Firenze

As I said last night, you can't help but fall in love with Florence.  The hills and river and bridges and old buildings with such character.  Our landlord in Bolonga came and picked us up and drove us to the train station saving us from dragging our luggage down 3 flights of stairs and through the city streets to the train station.  We had already purchased our tickets and knew the lay of the land so boarding the train was no problem--- except we had to carry our 40+ lb bags up a flight of stairs to get to the platform.  An Italian man offered to carry our bags up for us and we forgot to ask "quanto costa?".  When he got us to the correct platform he says 20 euros. We say NO!  Then he says Yes, again we say NO, then he say 10 euros, again we say NO and this time we hand him 2 euros each and say, that's it, that's all you are getting.  He wasn't very happy but at least he didn't drag our luggage back down stairs.  On the regional train to Parma, Donna got to sit next to the window, so I said I want the window for this trip.  Well this was a high speed train and the only time we weren't in tunnels was leaving Bologna and entering Florence. Not much of a view from my window.  We took a quick cab ride to our next apartment and our new landlord met us here about 10 minutes later.  This apartment had only one flight of stairs and was just as cute as a speckled pup.  Claudia our landlord, brought with her some eggs, milk, yogurt and a cake she had baked that morning.  Staying in apartments is really a great way to experience a city.  We went out and explored some of the City and every where we turned we found more statues and incredible  architecture. We were snapping pictures like crazy.   Had our daily gelato and were very happy campers.  For dinner that night we had pappardelle pasta with wild boar ragu and linguine with clams- a glass of wine and I continued to be a very happy camper.  Tomorrow our adventures walking around Florence lost.