Sunset over Florence

A view of our last sunset over the Florence skyline from our hotel. It is bittersweet. It's time for our adventure to end now. It was amazing and wonderful. What a way to celebrate our anniversary and my 50th Birthday! And now it is time for us to head home. We made our way to the tiny Florence airport on a quiet taxi ride in the morning. We tried to check in 3 hours before our flight like good travelers. They would not check us in and said we were too early! They went for their coffee break and told us to wait another hour. What else to do but have another cappuccino...the last one in Italy overlooking the hills and the airport.
Ciao Italy!

Three plane rides later... and slogging through Canadian customs like a Disneyland queue, which made us almost miss our plane to the U.S., was probably the worst part of the trip. We were like those funny commercials, literally running to our gate and they were on the phone saying, "The Bergers are here, put their bags back on the plane." Have you ever been the LAST people to board a plane??
Ah...terra firma...HOME at last! Never have I been so glad to see my Space Needle and Mt. Rainier as we flew in over the beautiful waterways of the Pacific Northwest. There's no place like home.

Museum Day in Florence

So Arne was not able to join me for this breakfast. The coolest part was the cappuccino machine!

But I snuck him some juice and toast for later and asked the concierge where to get some sports drink like Gatorade. They told me to ask a street vendor and I found some Powerade.

Then after making sure he was ok, I sadly left him at the hotel. I had my reserved tickets for the Uffizi Gallery to get in line for. I got in the ticket holder line, then got in the entrance line. Both long lines even with my reservations. I chatted with Americans in line. There I saw all the famous paintings using my Rick Steves guide on my ipod. I felt like such a tourist! Then I got some photos of the Ponte de Vecchio bridge from inside the gallery.

Some views taken from the museum cafe, where I bought a panini to go (The first of 3 for the day!)

Off I went to go walk across the Ponte de Vecchio Bridge, just to say I walked it! Nothing worthwhile to buy there. Just crowds! Some more bridge views.

Back to the hotel to check on Arne and regroup before heading out for my next site, The Accademia to see the David. This was hard to see without having Arne with me. :(
I got a bit lost on the way and kept checking my map. I turned on this one street:

 It didn't look like much, and I was concerned about being lost. I turned and looked at the store next to me. To my surprise, it was Campolmi Roberto Filati yarn shop! How comforting to find this yarn shop by accident, though I had looked for it online prior to our trip! Nothing to make my heart happier and more at home, than a wall full of yarn! Of course I had to go right in!

I found 3 skeins of merino sport weight in 3 different colors for 2 euros each in a hurry!

Then I asked for directions to the Accademia! I was not too far off! I found the street, which looked like just an every day street with alot of people on it, which ended up being the Accademia. I asked around to see which line to get in. After making it in, with my yarn bag and through security, I got my ipod ready again and did the Rick Steves thing through the museum. I found out later I was not supposed to take this shot here:

I was really only supposed to be able to take this shot here at the cafe, of the ugly David:

After leaving I needed another GROM's gelato ....

And to set my bag up on the counter to admire my purchase and muse over my stumbling upon the yarn shop...

I needed a cappuccino too and took it at the counter standing up, like a true Italian. Though I had to ask when to pay, which is after you finish it. And of course another panini to go...

Back at the hotel I set up this artsy shot with my newfound yarn purchase.

Later that evening, when I went out, yet again to get my third panini of the day, this time for dinner,(just couldn't bear going to eat out again without Arne),I succumbed to the street vendor's wares and got a scarf finally.

Thankfully, Arne is better and will make our flight tomorrow. And now, we put in the ear plugs for our night long concert in the piazza. I looked at this window alot and quietly "willed" them to stop singing a few times. Then I gave up when they started singing "Happy Birthday" in English to the guests below and pretended they were singing to me. "Happy Birthday, dear Jeannine"....:

Goodnight, Florence!

To Florence

We made our way rolling our bags to the Lucca train station. While there, I was stalked by "would be" pickpockets which was really creepy and we got away from them.
On the train we found our seats were taken by an elderly couple. Arrgh! Not willing to boot them out of our seats, we got seats by the door, when some other guys who didn't have reserved seats moved and sat out in the hallway.
Made it to Florence! We rolled our suitcases to the Hotel Pendini using Arne's amazing Gps. Checked in to our great room!

 Our amazing suite overlooking the piazza.

Hotel Pendini is on the huge piazza Dell Republica. It was quite the center of activity. We were up on the 4th floor.
Sights and sounds of our view down to the square:

 

 

 

 

We got lunch at a pizza place, then walked around and found the Duomo area.Wow! Just a few blocks away!

 

The Baptistry doors!

 

 After coming back for shower and anp, we went back to Duomo to climb the Campanille tower, 440 steps!! Great view of the Duomo and Florence!

 

 Hey, there's our hotel!

 

 

Arne thought these little Davids were funny in the gift shop!

Pausing with my expensive iced coffee freddo.

Guess that wasn't enough, we still had to find the GROM gelato!

 

 

I think we ate there twice today....

 

We went down to Piazza Signoria and sat for awhile looking at the sculptures and listening to the live music.

 

I got some video of the music so you can get a feel for how it was here:

 

 

 

Then we headed down for a look at the Ponte de Vecchio Bridge. Here's the not as pretty side:

Here's the more photographed side:

 

We ate tonight at Robiglio a block away. I had bruschetta, carbonara. Arne had truffled ravioli. We hit the wall foodwise and couldn't finish and it was really hot inside. But a beautiful dinner just the same.

 

 Then Arne got food poisoning from something probably that he ate yesterday. It was a long night.

And the piazza had live music until 1:00 am. No sleep for us! We listened to loud jazz and Frank Sinatra type lounge music all night while poor Arne was sick. :(