Florence Day 7

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Slept in after a late night/early morning and walked over to the Uffizi after what is becoming our usual breakfast. We had about an hour or so to wait before it was our turn to enter the museum. The times are staggered and I guess this is to control overcrowding. We ended up being a little early, no queue and again walked straight in. The Uffizi Museum houses some of the worlds most famous art work in a beautiful structure, but for me the highlight so far has been seeing David at the Academia and the Prado Museum in Madrid.

We wandered home to the cool and to rest up as we were both feeling the effects of the previous evening. Before our flatmate arrived we packed, not sure how everything managed to fit into my bag but it did, perhaps I’m becoming more proficient at packing my suitcase after 2 weeks…wow I’ve only been away 2 weeks it seems so much longer than that! Packing out of the way we went to meet H who is a friend of a friend back in Brizvegas. We met H a few months back and as we were all going to be in Italy at the same time H offered to show us Tuscany for a few days. H wants to set up his own Intimate Food and Wine touring company and as he needed guinea pigs for feedback and we would love to be shown around, we jumped at the offer. An added bonus is that he speaks fluent Italian!

As H had been in Italy for a few days already in the Rome area, he had already hired a car for the duration of his trip here ( 5-6 weeks in total I think) and he took us to Michelangelo’s Piazza (about 15 minutes from the city centre) with a view to die for down the Arno, overlooking the Ponte Vecchio Bridge, just before sunset. We had a glass of champagne and aperitifs’ as the sun went down…beautiful! H took us to a local bar only a few hundred meters away called Flo we commented to each other it was the kind of place that we were looking for after dinner the night before as the atmosphere was terrific. (Great local knowledge of H’s behalf).Heading back into Florence and the restaurant that was planned by H was closed so we moved to plan B, parked the car, walked back to the apartment to leave H’s suitcase and headed to the 2nd choice of restaurant by foot. Napoleon a “locals” upmarket restaurant on the opposite side of the river to where we had been staying, where there were no tourists. I ordered champagne risotto for an entrée and then a omelette with white truffle’s for a main. Stunning food accompanied again by a lovely bottle of Pinot Grigio between 3 of us. I’m liking walking home after a great meal something I don’t do in oz mainly because of the distance. In Florence everything has seemed so close to where we have lived for almost a week, we have been thoroughly spoiled and have loved every minute of it.

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