Murphy and Josie had a 6:30 am flight, so they and three other ladies left the hotel around 4:30 for the very short ride to the airport. Matt and Emily flew at 9:30 and Dan and I flew at 1:30. It felt like such a luxury to sleep as long as we wanted and start the day slowly. Traffic was ramped up by the time we needed to go, so we allowed a half hour and needed it all. Because of the mountains surrounding the city, Florence accomodates commuter flights mainly since the big dogs don’t have enough runway. The small airport was buzzing mid-day.

Yesterday was cold and windy and today is beautiful with clear skies allowing us to see the surrounding hills and wonder what treasures are hiding in them thar hills. Half of our tired tourmates are going on from here, but for the most part our band of six is ready to go home.

Forgot to mentions:
a) A liter of bottled water is essentially the same price as a liter of house wine.
b) The fizzy water is less fizzy (and more to our taste) than in the U.S.
c) Italians in general are very stylish and look very similar to each other in terms of the way the dress. Everyone wears a scarf.
d) Pizza is amazing with paper thin crust.
e) Pedestrians have the right of way with or without a crosswalk except at intersections with lights. Just take a breath, make eye contact with the oncoming drivers, and step on out!
f) Trains and buses are clean and efficient.
g) The pasta is chewier than ours and delicious. Sauces are thinner and just barely coat the pasta unlike our habit of overwheming the pasta in a heavy sauce.
h) Quality olive oil is as important as good wine.
i) The bread and rolls are white, dry, and uninteresting to us except for sopping up sauces and soup.
j) Limoncello is served ice cold in chilled glasses.
k) A twin bed here is narrower than a twin bed in the U.S.
l) Hotel pillows and pancakes have a lot in common
m) Murphy and the map app on his iPhone made life easy. We followed like puppies.
n) Josie’s on-the-spot research on cool stuff to see/do made us the envy of the group.
o) Emily has an amazing sense of direction. Once Murf got us wherever we were going, Emily could pretty much get us  back without looking at the map.

Our favorites:
Murphy and Matt ~ Saint Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican
Josie ~ the tour of Rome’s colosseum
Emily ~ biking the wall around Lucca
Dan ~ seeing the Pope
Me ~ Volterra

All told, we had a wonderful, fun, educational, funny, relaxing, and exhausting Italian adventure!