Florence-FINALLY!

OK, we finally made it to Florence. Holy Cow! It started well. We got out of the apartment in Venice in plenty of time and made it TO the airport within a reasonable time. However, it took us another 2 hours just to get the car rental accomplished, clean carseat located and installed and then on the road. We didn't even get into Bologna. We just didn't have the time to go looking for the old city center.

The drive down was really beautiful. We took the autostrada. I was afraid that it would be kind of boring but when we hit the mountains it was really spectacular. So many places that I would like to go back and explore.

Once we got to Florence it was CRAZY. As I explained to Laura, it was like cramming Chicago traffic into a bunch of alleys. Then tossing in a ton of people walking everywhere and motorcycles whizzing in and out of traffic with no regards for lanes or traffic lights. Then for fun any "road" you might be on will dead end or decide to become a one way in the opposite direction with no warning. We were literally within a block of where we were going but "couldn't get there from here" and ended up driving for another half an hour trying to circle around.

Our apartment is really nice. Much larger than the last one. You can turn around in the kitchen so that's a huge bonus. We walked to a little restaurant down the street. I had some pasta that wasn't defined in the menu. I'd never heard of it before so I just went with blind faith. It was tortellini with a sauce that had eggplant, peppers and mushrooms. It actually kind of reminded me of Granny's goulash only with tortellini.

Well, I'm going to bed now. We'll hopefully post pictures tomorrow.