A hard coming they had of it…

Not that our journey was Biblical, but it was filled with trials and tribulations. Dulles to Munich was easy peasy, though the sleeping pills left us gaga – we probably should have taken them earlier. We made our way to our connecting flight to Florence, piled into the plane and then were told that one of the engines had died so we would need to change planes. Luckily, there was another plane, so we were able to climb aboard within the hour. Soared out of the German rain into the blue sky over Tuscany, only to run into a tail wind that meant we couldn’t land. David Leavitt had warned me of this, but had I paid attention? Of course not. The wind made the journey very bumpy, to say the least. There were a few collective gasps as we bumped up and down through the skies, and the woman behind us was still clutching the airsickness bag when we landed. However, we could not even land in Pisa nearby, the usual drill when it’s too windy in Florence, but had to go to Bologna. Of course, I’ve always wanted to see Bologna…Then a bus lumbered to Florence about an hour and a half away, spewing us out at the airport, from which we grabbed a taxi and finally found ourselves at Residenze Giotta.

Rick Stevse has steered us right. It’s just around the corner from the Duomo, with a spectacular view of same from our window. That means the tolling bells woke us up at 7 am this morning, but we had to get going anyway, and it sounded beautiful. We tidied up and on the recommendation of Silvia at the B&B we made our way to Marione’s for dinner. Full of Americans but the food was good – cheese plate with walnuts and honey, then risotto with seafood for me and lamb cutlets for Alison. Stumbled home over the cobblestone streets and so to bed.