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Sadly, today we packed up our bags and said good bye to the Villa.
We gave our cook Hanna a big hug, loaded the van and departed for Florence, where we planned to drop the rental car, visit the statue of “David,” and walk the city before catching our fast train to Milan at 5:00 p.m.
A couple of blocks from the rental return, we stopped at a self-service gas station to fill the tank. We say “self-service,” not because you pump your own gas, but because there is nobody there. Just gas pumps.
We followed the instructions that allowed for payment by credit card or cash. We chose to pay in cash and Fuzz slid a 50 Euro bill into the machine. We pumped 38.41 Euro of diesel into the van and then …. No change. No change dispenser! No change!
Instead we got a receipt for an 11.59 Euro credit for the next time we visit this distributor … which is not anytime soon. We are certainly glad this was an 11 Euro mistake and not a 50 Euro mistake.
In the end we gave our credit slip to a group of Americans who
had just arrived in Florence and were enthusiastically supporting Jeff as he argued with Avis about the charge for the malfunctioning GPS (for the record we did not pay for the GPS).
We dropped our bags at the luggage drop in the Santa Maria Novella Train Station and hiked into historic Florence. (It's more fun if you say "Santa Maria Novella" with an bad Italian accent).
In a hiccup in our planning (or maybe Jeff’s planning) the Academy de Academia is closed on Monday, so we were not able to see the David. This made us sad, but it gives us something to do on our next trip to Florence.
Our disappointment did not last long as we stumbled upon a large street market, which gave us the opportunity to do some last minute souvenier shopping.
After the market we stopped for lunch at a café that used celery stuffed in tea pots as centerpieces. We gave our waiter Eric a good deal of trouble … threatening to eat his centerpieces as salad. In response Eric (who should be placed among the great waiters of all time) and some of the guys from the kitchen made
us a special plate of vegetables drizzled with olive oil. Delicious. They are going to get an excellent Trip Advisor review.
After lunch we visited the Duomo …. one of the most famous cathedrals in world.
Jeff sent us ahead, instructing us to go through the piazza and then “hang a right.” At the end of the piazza there was a church on the right, so we went in as instructed. It was nice and we took some pictures but we wondered what Jeff was so excited about.
When we came out, we found Jeff looking for us. He wanted to know why we had not gone to the Duomo. “Isn’t this the Duomo?” we inquired.
“No” Jeff responded with an eye roll.
“What is this?”
“I don’t know” he responded with a little more sarcasm than was called for “Some old church?”
Chasened, we followed Joe Traveller down the street to the right (for the record, he said “hang a right.” He did not say “go down that street on the right”) and emerged into a large piazza and immediately understood our mistake. THIS WAS THE DUOMO!
The Duomo is a
cathedral and bell tower so big and elaborate you cannot get it into a single camera frame. It was constructed by the Medici in the 14
th century from local marble by local artisans. Fantastic.
Fuzzy opted to take a video in an attempt to get the entire edifice … pronouncing it “way cooler than the Vatican.”
Unfortunately, we were unable to spend more time, because we had a fast train to catch back to Milan. If we have not mentioned fast trains before, they are fantastic, reaching speeds of 300 kph. We travelled the 250 miles from Florence to Milan in an hour and half.
In Milan, we had a final dinner, got a good nights sleep and then hopped on the train to Milano Malpensa for our flight home. (Milano Malpensa is also fun to say with a fake Italian accent).
Jeff was going to come home at the same time but decided to stay on in Europe for another 8 days. We think he may need a vacation after guiding us around for the last 2 weeks.
So this is good bye. Thank you so much for following our adventure. Please comment.
Jeanne and Fuzz
Karen and Mal
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