I woke up early today, so dashed off a few
more photos to the blog, and we got on the
road heading north - to Florence!
We passed through Umbria on the way up,
and it looks a lot like the Medford area -
plenty of old volcanic hills with ancient
towns perched on top. Then we passed into
Tuscany and it's all nice vineyards and
olive groves - and quite hilly.
Beautiful country.
We stopped for a bio break along the way
and the shop had cool italian license
plates - except instead of "Dave" and
"Susan" they said "Enzo" and "Giulia" - so
I bought one that says "Giulia" for my Alfa.
And I bought an 8C Competizione, but sadly,
only in 1/18 scale.
We pulled off again for lunch at an Autoexpress
- one of those rest stop places that spans the
freeway like a bridge. This is the Italian
equivalent of a truck stop with a Dennys - and
indeed there was a Burger King in the facility.
But I didn't come halfway around the world to
eat a frickin' Whopper, so Kate and I went to
the Ciao! restaurant in the skybridge. Ciao!
is like Dennys over here.
And yet, we had a couple helpings of the
Risotto with black olive paste and artichokes,
and for E4,30 apiece, it was as good as *any*
Risotto I've had in the nicest Italian restaurants
in Portland. And for another E3, I had a tennis
ball-sized hunk of fresh bufalo mozzarella,
straight out of the juice. So, yeah, it's true,
these people really do eat better than we do.
Then we got to Florence and walked our feet off.
We saw all the major piazzas and went in the Duomo.
We didn't go in the Uffizi gallery, which bums me
out, because tomorrow we're going to Pisa so we
won't get into the U this trip. But we had some
gelato and sweated our way through another day.
Dinner was Pesto on rigatoni and then a chicken
cacciatore with a spicy spinach side. Dessert
was a lovely tira misu.
Today happens to be the Feast of St. John the
Baptist, who is the patron saint of Florence.
So they had a big soccer match, people getting
all crazy all over town, and then a fireworks
show in the evening. We sat out on the roof
of our hotel and watched. It's absolutely
magical to watch the fireworks and then
look over and see the cathedral dome.
Kate is enthused about going to Pisa, and
asked me to come along. I didn't plan to
go, but she asked so I'm going. It's also
great to spend the time with her. I bought
her a little fan in the main square of Florence today.
So, next post will surely include about
a million photos of various members of
our tour group holding up the leaning
tower, so be prepared.
No comments:
Post a Comment