Buon Anno!

Trudy and me on New Year's Eve at Trattoria Garga in Florence!

It's Friday morning, and I have a lot to write about, but will probably not get to everything today... On Wednesday I took the train to Pisa, which has an eay airport connection-the airport is just a few minutes from the downtown train station, and there is a 5 minute train connection... anyway, I got to the airport, ducked into the bathroom, had a quick cappuccino at the bar, and in less than 5 minutes of standing at the arrival gate, Trudy showed up! Unlike my late flight, hers got in about 20 minutes early. It was great to see her, and we took the train to Pisa, then got a train to Florence about 20 minutes later.

We walked from the station to the apartment, rolling Trudy's suitcase. We walked through the San Lorenzo market so she could get a taste of the shopping to come... back at the apartment she took a shower and I ran over to the local supermarket--since it was new years eve, most of the stores were closing early, and we needed the basics... coffee, wine, cantucci, cheese, olives, bread, milk, pears, mandarins... we had a nice light lunch with some wine, and then went out to walk around a bit before going out to dinner.

Our hosts, Mariaclaudia, Gianluca, and 3 year old Giacomo, were getting ready for a new years party, and they invited us to come after dinner for a new years toast with them and their friends... we got ready to go to dinner and walked to Trattoria Garga... I think I wrote about this already in this blog--it is the restaurant that I have been wanting to go to new years eve dinner since reading that fabulous article... so we walked through our neighborhood, and along the Arno for the beautiful views upstream and downstream from the various bridges... just magical tonight with pretty clear skies and lights outligning the domes and towers, and glittering onto the arno... fantastic.

It's 1:00 and we haven't left the apartment yet--Mariaclaudia came over for coffee and we talked for the last couple hours, so I will finish the new years eve post later... ciao tutti, e buon anno, e auguri!