Nutso to be in Arezzo!!
Trip Start
Sep 14, 2007
1
19
29
Trip End
Oct 07, 2007
Arezzo, Italy
Friday, September 28, 2007
So here we go... First, we check out of our hotel, Albergo Nuova Italia. Thanks, Spediacci, for another great hotel recommendation! We head straight for "the world's best gelato in Florence". I'm beginning to think there is a "world's best gelato..." in every Italian town - ha! We find it - I think and enjoy our 385th serving of the trip. While enjoying our gelato, we stumbled across a lil' hole in the wall - named G. Franchini? - this place makes handmade pasta! We watch them make lasagna noodles and fettuccini before deciding to get some of our own to take with us to our Tuscan villa. We get fettuccini and ravioli stuffed with Spanish ricotta...mmmmmmm!
Next, we finally make it into Battistero San Giovanni! The ceiling is the highlight of this site! The art work on the dome ceiling is absolutely amazing and the story behind it is fascinating - tracing history from Adam and Eve to Christ's death.
(Smig) by the way battistero San Giovanni is Italian for St John the Baptist, so he was prominently displayed here. His life was also part of the dome story.
(Erica) Then we head to the Piazza Del Mercato Centrole (market place) and are overwhelmed by the numerous shops and hawking Italian meats, cheeses, fresh fish, pigs brains, hooves, biscottis - you name it! We have a great roast beef sandwich at Nerbone's for lunch.
(Smig) don't forget about the calamari risotto and the vino della casa rosso!!!
(Erica) Now we grab our luggage and catch a cab to the car rental place. I snack on a few biscotti's (cookies) while waiting for Dave to get our car. We get an upgraded sport Mercedes (called an "upper class car") for no additional fees! Suhweeet! It's wayyyy fun to drive and goes really, really fast (yes, this is still Erica talking - ha!)! Luckily it has GPS and keeps Dave occupied so I can drive further! I like it!!!
(Smig) I will gladly take the blame for this one. I probably checked out of Firenze a night earlier than we were supposed too, but hey, this is like an adventure, we are smack in the middle of the Chianti region and our only issue is to find a place to sleep tonight. Erica is really really pissed off and so I log on to the laptop and do some searching. Hotels.com to the rescue. We find AC Hotels in Arezzo. A 4 star hotel for under a 125 USD. Booked online and confirmed. We will see you in a few hours
(Erica)I instantly have a minor meltdown and start thinking of how I could be exploring Uffizi and leisurely taking in more Florence sights. Besides not getting into Uffizi - I was also disappointed we didn't have more time in Florence. It's an absolute fabulous place with way too many things to see and do within a 1 ˝ day time frame. I digress. So I'm sitting on the side of some road in the middle of Tuscany whimpering while Dave scrambles to find us a place overnight (poor me, right?!). He jumps onto the laptop and goes to hotels.com and finds a place in Arezzo. Great...Arezzo! Where the heck is that? If it's not next to the Uffizi museum then I'm not interested!
We continue driving towards Arezzo (thank God for the GPS unit in the car) and catch glimpses of a spectacular sunset. We get to the hotel and from the outside we are looking a Hotel 6 style hotel. Wonderful! We walk inside and it's very modern with a contemporary décor. Not bad...the Uffizi is becoming a blurrrrrr. The front desk tells us about the amenities - including a Turkish bath. After reading Danian's blog - we pass on the Turkish bath...ha! Instead, we drop off our luggage in the room and head to the hotel's restaurant for dinner. Very nice, service is attentive, food is delicious...the only thing missing is other people. Literally we were the ONLY people in the restaurant. Hmmm...remind you of The Shining?!?! Eerie.
We enjoy the modern amenities and get a decent nights sleep. Tomorrow we head to our villa!
(Smig) We had a great dinner which was a Bistecca ala Fiorentina. It is cooked rare and it is from the Chianina beef. This rare steak was 1" thick and could be cut with a spoon. We actually used butter knives to cut the steak. It was one of the most amazing steaks I have ever had. It had a huge T-bone in it and it is seasoned with salt and pepper. I should have gotten a photo of it. Now, see Arezzo isn't too bad.
