Friday, June 3
We awoke about 8:30 am to no alarms, got up
like we typically do on the weekend, which is to say slowly after playing
around with our phones and chatting. We got up, got ready, and found
a little pastry and coffee place up the road from the St. Regis and found out
they had little sandwiches on flat bread. Laura had prosciutto and fresh
mozzarella on bread and I had prosciutto and gorgonzola, which they heated for
us. They were absolutely amazing. I dubbed them McProsciutto. I want one every
day.
We went back to the hotel and packed, checked
our bags at the front, then headed out to tour Florence. We walked back to the
Duomo, first intimidated by the lines but soon discovering they were shorter
and quicker than we thought and found ourselves inside the massive cathedral.
Quite an amazing space.
On our way out we say a street artist
painting little watercolors. I have so much art at home I have collected over
the years, each piece with a story of who did it, how I found it, etc. One of
my goals this trip was for Laura and I to find a piece of art that spoke to
us—particularly to her—so we’d have a piece on our walls that would be a story
about us. Laura picked one piece and
I picked another and we chatted with the artist, a lovely older Italian man who
probably banks good coin doing these little paintings. Now we have our art and
we have our story. I’m very happy we were able to “check that box.”
We stopped at a little shop that had made
matching cooking aprons with custom embroidery that I had made on my last visit
for Courtney and Kai. Each have their names on them and Courtney’s says
“Professional Chef” and Kai’s “Little Chef” in Italian. We got an identical one
for Daniella and after some discussion with those who spoke better English,
chose to have hers embroidered with her name and “Mini Chef” in Italian.
I took Laura back to the purse and wallet
shop with the colorful inventory. She was in heaven! They had so many different
wallet styles and colors, pencil cases!, coin purses!, and purses. She spent
well over 30-minutes looking at various things before finally selecting a
purse, a wallet, and a pencil case, each featuring a predominantly purple
leather, but also sporting accents in many other complimentary colors. She was
very happy.
After we completed our transaction Laura saw
a little leather watermelon coin purse and we decided that would make a great
gift for Kai (since we were feeling a little guilty about the apron for
Daniella) and added that to our booty.
We went back to the piazza at the Uffizi and
found a café with seating on the piazza and ordered prosciutto and melon (a
favorite of ours, but mostly Laura—and Bryce) and a pasta and a pizza. Laura
got the pasta and found it flavorless. I tried it. She was right. I shared my
pizza with her and we enjoyed a bottle of chianti, people watching and enjoying
the warm weather and lack of rain, a first in days.
Lunch in our tummies we strolled past the
fashion shops again, looking in windows, popping into a few stores to look,
then made our way back to the gelato place. Laura wasn’t having very good luck.
She didn’t pick a flavor she liked, so I shared some of my salted caramel with
her.
We went back to the hotel, collected our bags
and headed to the central train station in Florence to get our high speed
bullet train to Venice.
We arrived to the station a bit early and sat
around waiting for the train to pull up to a platform. When it did, we found
our reserved seats in the proper coach and we were off. The train peaked out at
a speed of about 170 mph at one point. In under two hours we were crossing a
long causeway to Venice, where we gathered our things and crossing four or so
bridges over various canals, we walked a short distance to our hotel.
The hotel is lovely and the staff very
friendly. They were instant we take our “welcome drink” in the bar, so we went
to our room, hung up some clothes and unpacked a bit, peeking out our window at
the canal before heading down for some champagne for Laura and red Italian wine
for myself. The bar also featured quite an appetizer buffet, and Laura made us
a small plate of salamis, meats, cheeses, and other nibbles.
It was getting late at this point—after 9
pm—and we were hungry. We got a map from the front desk (an absolute necessity
in the maze of alleys, bridges, canals, and streets that make up Venice) and a
few recommendations for restaurants and we wandered off. Venice during the day
is challenging to navigate but Venice at night is even more of a task.
We found the place recommended to us and they
said without a reservation it would be a 30 minute wait, which we accepted,
then wandered around a bit more so Laura could get a sense of Venice and the
completely unique form factor the city offers. We were back the restaurant
early, but they were able to seat us and after ordering our starters Laura
really just got into a slump.
She has been fighting a cold for days (the
“dizziness” she was feeling in Paris, I suspect) and was hot, had a sore throat
and was pretty much just done with the day. I tried to scarf down my entrée
while they packaged hers up to go, downed the rest of the wine, and paid the
check and then retreated back to the hotel.
I put Laura to bed and not long after went to
bed myself.
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