A day of uncertainty...then bliss

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We got off the cruise ship at 7:15am on the dot, 5 minutes before our last available time. Turns out they're very strict if you want to take your own luggage off and not wait for yours and a thousand other bags.

Thank goodness we were able to book an automatic car for our time in Italy as at least we had a way to get to wherever we were going...which we didn't know. But at least we could get there.

We drove to Tuscany as we knew we wanted to go there. Ended up in a town called Pistoia, West of Firenze (Florence) where we had lunch and found an internet cafe. €1/hr, gotta love it in the small town. Shane was stressing a bit because we didn't have a place to stay that night but I figured it was good for us, for once, to not have a plan as we're normally such planners.

We called a few hotels we had contacted a few days earlier and ended up going with one that called us back on our mobile so that it didn't cost us so much. We also got a last minute deal. We love good service.

Ended up driving another 2 hours to San Casciano dei Bagni to the most amazing hotel we've ever been to. It beats the Oberoi in New Delhi, which has been the nicest to date. It's a "terme", which means thermal spa. There are 4 pools, 3 of which are for hotel guests only. 2 are volcanic thermal pools, which means they are natural and brown and constantly above bath temperature. The other big pool is a regular, cool pool which has no chemicals. Amazing.

The night we arrived we ate at the hotel, which had amazing apetizers and really good mains. With the views, it's absolute heaven.

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Photos

Where we drove to from Pistoia
Shane's technique is coming in handy: taking a picture of google maps when we have internet so we can find our way in the car sans internet.