Friday, 1 January

New Year’s Day

Rome to Florence

Looking back at the past year, officially and privately speaking, not everything has gone well. My personal sufferings have been particularly numerous. I only hope that my fortunes will turn for the better this year.

I woke up at half past seven. But our fellows were not yet ready. We ate breakfast at ten and did not depart from the Chinese Embassy until eleven. Xie Baoqiao and Sun Fo, as well as his wife, still took the car of the Embassy, while Zhang Zenghan(張增瀚) was in different car with Zhongxiong. My car moved along the central route. In the first hundred kilometers the road was flat and straightforward, but when we were about to reach Siena, and after we passed through it, the roads were winding, steep and rugged, and it was sparsely-populated along the way.

At three forty-five we reached Siena. We had lunch at Il Mangia, Via Dei Pescioni 2. Historically speaking this city was quite important; it contended with Florence once. The school of painting here was also quite important. Raphael belonged to this school for fifty per cent. It was a pity that the time for us was limited and that we could not stop here and travel.

We continued our journey at five, and arrived at Florence around half past seven. We stayed at Hotel Anglo-Americano & Regina, Via Garibaldi 9. I stayed in Room number 42. My quarters had a bathroom and a large sitting room, as well as one further room. The charge for three of us was 7000 Lira, which was rather reasonable. We had dinner at da Zi Rosa dei Rossi. The food was good and not expensive. Mrs. Sun intended to go to the dancing hall after dinner. I objected, saying that people here were conservative. The various performances here would be absolutely worse than those of Paris. There was no need for us to travel from afar to watch some boring nightclubs. What was famous here was opera, therefore I suggested watching opera tomorrow evening. She advocated buying second-class tickets, but Xie Baoqiao said we needed not to do so and that he would pay for all of us.