Italy Day 11 - Sunday

Sunday April 13th - Last morning in Venice and off to Florence

We slept in again - ahhh vacation!
I managed to still get up early enough to get in an hour of yoga with Rodney Yee (i-touch)
We took a walk around to find some sandwiches for the train ride- but apprently on Sunday of the weekend of voting there is no sandwiches to be had!
Our guide taxied us back to the station and we got to see the new bridge over the grand canal. It isn’t done yet, but looks pretty cool! She brought us all the way onto the train! Nice car, we had seats along and facing each other! The first class service was great! Kind of like a plane, they come thru with a little cart with beverages and a snack!

Our neighbors in the car were 2 couples - one from England, one from Canada and they did not stop talking the ENTIRE time! Ugh! I eventually put on my ipod to block them out!

We arrived in Florence at 3:30, met by a little fella with a sigh - I Love that part!  :)

Our hotel was around the corner, so we got there pretty quick! We were staying at the Hotel Adler Cavalieri - 4 stars, oh my! As we were heading up in the elevator our bellman looked at our keys and said - “Ohhh...  Big room!” I think that is similar to the conference attendee's comment of - “oh, you rich people!”

We dropped off the luggage and headed out to see what we could see!

We started at the Plaza dela Republica - with the belly button of Florence! Then over to the New Market with the “x” on the floor where people that went bankruptcy were “dropped” from the roof. Also saw the bronze piggy fountain where you rub the snout for good luck! We decided we needed to try the great gelato here in Florence! I did the strawberry and coconut, hubby stuck with Chocolate. I enjoyed my choices immensely!

We headed toward the Orsanmichele Church - but i wasn’t able to see the “wheat shoots”. Then over to the “fake” david - it’ll be the closest we get, and that’s fine with us! We saw the other statues in the Piazza della Signoria. We headed down thru the Uffizi gallery. There was a great pantomime doing a egyptian mummy! We took a gander at the Ponte Vecchio! Can’t wait to cross it and check out the stores! We wandered some more and saw the courtyard at the Palazzio Vechio and some other older buildings!

We got in a quick nap before dinner time!

Dinner was at La Grotta di Leo - Mmmmmm!
I started with Caprese Salad - i just can’t get enough of this buffalo mozzarella!
Hubby started with a meat plate!
I ended with Veal Scallopini, hubby did Gnocchi 4 cheese and omelette 4 cheese.
We enjoyed them both!
Finally we had some cappuchinno! Definitely a cute little place, pretty good english and happy to let you no follow the rules of first, second course!

On the way back to the hotel and laundry we got some treats! Anything made with butter and filled with nutella is yummy!  We found a “wash and dry” that worked out pretty well! 30 minutes wash and a 25 minute dry that really dried!

It was a pretty darn good way to start the Second week of our trip!