We were all up very early for our 6:00 breakfast. The bus was arriving at 7:00 for a 7:15 departure to the Rome airport. Although six of us were leaving later for the Tuscany tour, I went to breakfast to say good-bye to everyone and to help load the bus.
At 7:30, we started packing the van for the trip to Florence. Tome shuttled Julie, Gerry and me to the train station at Montefiascone and then went back to pick up Martha and Howard for the drive to Florence.
We had an interesting experience at the train station. The ticket machine was broken and there were no official people at the station to buy tickets from. Julie talked to a woman who was going on out route and she suggested jumping out at the first stop to but tickets. When we got onto the train, she realized that she knew the conductor and explained the situation to him. So he never came around to our car to check tickets.
When we arrived at our transfer station in Attigliano-Bomarzo, the ticket machine was also broken so we bought our tickets to Florence from an agent and began to relax. We had a few minutes in the station before our train was to arrive, so I decided to have coffee and pastry – a croissant with a hazelnut filling. Yum!
We got to Florence shortly before 1:00 fortified with bananas, cookies and Mars Bars. We walked over to the Arno and crossed the Ponte Vecchio to the other side. We met Tom at the official hotel (where I will check in on Sunday) and then went to lunch at a small Pizzeria. I had a delicious Pizza Napoli – anchovies, capers, basil and light cheese.
After lunch I walked back to the hotel, picked up my luggage and wheeled it a mile or so to my hotel – Hotel Elite. It was pretty warm out and the narrow streets made the wheeling a little dicey. I sure am glad I have wheelable luggage and that I didn’t have to bring my bicycle to the new hotel. There was nobody at the hotel when I got there but there was a sign on the door to check in at Hotel Montreal a little ways down the street. I did that. They gave me four keys – front door, inside door, reception door and room door, all color-coded. I have a small but adequate room with a shower. The bathroom is down the hall.
After cleaning up and working on this blog, I went over to Hotel Montreal, the 
parent hotel, and got onto its wifi network to read emails, etc. Then I walked around looking at sights and scouting restaurants for dinner. I decided on Trattoria Marione which was recommended in Rick Steves’ guidebook. I had a above-average meal of ravioli stuffed with pecarino cheese and covered by a fresh tomato sauce with basil. For a main course, I had roasted lamb with potatoes.
After eating, I walked around for a while to try to work off the food. It’s now 9:30 and I’m going to get ready for bed. It’s very noisy out my window. I’m glad that I have double earplugs.
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