Chow Tuscany

Our plan was to skip out today and return to Florence. However, our plan had significant holes in it. There supposedly was a bus about a ½ mile from the villa, but there was no marking to identify a stop. Getting the bus depended on previous experience or dumb luck. Since it only came through once every few hours, these were not odds I was in favor of considering.

However, first things first, I wanted coffee. Andrea thought ahead, because at 10am when people would be roaming the grounds, even if sleepily, pastries were delivered. The kitchen table was filled with different pies, cakes, croissants, and other sweet delights. What they did not deliver was coffee. The villa owner lent us a coffee pot, so others came to the rescue. We all sat around outside eating, drinking, and chatting until the Sandman disappeared from our memories for at least today.

Gradually, people started disappearing. Some were leaving for other cities before returning home. Others were going for a drive in their rental car. We were still weighing our options for the great escape. For those who were staying longer, there was a wine tour planned for Tuesday, but now that the masses were parting ways, I was chomping to get back to Florence. Eric, a co-worker of Andrea’s had already committed to taking a couple into Florence to the train station. There was no room in the car for us too. However, he graciously offered to return for us later in the day. We had told our B and B host we would return before 5:30pm when he had to leave for his restaurant. If we hadn’t, he would have had to drive back into the city to let us in.

Once breakfast was over, I was antsy and wanted to move. I could not get on the Internet no matter what I did. The Wi-Fi would not work for me; the villa owner gave me a cable to connect to the wall outlet, but it refused to work too. I did not want to spend the entire day looking over pictures on a netbook mini-screen. There was also the fear of truly not knowing how to turn my phone off from roaming and winding up with a considerable roaming charge like I have done in the past.

Eric returned by 3pm and was ready to drive us to Florence. I was sorrowful about the seemingly wasted day which could have been spent seeing the museums of Florence. Once back in the city and rechecked into Fabio’s, we wanted to take Eric for dinner as a thank you, but he wasn’t certain about the others’ dinner plans, so decided he had better wait to see what the others back at the villa had planned. Instead, we went for a beer and an appetizer before he returned to the Tuscan villa.

Once we said good-bye to Eric, it was too late for any museum admissions; all we could do is window tour and window shop. That is not entirely true as so many shops stay open into the evening hours. We were able to go into some stores to browse. The only thing we decided on buying was a sheet of Florentine paper to put into frames for the two guest rooms. 

For dinner, we went to the place Fabio had suggested; it was near the B and B. It is called I’Raddi. The food was reasonably priced and tasty. I would have reviewed it on TripAdvisor, but I could not find it listed. There was not enough motivation to suggest it as a new listing, so they lose out.

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