Dear Europe: Stop Smoking

...and other things my public health self wants to tell these lovely people but I don't. Mostly because they smile at our bungled Italian and manage to make every carb so much better than every American carb. 

 

We had breakfast at our hotel in Orvieto before catching a bus-->funicular-->train to Florence. 

 

We took the regional train (read: slow) but got to see some lovely Italian countryside. We took a cab to our hotel which is actually a handful of rooms in an old imposing building behind some seriously heavy medieval doors. We rang the bell one time, two times, five times, ONE HUNDRED TIMES. Finally a very disgruntled, some might say hostile, woman comes on to the intercom to say that the front desk is closed from 1-3pm. In a surprising twist of sisterly temperaments, I decided to just come back later while Alexis let this Italian woman have it. I'll spare you the dialogue verbatim but let's just add "Hostage Negotiator" in addition to her "Navigator" title.

 

We had lunch near the Duomo, the big hulking church that Florence is famous for. 

 

 That's it from our hotel roof. 

 

We even bought tickets to hike to the top. Let me say, that was NOT easy. But the views were amazing. 

 

So we rewarded ourselves with gelato. 

 

Gnocchi pesto for dinner. 

Tomorrow we're going on a FOOD WALKING TOUR so you better believe we're going to post about that. 

-EKW