Starhotel Monginevro Florence

... for the main course and was given one plate of cheese and one plate of spinach...hilarious. I had a gigantic veil roast like nothing I had ever seen, and fortunately it was delicious. We finished the meal with a chocolate covered panna cota, coffee, and endless dessert wine for Kate. They kept filling her glass because one older fella was the only one that could drop the check and he either took a nap, or was quite busy. The ...

... wasn't lettuce, it looked like a salad of roots!) but it was great to try it out. (Puntarelle at Giggetto)<br><br> Our train ride to Florence was only an hour and half and incredibly picturesque. It was great to enter the countryside after being in the hub of three major cities. It reinforced our love of small towns and it's **awesome** to be in this region. After arriving in Florence, we picked up our rental car and maneuvered our way through ...

... short walk to the Palazzo Pitti, which is an old Medici family palace. There are about seven or eight galleries/museums inside this one palace. There are two different tickets, depending on which galleries you want to see. I wasn't sure, but opted for the cheaper ticket. I'm really glad I did, because this was the ticket that covered the Custome Gallery. They had an excellent display of costumes and accessories from the 1800s to 1980s. Some amazing stuff in there! Plus ...

... grace than these two women. As I stood there on the pavement outside no.64 for the next 40 minutes - I think italians have no concept of being punctual - I observed numerous locals walking by on a Sunday morning. Most of them were obviously well-coiffed and attired. I think I may be on a street where the locals may be quite wealthy; the buildings along the street have an old elegant look, the people an arrogant look about them. No one looked me in the eye, no one smiled ...

... on the next hill. Drove all around the countryside (which I hate to say is much bigger and impressive than Napa). Wine is so cheap and good but unfortunately the majority of grapes had just been picked. Also ventured into Florence for two days of sightseeing. This is one place that is as magnificent as tpublished pictures!

... a lemon flavoured liqueur that is very popular in Italy. This is where it all went downhill, particularly when they told us that the whole 1 litre bottle was ours!<br><br>We polished off the bottle between the six of us and Tony went up to offer them some money for it seeing as we were the only table to have finished a bottle, and they refused his money and offered another bottle! He intelligently declined but we had all already had enough!<br><br>We all went ...

... idyll that you read about and see pictures of.<br><br>My first impression of Florence is that the roads are very narrow, the house numbering system is confusing (on road of my hotel the numbers seemed to peter out at 20 and move onto 110 then restart a bit further down the road). It also seems quite a forbidding place which is not surprising given the history.<br><br>My hotel is on one of the roads off from the station. Reception is on the top floor which is a bit ...

... about the new south america trip that we are going on (for those who are unaware, while in Japan we got an email that, "sorry your tour has been cancelled".....eeeep!) and realised that I will actually be trekking for 63 days. In tents. With hole in the ground toilets. No charger for my camera batter. No mobile phone coverage. And no room to carry cheap turquoise crystals in my pack. Oh no! Although I have remained optimistic this whole trip (and am still quite ...

Today, we begin our babysitting duties while David and Kylie attend a wedding. As those of you with little ones know, it takes a fair bit of organization, so the day mostly centered about getting us and Hunter settled in our Florence hotel. However we did enjoy the pretty drive into Florence through the rolling hills of ...

... lunch because we were starving. They were super good. We had thought about going to Boboli Gardens at this point, but it was raining, so we thought we'd take a break from being a tourist and take a nap. In the middle of our nap, the maid came in to clean our room and woke us up. I couldn't go back to sleep then. Kent had told us that a bunch of people were meeting up at 5 to go see the David. We went to go meet everyone, but we saw Amber ...