Last night Garth and I started out at about 6:30pm to go to Caffe Amerini on Via Della Vigna Nuova for aperetivo before dinner. We each had a Spritz and a couple of the provided nibbles before carrying on over the Ponte Santa Trinita to our chosen restaurant.
We had already decided on a main course of Bistecca alla Fiorentina shared, as it is a humongous T-bone steak and certainly too big for me on my own. It was delicious and lived up to expectations (is that a correct expression for dead meat?). Afterwards Garth had the biscotti and sweet wine dessert which made his eyes light up.
This morning we had a slightly later breakfast as the only place that we needed to be was at Enrica's place to pick up my wood carvings from her daughter, Angelica, at 10am. Leaving the hotel at 9am we had an easy stroll and reached the place by 9:20am so just sat and relaxed for a while. I checked out the nearby Conad store to see if I could get more Soothers but couldn't find any. Fashionably early at 9:45am I rang the apartment doorbell and we were let in and able to collect the wood carvings.
We chose a different way back going by way of The Duomo and then through back streets to Piazza Santa Maria Novella. On reaching there we found a place for a coffee before heading back to the hotel.
We wandered down near to the Ponte Santa Trinita for lunch which was a shared pizza. Neither of us wanted much as it was so hot and also Garth was also due to fly to Paris in the arvo. At 2ish Garth was on his way. I just vegged out for the rest of the afternoon before dressing for dinner and heading for the Trattoria Dante just over the Ponte Alle Carraia. Dressing for dinner sounds formal but it was just a matter of changing out of shorts and into slacks and a clean(ish) shirt.
I was seated at a table next to a young guy on his own and we got talking. He turned out to be from San Diego and had just graduated his MBA and was having a 60 day visit taking in 11 countries before starting his working life. Matt's graduation ceremony had been postponed due to bush fires so he had missed its reschedule due to having to fly out to Europe. He was an interesting young guy (23) with a mother of Irish descent and father of Guyanan descent. Apparently a lot of people think that because of his skin colour that he has some Spanish ancestry and start talking to him in Spanish which he does not understand. Anyway, it was a pleasant conversation and helped to pass the time.
I think that I have everything in order to leave tomorrow and now the wifi in the room has decided to work so I can post this blog entry.
