Buongiorno,

Sunday - rainy! Piove tutto il giorno. (Rain all day today.) Tuscany has had 1 or 2 days of rain since February and this is another one. Good for Tuscany but, not good for us. Planned trip to Val D'orcia cancelled - no sense riding 2 hours to view a rainy village and missing the scenery along the way (which would have been part of the reason for that trip). Andremo alla città Val D'oria anno prossimo. (We will go to Val D'orica next year.)

Instead we decided to go back to Florence where there is shelter and visit the Palazzo Pitti.  Good decision.  An amazing collection of Renaissance paintings, sculpture and more.  We spent over 3 hours there.  Couldn't visit the Boboli Gardens due to weather but plenty to see inside. It is overwhelming! The Medici family owned most of the art and the last descendent gave the palace and it's art etc. to the city of Florence. Hard to believe how much money they had.

Dinner at a small town, Montespertoli, close to the villa. L'artevino is a small restaurant but, excellent food. For the first course Dow had sea bream terrine and I had seafood soup. First time I have had soup served without a spoon. It was the best seafood soup I have ever had! Small amount of broth, which could be soaked up with the bread that was served with the soup. For the main course we observed another table having this huge pasta/seafood bowl so asked for it - the seafood special for two (it was not on the menu). Home made pasta and the flavors of the seafood covered the pasta, which was served at the tableside. We were starving for fish, as Chianti is mainly a meat area paring great with Chianti wine.

Click on a pictures to see a slideshow

September 10