Traveler's Tip #436

Those DK Guides look really nice, but the pictures take up too much room - you're much better off with something far less pretty.

Assuming you're not carrying the internet in your hand, that is.

But the internet isn't particularly famous for accuracy, which is what you value above all when traveling. This is what one site - very high on Google -- says about the Florence train station:

"The station itself has many bars and cafes, where you will be able to find the most expensive bottles of soft drinks in Florence. There is an underground shopping gallery in the complex under the station which has a good selection of budget clothes and shoe shops, internet cafes, music and book shops and even a hairdresser. "

There is a McDonald's, but the multitude of bars and cafes must be hiding. There aren't even that many places in the immediate vicinity, unless you count the stands set up to grab the odd Euro off disoriented tourists in for their weekend fix of booze and art, much more the former than the latter. The underground complex is dodgy enough to be listed as a place to avoid in the tourist pubs. You can get a cold beer cheap there, or a haircut, but most of the people walking through are moving at a good Manhattan pace, muttering to themselves that they'll brave the street traffic next time . . .

I don't mean to dump on the train station - well, just a little - but some of the things you read about places on the internet have more fiction in them than my books.

And yes, you are reading this on the internet . . .

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