Europe 2011: Day 8

I'm writing this on Sunday, the day before we leave, and there is so much to catch up on that I know I'll never get to it all. I want to try to remember the little details that made this trip something to remember though.

Wednesday was the day we were scheduled to leave Florence, and we decided to spend half of it in Florence and leave for the Agriturismo later in the afternoon.

I got up and went for a short run, and then we went down and ate a breakfast that we were thoroughly unimpressed with.

TH went to finish up the rental car preparations while I packed up our suitcase and checked out. We had heard that some tourist attractions were closed because Italy was having some strikes, so we asked the front desk which locations would be open. We never saw David, because the hotel did a crap job of getting back to ms about reservations before we left, and then when we got there they said it was closed because of the strikes.

We climbed the tower next to the Duomo for 6 euros each. The stairs were very narrow, and each level had us panting. I was really glad I spend so much time exercising because even though I was sweating and breathing hard, I wasn't about to pass out. The view from the top was beautiful, and I'm actually glad we didn't climb the Duomo because it was fun to see it from the top.

After our climb we made stops at places we had been before, first the Mozzarella bar Obika, and next the chocolate shop Arte Del Cioccolota (spelling?). We bought some chocolate treats to eat on our drive.

I prepared for our drive by taking screenshots of the google maps directions, which turned out very handy for us later on. We dragged our broken suitcase over to the car rental place (I think it's something like 80 lbs now and TH had to carry it several blocks). TH had rented a SmartCar and he is in love with them. He'll probably post about it on That Wife, he loves it so much. It feels a little like driving around in a pimped out golf cart LOL. After a few wrong turns we made it out of Florence and onto the Autostrada.







Overall driving in Italy isn't so bad as long as you aren't in the big towns. I actually liked driving through the countryside and getting a view of the beautiful scenery. In Pisa it all goes by so fast that you aren't really able to take it in.







A few hours later, we were navigating our way up the hill to our Agriturismo. If you didn't know, an Agriturismo is a working farm with hotel rooms available for guests.

The view outside our front door looked like this:





I felt like this:






I loved it so much, I wanted to take pictures of every single thing right then and there. The light was stunning too.













TH and I sat and watched the sunset before dinner.

















Then we went inside and had our minds blown by the food available at this little place. Dinner was served by the owner, who acts as innkeeper/farmer/waiter and someone found a brilliant chef to prepare the meals. I want everyone to come here and experience the pure joy we felt at this little spot.







The food blog has pictures of the food. After we were done we waddled back to our room and collapsed into bed. Our only regret? That we were only planning to stay for two nights total!