On Tuesday, my friend Monet and I travelled to Florence. Andrew and Patrizia, as a gift to me, bought my train ticket. It was one of those new fast trains! So instead of taking 4 hours to get there, it took us a little over an hour! What a blessing. Andrew found me a cheap, but clean hotel for us to stay in. It was right in the center of Florence. We got there and found a tourist information center close to the train station to get a map. Neither one of us knew where or how to get to the hotel. All we had was an address haha. At this point, I knew I would have slept outside if Monet was not with me. I would have not known there were tourist information places. Much to my surprise, I can read maps. Pretty well I might add. Another reason I would not have made it without Monet, the hotel looked like any other door to an apartment or something. The only way you knew it was the hotel was to look at the name on the buzzer thing! Ok, I will admit, I am the naive American who expected an American hotel. Anyway, we got buzzed in and she showed us to our room. I took a picture, just for you guys.
I felt like I was moving into my dorm at college. Oh and Monet's bed was behind the door!
I had booked us a Wine and Cheese tasting for that evening, so pretty much as soon as we got to the hotel, we decided to go walk toward the wine bar and do some sight seeing.
One of the many bridges crossing the river. Actually just on the other side of this bridge is the best gelato you will EVER have in Italy. Just sayin.
These beautiful statues welcomed you onto the bridge and then there were ones on the other side too.
We finally made it to the wine bar but we were early so we window shopped in the cute little shops around. Finally it was time to go taste some wine! When we got there we were the first of the group. So they sat us down and gave us some wine while we waited! It was some bubbly white wine that was so good! They guy told us that there were 6 of us for the evening. The next couple that came in where from Japan...lets just say, they about spoke as much English as I did Italian. (The wine tour was in English) So that was pretty funny watching this guy try and get an e-mail address from them. He ended up giving up haha. The cheese he brought us was all sheep cheese and it was SO good! The first 3 wines we tasted were white. He told us about the distributor, where the vineyard was located, and how many bottles were produced. You know a good distributor by how many bottles he produces. The smaller the better. One of the wines we had, the wine maker only produced 2000 bottles and thisparticular wine bar bought 1500 each year. That wine was REALLY good! The guy wasn't too fond of white wine so he gave us those first and didn't drink with us haha. But when we got to the reds, you could really tell he loved what he did and really loved the making of wine. He told us about this one distributor who was 89 and still making wine. His hired help would pick only the best grapes and then dump it out in front of him on a table. Then he would weed through and find the best of the best. Ends up he dumps 60% of the grapes and only thinks about 40% of the grapes they bring him is up to par. This guy really loves what he does! Zeno (the wine guide) said that this guy could smell a wine, and tell you what trees and flowers were growing around the vineyard! Now that is talent! The last wine we tasted, he took us down to drink in the cellar.
A couple from the UK took this for us!
After the wine tour we went walking to find a restaurant to eat at. We had our handy dandy Rick Steve's book, but with it being August and that is when EVERYBODY takes their holiday, all the restaurants we wanted were closed. But we did end up finding a wonderful place to eat. I had lasagna...which I love! Stouffers move over.
After dinner we went back to the hotel to ask the hotel lady if she knew anything to do at night. She didn't have anything to tell us so we just went walking. More than once we heard, "Ciao, bella". As we were walking, we heard music. So we ended up in front of the Uffizi museum and there was a guy with an amp and his acoustic guitar just singing! We sat and listened to him until 11:30. It was so fun! We were exhausted by that time so we headed back to the hotel.
Wednesday morning we got up, got an AMAZING pastry and coffee and then went and saw Michaelangleo's David!!!!! I couldn't take pictures but it was ABSOLUTELY beautiful!!! After that we grabbed lunch and headed to the train station. It was a really fast trip but TOTALLY worth it! Florence was probably my favorite place in Italy. It was small enough that you were not overwhelmed to walk everywhere yet there was a TON of things to see.
So...if any of you plan on traveling to Italy, take me because I can do the metro and the train systems like a pro!
Today is my last full day here. Last night we went and ate at a local chinese restaurant, then went for a walk in a nearby town. I got all my clothes washed and the apartment cleaned. I am going to do a packing dry run to make sure everything fits, watch some American TV streaming through the internet. I don't know what I would have done without internet this whole time! I am so very blessed to have had this experience. Thank you everybody for all your prayers and support. I wouldn't have made it without every single one of you. Tomorrow I will be getting up at 2:30am Italy time, 7:30pm Saturday your time, my plane leaves at 6:30am Sunday Italy time, 11:30pm Saturday your time. I will be stopping in Frankfurt for 4 hours and Washington DC for 3 hours then on home to Bush International. I should be in at 8:35 pm Sunday night!!! That is over 24 hours of traveling! Pray for a better plane than last time, and strength and alertness for me.
Pretty sure this is my last blog. Not sure you all what to know about my times in Houston haha. I would have to change the name to "When in Houston". Thats boring.
Thank you again for everything! I have felt so loved through all your comments. I love you all very much!
Love you-
Kellie
1 comment:
Oh oh what site have you been using to watch American TV?? I haven't been able to find one yet. :(
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