Days 13, 14, 15

We had our own car in Greve that we had to drop off in Florence. It was a little frightening to drive in the city. After being lost for about an hour just trying not to crash we finally made it to the car rental office. Troy was going so slow down the street trying to find the office that people were cussing and honking at him!

Our hotel room in Florence was awesome, our host, not so much. We ended up liking him in the end but it took a while to get used to his sense of humor. Our room had beautiful views of the neighboring church and was right on Piazza Repubblica which was very central.

Our first day there was Troy’s 28th Birthday. Not only were we in Florence but our close friends Vic and Stafanie were there too! We met them in the square and the night went on with plenty of wine, food and stories of our travels up to this point.

On our second day in Florence we wanted to do all of our sight seeing so that we could go into the Tuscan country the following day. We started in Michaelangelo’s Terrace from which we could see the entire city. We walked across the Old Bridge then made our way to the Accademia to see the statue of David. It is a masterpiece. The detail is incredible. We marveled at the statue for a while before going to climb the Duomo. The Duomo is a giant dome in a church that you can basically hike up. I don’t know how many stairs it was, but it seemed like it was over a thousand going straight up. At the top of the dome was a mural of heaven and hell that was very graphic and would frighten anyone into ‘loving’ the Lord The Duomo was one of our favorite things about our time in Florence. The way up was really fun and the view from the top was well worth the work.

Later that night Troy surprised me with a gorgeous pair of earrings! Earlier while we were having lunch he said he wanted to go grab his jacket and he took so long we just thought he got lost. But he was really picking out the perfect pair of earrings from Frey Wille. I love them and I love him even more for wanting to make me happy! I’ve worn them everyday since he gave them to me.

Our last day in Florence we thought it would be fun to rent scooters. This would have been a great idea had it not been raining for days. But being the stubborn group of people we are, we decided to chance it because there had been a break from the rain. We should have gotten the clue when it was nearly impossible to find scooters to rent in the first place. We made it out to the country without rain. Had a blast wine tasting with Vic and Stefanie. We also walked around a little village. It started to rain a little, but we didn’t think much of it.

And then as we made our way back to Poggio Ascuitto so Stefanie could buy some olive oil…it poured. So hard that the rain stung our faces as we went against it on the scooter. Luckily we only had a few miles to go and we figured we’d wait out the rain by enjoying some wine and bread on the farm. There was a small break and we went for it. We were not even 5 minutes down the road and the rain came down again, harder than before. On top of the rain it was getting dark and we had about an hour drive back to Florence. It was a miserable ride. By the time we got back to city we were so cold that it was hard to even move our fingers or to walk. Although it wasn’t the most comfortable experience it made for a great story . One that Troy, Vic, Stefanie and I will not soon forget!