Florence 4

Today’s my birthday!  And quite a good one, even in light of the high expectations of spending it on honeymoon in Italy ;)

We started out this morning by walking over to the train station, which also serves as a major bus terminal, trying to catch a bus #7 up to a hilltop town overlooking Florence called Fiesole. We walked around the bus area of the station several times and … no number 7. Suspecting we were being dumb tourists and missing it, we went up to a window and found that of course we had to catch one of four or five different bus lines to another transit center (quite close to our B&B!), but we were also able to buy our tickets there, which turned out to be a good thing. Finally caught both buses and figured out how to validate the tickets, and made it up to Fiesole.

It’s a small town with just a few parallel streets, and unfortunately, a lot of the view is obstructed by trees. We got some really amazing views (and pictures!) of the north side, but looking south down over Florence and the Arno valley was harder and I only got one shot off from a restaurant’s terrace. The first thing we did was visit the archaeological site and museum, just across the piazza from the buses, and about halfway through I realized they were my first Roman ruins! First European ruins, actually, and maybe the only ones I’ve seen other than the Maya sites in Belize. Very cool: amphitheater, temple, and baths from Etruscan/Roman times, and the museum had some really wonderful artifacts – figures, carvings, engravings, reliefs, ceramics – on display.

We walked around a little after the ruins, exploring and kind of looking for a restaurant Rick Steves mentions, but didn’t find it, so we settled down for lunch instead at a place right by the archaeological site called Etrusca. Quite possibly the best Italian meal I have ever had! Bruschetta with very ripe tomatoes and well-soaked in olive oil, then ravioli with a tomato-cream sauce and ham and peas, and we finished with a very good tiramisu (my first in Italy!): heavy on the coffee soaking and chocolate powder, lighter with the cheese. We went for a walk after lunch and found a little park with a bench and some swings and sat for bit, then headed back to the bus.

Took another short siesta in the mid-afternoon, though the heat feels to be falling off some from the spike we were fortunate enough to catch. But we left again a little after 3, did a little browsing and shopping – wedding scrapbook, shoes for Jeannie and birthday gift for me J – then made it to our reservation at 5 … a wine-tasting! And of course, the Italian meal that comes in closest to lunch as my favorite came now: over almost 2 hours, a waiter discussed Tuscan wines with us, privately, and we tasted 10. Then, after he had said it was the last one, he brought out a dessert wine made from golden raisins (more or less). We stayed for dinner then, moving to the outdoor patio: bruschetta again, and handmade ricotta/mushroom ravioli. When we’d made the reservation yesterday, the waiter had said that if we stayed for dinner, we would be “VIP” … he wasn’t kidding. He asked if we wanted to order one of the wines we’d tried, and we said no, so he brought us a sparkling wine to try. Same thing after dinner: do you want dessert? No no, we’re all set … and there comes dessert, chocolate with bread, and another dessert wine, a sparkling moscato. Really nice evening!