Firenze

We seem to have traveled from the frying pan of Rome, into the fire of Florence.

Thursday - A hot apartment, evening walk, and Dinner

We arrived in Florence in the late afternoon, and took taxis to our apartment for our stay.

The apartment was at the top floor of a 4 story building. A narrow, dark set of stairs, and no elevator, meant several trips by everyone to haul our heavy bags up. The Apartment had a nice layout, with a living / dining area and a sleeping area above in a loft, and 2 smaller bedrooms down a hallway. Allegedly, there was air conditioning, but the 3 split A/C’s spread across various rooms were no match for the Sun shining right above us, or the 100 + degree heat outside.

Since it was too hot outside to do anything, only Suba and I deigned to step out. We went out to take a look around and ended up finding a nice shop selling empanadas, right across from a small bar that had freshly made sangria on offer.

Some delicious sangria, and empanadas later (we bought more to share with everyone) we walked around some more, found a nice noodle restaurant for dinner, and headed back to the apartment.

Koto Ramen was a nice change. After dinner, it had cooled down quite a bit, so we walked to a nearby piazza in front of the “Basilica di Santa Croce di Firenze”, and enjoyed the cooling evening air with the locals.

Friday - Truffle hunting in San Miniato, an evening walk around Florence

Purni had booked us a truffle hunting experience, and despite our best attempts to cancel it (in fear of the heat), we were unable to do so. Mridhu was feeling unwell, and Suba opted to stay back with her. The rest of us boarded a car booked for us, and were driven to Fattoria Collebrunacchi in the town of San Miniato. After a hot night in the flat, the ride in the cool air conditioned car was quite pleasant. The driver made some nice conversation about the state of the world with Mahesh in the front seat.

Fattoria Collebrunacchi turned out to be a beautiful, old farm house, with charm oozing out of everywhere. Our hosts, Francesca, and her family, provide truffle hunting experiences, and meals prepared on the farm using the truffles that are collected.

We wandered through the farm house for a short while, before heading out into the courtyard to meat our Truffle hunter dog - Choco. Francesca and Choco led us a short ways away from the farm to an oak forest, where the truffles grew. Francesca was quite knowledgeable, and in about 20 minutes, we had dug up 5-6 Truffles. Choco had quite the nose, and was really proud of his days work.

Back at the farm, we had some more time to explore the farm house and gardens, meet the local fauna, before being served a delicious 5 course meal that was prepared in a beautiful farmhouse kitchen. Definitely an experience of a lifetime.

Our time at the farm was over shortly after lunchtime, and we boarded our car and headed back to the Flat.

The heat of the day was upon us, So we holed up in the flat, closed all the doors, and tried our best to stay cool.

Suba, Mahesh, Mridhu and Sanju had plans to meet up with Mahesh’s cousin for dinner that evening, so Purni, the kids and I were on our own. Continuing to push our luck (and missing Chipotle), We found a “Mexican” restaurant (yes, you read that right. A Mexican restaurant in Florence :\ ) for dinner. And honestly, it was about as good as you could expect.

After dinner, since it had cooled down to a tolerable level, we walked around the city of Florence, Walking to the “Ponte Alle Grazie” for views of the famous Ponte Vecchio bridge. We walked through the Uffizi plaza to a square in front of Palazzo Vecchio, where there was live music being played.

We walked to the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, to enjoy sights of the Bell tower and the iconic “Cupola del Brunelleschi” aka “The Duomo”, along with all the people watching and window shopping that that entailed. After a full days adventure, we returned to the flat for the evening.

Saturday - Sunset in Siena

Having felt like the truffle hunt was a success, and having read that nearby Tuscany was a must visit, we made an impromptu booking for an organized tour advertised as “Sunset in Siena”. This was the plan for the day.

Everyone was feeling a little tired this morning, so Suba and I spent a few hours in the laundromat down the street getting through a few loads of laundry. This was interspersed with some local shopping, and some cappuccinos in the neighborhood “Tabachi”.

