Firenze and Assisi

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A sonnet to Florence:

Your pink & green marbled churches we admired,
Your dense crowds of tourists made us tired.
The bright sunshine beat down upon the square,
Hey, what’s that guy drawing over there?

The air filled with scents of pizza and perfume, (and a few things that stank)
The lack of ‘water closets’ made us wary about how many espressos we drank. (Oh my!)
House wine & mineral water cascaded over our lips,
Each one different - nice to sit & sip!

Ah, but we shall miss the shopping on street after street,
Staring in wonder at statue David’s feet.
Ask ourselves “why so many couples necking in the square?”
And will that Vespa be prepared…. (to stop for us to cross this street?)

In all reality, we’ll be reminiscing about our great food experiences in the ‘neighborhood’ Napoleon restaurant - what a fantastic mascarpone dessert! I swear Andy was humming while he ate! And we’ll (or is that Angie?) say ‘goodbye’ to the cute Italian bus driver who kept cracking jokes in half Italian-half English with her on the bus ride back to the B&B. Even with the crowds, there were some real gems that we encountered who helped guide us thru the streets and get to where we needed. Rick Steeves was not kidding about the kamikaze Vespa’s!

Nicole’s feet are starting to blister, but that didn’t stop us from climbing all 480 steps up to the top of the church bell tower in the afternoon - along with a ZILLION school children. It was slow going, but worth every step for the view!!

The weather continues to be extra-ordinarily warm & muggy… So alas, we bid a fond farewell to Florence and all her artistic glory and head towards sleepy Assisi… not as fast as we did on the AutoStrade (Nicole got it up to 180+ kilometers - you dothe conversion), but Ange doesn’t want any more ‘rail-guard’ photography shots ;-)


In Assisi…

Ok, it’s not so sleepy around here. Crowds of people are heading in for next weekend’s CalendiMaggio events. A crazy amount of people were everywhere today - on the windy streets, in the stores, in Mass at the Basilica; everywhere! The sound of beating drums is banging in the background as this is being typed, accompanied by yelling & cheering. After our TASTY meal tonight (was that boar’s sausage?) and after all the walking up & down hills, it shouldn’t be a problem to sleep.

until next time.............
cioa!

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Comments

[Nancy]

Thanks Angela, I'm enjoying your trip!