was actually born in the city of Florence, at her parents' rented villa called Villa Colombaia, now a Catholic girls school.

And if you read Chinese, you'll see two different names for the city: 佛羅倫斯/佛罗伦斯 that's translated from the English name, and 翡冷翠 from Italian.

hi cwojo,

and the local calcio team [soccer = calcio in italian] in firenze, is [wait for it....] Fiorentina!

regards, ann

I asked for a ticket to Florence at the train station in Milan and was told that there was no such station in Italy. However I remembered the Italian name Firenze. I should not have bothered-I was pickpocketed at the Firenze station.I was pickpocketed in Prague in a train station too and had to put up with an attempted pickpocketing episode in Malaga in Spain.Take care!

Sounds like you need to polish up your "someone is stalking me" antennae.

"... Note too, though, that there are 2 stations in Florence: SMN (S.ta Maria Novella) and the suburban Campo Marzio. ..."

Close. It's three stations:

SMN Santa Maria Novella (named after the adjacent church which is in turn named after guess who) is the principal station,

Firenze Rifredi is near a hospital and a public university

Firenze Campo di Marte is on the other side of the historic center from SMN - quite handy for many locations close to and in the center and beyond, and well served by buses 12 (northbound) and 13 (southbound).

If you're a train buff and fluent in Italian, here's more:

http://www.firenze-online.com/traspo...ie-firenze.php

It does get complicated if you don't know the local names. I have always rather disliked the use of "Roma" "Napoli" Firenze" "Milano" "Venezia" used on this board by people posting in English. It seems a little pretentious .

Having said that, if giving directions then I now use these Italian names having experienced people on Pisa airport railway station looking in vain for trains to Florence and wondering why they couldn't find "Fire enz" on their maps.

When you get to Firenzi tell them you want to buy a ticket for Pariggi and watch what happens..
but make sure you get a transfer to the Refredi station in Firenzi

pretentious - moi?

Probably the oddest 'translation' of a town name - Leghorn for Livorno.

This thread is screamingly funny... :)

On the other side, we in Italy generally call the american cities with their original american name.
If sometimes it could happens to see an Italian saying "Chicago" raising a smile, this is because in our language it sounds funny (= "sh..ting here").

They're not translations. Words like Leghorn are the name people in one language use - or used at one point in time - to describe a city that's better known as something else.

There's all sorts of reasons. Pressburg was the standard name among all language groups in the area for the city Slovak nationalists rebranded Bratislava. Mons and Bergen are just the same idea (mountain) in French and Flemish. Aken/Aachen/Aix are just how Aquae Grani morphs into the three languages that are almost interchangeably used in that part of Holland/Germany/Belgium.

I'd argue the oddest example is Mumbai. A hokey pseudo-Hindi translation of the anglicised version of Bombay's original name (the Portuguese Bom Bahia: the city didn't exist till Europeans invented it). Candy (the 19th century English for Heraklion) and Christiania (ditto Oslo) were esssentially the names used locally for centuries: as with Constantinople, our grandfathers didn't see the point of changing how they described a city because of some foreigner's politics.

The fad of using locals' names is actually quite recent, and mainly limited to English speakers. Medieval Italians referred to places as unlikely as Bincestro (Winchester) Contisgualdo or Chondisgualdo (the Cotswolds, which the medieval Flemish called Colswout), Boriforte (Burford) and Norleccio (Northleach). No modern Italian refers to Wales vas anything other than Galles: every Greek lecturing us on why we should give some damnfool name to Athens calls my capital city Lodino.

....I'd argue the oddest example is Mumbai...

I was amused that when locals were interviewed after the bombings, everyone seemed to be calling it Bombay

They still call it Bombay in French. (And they still say Pékin, too)

Best way to get from Luik to Liège via Lüttich, anyone?

"Best way to get from Luik to Liège via Lüttich, anyone"

By going round in circles, of course

In everyday conversation with compatriots it may indeed be a little pretentious for an Englishman or American to always use the local name of a town, but since this is a travel forum, people need to get used to the local language - if only for their travel purposes. If the OP had met a bit more "pretentious" people, he would have known that Florence and Firenze designate the same place.

If you travel to more than one country, you may even start to hate the custom of most languages to come up with their individual version of a city's name, e.g. when you plan to take the train from Florence to Munich, or drive from Venice to Prague via Vienna.

Also odd that even the most language-challenged Anglo seems to have no problems with San Francisco or Las Vegas.

Hi CB,

>odd that even the most language-challenged Anglo seems to have no problems with San Francisco or Las Vegas.<

But we can't agree on how to pronounce
New Orleans, LA
Cairo, IL
Nevada
Colorado

((I))

ira,

can't we? just how do you pronounce "cairo"? is Cairo, Il pronounced differently to Cairo, Egypt?

is this a case of you say tomato, we say tomato? [doesn't really work in print but you get the idea.]

regards, ann

I don't understand Cowboy's remark that 'even the most language-challenged Anglo seems to have no problems with San Francisco or Las Vegas'. Why would anyone have a problem with those names? So far as I am aware those names are written the same in every European language. I could understand if he were talking about New York, which is Nueva York in Spanish and Nuova York in Italian. The only person who seemed to have a problem with Las Vegas was Elvis Presley, who sang "Hey, Los Vegas," at least, that's how it sounded to me.

bert, we meet again.

i never understood elvis's pronunciation of Los Vegas either.

regards, ann

Cairo, IL: KAY-ro
Peru, IN: PEE-ru
Versailles, PA: Ver-SAILS

and so forth