After a mishmash of Lunch, across 3 restaurants (including a Subway O_O ), and our daily gelato Fix, we walked all the way across town to near the train station to board our Bus to Siena.

The hour-long bus ride was incredibly pleasant (thanks to A/C), and gave us a chance to take in the scenery of Tuscany, with all its farms and vineyards all around us. A short walk on arrival brought us into the town center, where we were given about an hour to wander around and explore the charming town of Siena.

We found a cute cafe/pastry shop named Nannini, and ate lots of yummy pastries with our coffees.

The famous “Piazza del Campo”, known for hosting the Palio horse race was quite a sight. We walked around Siena, and window shopped.

Our time in Siena at an end, We boarded the bus and were driven to [Sant Appiano] (https://goo.gl/maps/PwUsbDNwnps9HJ978), a farm and vineyards. We were given a brief tour of the vineyards and wine cellars, and had a pleasant meal in the winery, with local wines for tasting. We had a good time there.

Post dinner, we took the bus back for a late arrival in Florence.

Sunday - David, a retreat from the heat, and walking around Florence after sunset.

Florence is famous for Art, and we hadn’t done anything to experience that yet. I had purchased tickets to go see the Statue of David in the “Galleria dell’Accademia”. Our tickets were at 9.30, and given the late night the previous night, it was a bit of a struggle to make that time, but we did (after a few snafus).

David was quite spectacular, and we spent quite a bit of time sitting nearby and admiring him. The Galleria also had an exhibit of musical instruments that Tejas was quite excited to see.

The gallery was small, but our patience with art was smaller, so we decided to leave. The kids had all decided that they wanted to resume their nap, so I walked them back to the apartment, while Suba, Mahesh and Purni caught some brunch in a restaurant (that ended up being a bit of a rip-off).

We had wanted to go inside the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore and see the infamous Duomo from the inside, but realized on getting there, that it was a Sunday, and that it was closed to visitors on Sundays. Dang. I guess we’ll just have to read about it.

Purni had read about the Central Market in Florence being a cool place to visit, so we went there and had another Lunch (including some freshly made Pizza with no cheese), before re-joining the kids in our flat.

Dinner that evening was at a surprisingly good Indian restaurant. The kids continued their vacation strike afterword, and promptly returned to the flat by themselves. Purni, Suba, Mahesh and I had the evening to ourselves to walk around Florence, enjoy a brilliant sunset by the river Arno, and watch people and boats from the Ponte Alla Grazie. after sunset, chat, and grab an Aperol Spritz before returning for the night.

Monday - Early morning outing, and a stopover in Pisa

Suba and Mahesh had made an early morning trip out to Piazzale Michelangelo and a) said that it was beautiful in the morning, and b) bemoaned that they had been cheated out of s sunrise, because it had been a cloudy morning.

I had wanted to experience this, and Purni and I had made a plan to make this trip early in the morning. But tiredness got to her, so I ended up making this trip solo, and taking a lime scooter most of the way there.

Watching the city lights turn off in a sequence was fun to see (although I didn’t have it on camera), but I was able to get some nice pictures of the city in the morning light.

We packed up all our stuff and boarded the train after some McD’s and pastries for breakfast. Our plan was to stop in Pisa long enough to visit the Leaning tower, and then take the train to La Spezia. While this plan was good on paper, I think this was the hottest day by far, leading to a small bit of a disaster.

It was too hot to stand in the sunlight, and too crowded to find a place to eat. We took taxis to the leaning tower, quickly took some photos in front of it, and quickly took taxis back to the train station.

Finding a restaurant for Lunch was also quite a hassle, so we ended up eating in the cafe’s at the train station, and since we had planned to spend the day in Pisa, found ourselves with a few more hours to kill, just waiting in the train station. After some games of cards (and lots of stares), and lots of snacks, we boarded our train to La Spezia, and connected onto the train taking us to our final destination of Monterosso Al Mare. We were so happy to have clean rooms, a hot meal in a restaurant right under the train tracks, and spent the rest of the evening playing in superlatively pleasant water at the beach next to town. A great end to a eventful day.