Howdy!!

Howdy!

Well, Angelica is here caring for Chris and Elise has left to play bridge. I am chillin so that frees me up to post to our blog. So here goes, enjoy!

8 Oct 12

We woke up at 11:30am, can you believe that? However we didn't get much sleep until around 1:00am in the morning. There was this group of guys across the street drinking beer and talking loud. Italians do talk very loud, don't you know? So that kept us awake but it was sort of entertaining to say the least.

We ate a light breakfast that was provided by our host Fernanda.  Elise had Mueseli and fruit and I had sweet bread with coffee. Elise had coffee too, and the coffee is  strong and it opened our eyes wide, so we were ready to start the day.

We decided to go for a walk and checkout the sites. We did not return to our room until 5:30pm. We were out for a long time and a long,long walk. We loved every step we took.

First we went to the Duomo but we did not go inside today. Crowds were everywhere and the lines were very long. We took a break for some gelato. I have to tell you it was fantastic. We walked to the train station to look around and it is a very busy place.

We stopped at a tourist info spot and we purchased two Firenze Cards for 50 euros apiece. These cards allowed us enter any museum of ride the bus for a 72 hour period. The cards prevented us from having to stand in line to get tickets for the museums. All we had to do was to swipe our cards and we gained entry to the museums that we wanted to see. A very good deal!

We went to the Piazza Marie Novella and then we went and had a beer at a place called San Carlos. Delicioso! We just walked around to get a feel of Florence and to plan how we were going to pursue or daily ventures.

We also bought an international phone card at the train station so we could call home to see how things were going with Chris and the caregivers. We got back to the room at 5:30pm and we decided that it was time for some dinner (Ho Fame').

There is a trattoria right below us called " Trattoria il Contadina". We ordered some Chianti of course, you cannot visit the Tuscany area without having some Chianti. It was heavenly!

We both had spaghetti with ham for our first course. For our second course Elise had chicken and I had a pork cutlet. Elise also had a salad. The bread was to die for. Elise is off of her gluten-free diet on this trip and she is enjoying pasta, breads, beer etc. I also shared my fries with Elise. They were thick cut and piping hot, they were so good. I want some of them right now, smile!

For dessert we had "Limoncella and a lemon torte that would make you want to fight if someone tried to take it from you. Oh yeah the pasta was homemade, we would have a hard time trying find a place here in the Old Pueblo that makes it's own pasta fresh like this. They do though at Mama Louisa's here in Tucson. I may have to give them a call and place a to-go order shortly.

We returned to our room and we relaxed and people watched out of our window. We each read a book on our Kindles and them we called it a night. A good day in Italia.

Elise relaxing in our room.

Our hostess Fernanda with Elise at the airport.

View out of our window across the street.

View out of our window down the street.

Elise at the entrance to our B&B.

Me standing right outside of our B&B.