Florence to San Francisco

June 21

Boboli Gardens

We talked to Jeff this morning and wished him a happy birthday. He and the Ashland group were headed to the Uffizi. Ann and I decided to walk through the Boboli Gardens. It was still morning, so the temperature was bearable. It was a pleasant stroll, one that we have done at least two times before.

We left the gardens as lunch time approached. We stopped at a market to get some lunch supplies and went back to the hotel to fix ourselves a meal. It was too hot on the hotel’s terrace so we ate in our air conditioned room.

I fussed around on the internet to find out why this blog was not going out to my email list. I found a solution and installed it. It seems to work.

At 4:00 we consulted our bus route map to find out how to get to Fiesole from our hotel without walking a long way. Bus #23 connected nicely to #7. We were in Fiesole around 5:00. Chloe’s high school orchestra was scheduled to “assist” at a youth concert that evening. We walked around for a while trying to find the venue, an ATM and the location of the restaurant where we made reservations. We were successful on all three. The recital was to be in a small sanctuary at the top of a very steep hill. We were able to combine the walk up the hill with a meandering walk back down in a cool, tree shaded park.

When we reached the town square, it was too early for dinner, so we parked ourselves at a British-style pun and had a Guinness. Approaching our reservation time, we walked up the main street and went to a different restaurant than the one where we made reservations. Our first restaurant had changed names and we think that the one with the old name had moved. We were unsure which restaurant had our reservations. We ate instead in Trattoria i Polpa. This is where I had an outstanding lunch a couple of weeks ago. Dinner was even better. We started out with crustinni spread with liver pate along with baked pecorino cheese with a light honey sauce. Ann had pasta with XXXX while I had flat noodles with pheasant. The sauce was slightly spicy and flavored with cinnamon, oregano and rosemary. It was one of the best pasta meals I have every eaten. We managed to finish a liter of sparkling water and a bottle of the house red wine.

After dinner, we headed up to the church for the concert. We met the Ashland group on the way and found out that “assisting” in the youth concert meant showing up and filling seats. We were disappointed that we wouldn’t hear them perform. That was one of the main reasons for staying over in Florence before going home. In any case, the youth orchestra was very good playing several Vivaldi pieces.

We left the concert early. It was well after 10:00 and we wanted to get some sleep before our morning flight the next day. We took the #7 bus down the hill and transferred to the #23 thinking that it would take us back to the hotel. We found out that our bus was going the wrong direction. We got off at the train station and tried to interpret our route map to get back. We ended up walking. Bed time was midnight.

June 22

Up at 6:00. Taxi at 7:30. Airport shortly after 8:00. We checked in at Swiss Air and walked to the departure area. Somehow we missed the VIP lounge before passing through security. We found a fast food cafe and had juice, coffee and a croissant. Our plane left for Zurich on time at 9:40. They served us juice, coffee, fresh fruit and a croissant.

We arrived on time at Zurich, passed through passport control and security. The VIP lounges were closed so we went to our gate and waited until boarding our flight at 12:40. I love Swiss air. We have seats that allow us to lounge and recline to form a bed. Service is superb. For lunch they served us an appetizer of trout mousse with smoked salmon along with pepper, carrot and courgette salad in addition to a green salad. For a main course I had fillet of pike-perch “acqua pazza” with date tomatoes and turned saffron potatoes. Ann had fennel and tomato ragout with green olives and long-grain rice. For dessert I had apple cream with rosemary and crème de gruyere. Ann had a fresh fruit salad. They poured lots of wine, coffee and, of course, Swiss chocolates.

We are home now. It was a long flight but Swiss Air made it enjoyable.