Back in Florence

We’re back in Florence for a few days before we fly home on Tuesday morning. We’re in an inexpensive hotel all of whose rooms are on the fifth floor of a building on the Arno. Lovely views, simple room, quiet street. And, best of all, an elevator.

Amateur fishermen

We returned the Alfa Romeo Giulietta to the rental agency yesterday and we’re happy to report that we drove 2,207 kilometers and that the car impressed us with 19.4 kilometers per liter of diesel. (No, that doesn’t mean much to us either. With the help of a spreadsheet and some conversion information from Google, it turns out that we drove 1,371 miles and the car got 44.6 miles per gallon of diesel. Not bad for a car that’s also a lot of fun to drive.)

Professional fishermen

This morning was cool and rainy. When we got up, we looked out the window and saw the scenes shown in the photos. Across the river were amateur fishermen under umbrellas, line up like birds on a wire. On our side of the river were a couple of professional fishermen, a pair of snowy egrets.

We went to the Florence-Inter soccer game this afternoon and the rain gave way to sun and clouds. Florence is having a difficult year and today the team’s best two offensive players were unavailable due to injuries. Despite all their problems, the team played with a lot of heart and the game ended with a 0-0 tie. It sounds awful, I’m sure, but the game was exciting. Things happen so fast that you can’t take you eyes off the action. The Florentine was aggressive throughout the game if a little overmatched.

Thanks for reading. See you soon.