Bella Vita - Das gute Leben part 7

Well...Sunday came quick! unfortunately we knew this weekend would fly by with our daughter. She traded messages with her fellow "house moms" who were spending the weekend at a cooking class in Florence, cool. The plan was to meet them in Florence for pizza around 1100, so after an early breakfast we bid farewell to Castello di Tornano. Couldn't have picked a better castle for our home base!





The skies reflected our mood, overcast and misty. We didn't want our family weekend to end so we decided to stop in one last village on our way to Florence. Radda is a sleepy little hill top village, or perhaps it was quiet simply because it was so early! We stretched our legs there for an hour and poked our heads in the few shops that were opening. I did find my new favorite t-shirt emblazoned with the iconic Black Rooster! This Chianti Classico symbol apparently is 700-800 years old! Legend has it that friendly neighbors Florence and Siena were in a territorial dispute and decided to have a race to determine the new boundaries. Each chose a great horseman who would take off from each city and wherever they met would set the new boundary. Rule was that the horsemen could not depart his home city until the first rooster crowed in the morning, Siena chose a white rooster that crowed right at sunrise as it normally did and sneaky Florence chose a black rooster that they purposefully forgot to feed, thus the black rooster crowed well before sunrise, true or not, great talel!










We returned the Kia to Avis without a hitch and began our walk to meet the ladies at a bridge on the Arno river, first dropping our backpacks off at the front desk of our river front hotel. The 3 house moms have such a great bond which established when they first traveled to Europe 2 years prior as students. We grabbed pizza and sat on the steps of the Basilica di Santo Spirito, lovely. After lunch the ladies wanted to shop bustling San Lorenzo Market for leather goods, quite the open air market! I was warned twice by local merchants to wear my backpack on my chest to deter a thief, hmmm no issues for us on our entire trip, but one of the house moms had her secondary wallet taken from her purse while sitting at a cafe earlier in the weekend, just a little cash and no ID's or credit cards thankfully!










It was sad to say goodbye. Now it was just the 2 of us left to explore the "Birthplace of the Renaissance". The historic centre of Florence is yet another UNESCO site! We returned to the Piazza del Duomo to see it in the daylight this time, outstanding!








After walking around the town centre we headed back to the Hotel Bretagna to check in. The 15th century hotel sits right on the Arno river near Uffizzi and just steps away from Ponte Vecchio. The hotel offers grande suites, however we opted for a smaller room with a BIG VIEW! Their "economy room" really wasn't that small and it was clean, comfortable and like I said what a view!










After settling in and freshening up we hit the streets once again. We crossed over Ponte Vecchio which dates back to the 900's. It was the only bridge crossing the Arno river during WWII and thankfully it was not destroyed. There are wonderful shops on the old bridge and we grabbed some tasty gelato for our stroll, limone for me cioccolato for her. After meandering through the side streets on the south side of the river around the Palazzo Pitti we decided to find a drink with a sunset view. Westin Excelsior's roof top bar will do!








After Donna finished off her Mon Cheri! (hot chocolate with chocolate calda, panna cherry liquor and fresh cream) and my Birra Moretti we were in search of good food. Our hotel recommended Ristorante Parione. I'm glad we found this restaurant one block from the hotel, outstanding! I had the perfect Osso Bucco and she had a wonderful fish dish. Portions were large so we unfortunately skipped their tempting desserts. We corked the remaining TorCalvano Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and mozied back to our quiet room.










Sitting in our cozy window seat enjoying the nighttime scenery we started planning our next destination. We were all over the place with ideas...Pisa? Verona? Lake Garda? Cinque Terra? Venice? the nice thing about traveling here is the incredibly efficient train transportation. Somehow we came to the decision to head for Sirmione on a little peninsula on Lake Garda. We still had castle on the brain and Sirmione has its own 13th century Scaliger Castle aka the "Sinking Castle", decision made, cool!










P.S....don't let first impressions close your mind, we fell in love with Florence!
To be continued...ciao!

Outstanding pics and report!

Thanks again! Sitting in a cabin in the frozen GW Forest this morning without my pics handy, so part 8 coming in a couple days, cheers!

Rick...such a fantastic report! Glad you got the photo issue figured out and working so well.
Keep the stories and pix coming.
JPH

Thanks JP!