La mia vita a Firenze: September 11, 2011

September 11, 2011

I woke up this morning after getting an incredible TEN HOURS of sleep. I have not slept for nearly that long since I have been here so it was definitely needed and much appreciated. I had breakfast and checked my email out on the balcony. It was a beautiful day and so nice to be outside before the heat of the day hit. After a bit, Franzi woke up and we decided it was a lovely day to go to Fiesole. We got ready and headed off to the bus around 10:30. We thought, if we left early enough, the heat wouldn’t have really hit yet but it was already very warm. However, it was very sunny, which was nice. We got up to Fiesole, got off the bus and found a craft fair going on in the piazza. There were weavers, blacksmiths, basket weavers, jewelers…all sorts of people selling their beautiful artwork. After looking around there for a bit, we headed down a street in search of the bakery with the delicious cream puffs we’d had for Willi’s birthday. We found it and it was very busy! We were happy it was open, though, because so many places we encountered were closed on Sunday. I got a traditional Italian grape pastry and one chocolate cream puff and one cream puff. The grape pastry was incredible and we decided we want to try to come up here as many Sundays as we can.

We then headed back through the piazza and hiked up the hill to the church of San Francesco. The view from up here is said to be the best one around and I’d agree with that. You can see for miles and miles around; it’s gorgeous. We hiked around up near the church for a while and then found a bench in the shade overlooking all of Florence and the valley. It’s so relaxing and not too ridiculously hot in the shade. I wrote the first half of my blog for the day and then started writing a letter. There was a cool breeze every once in a while, which really cooled things off.

After a while, we headed back down the hill and caught the bus home. We only took the bus to a few stops past Linguaviva so we could stop at Andrea and Daniella’s favorite gelateria, “Gelateria de Medici.” It was super fancy but actually cheaper than most we had been to. We both had gelato called crema de Medici, which was very rich cream with chocolate cookie pieces. It was the most incredible gelato either of us had ever had. With gelato in hand, we walked the ten minutes home from there. When we got home, we took a little breather, filled our water bottles, and then headed across the street to the park to read. As we walked through the park to find a bench in the shade, we saw a little kid’s birthday party going on with balloons and streamers hanging from the streams and brightly colored tablecloths and presents. And, of course, lots of little kids! We found a few benches in the shade and Franzi read April Blood (one of our required readings) and I read my book for fun. It was absolutely gorgeous in the shade and it was so relaxing. When we got tired of reading, we walked home and now it’s getting close to dinnertime. More later :)

WE HAD GNOCCHI WITH PESTO FOR DINNER! My two favorite things!!! It was absolutely delicious and I could have eaten the whole bowl of it. I sure hope we have that again! For our second dish, Daniella and Franzi had some type of meat (I don’t remember now…) and Andrea and I had a mozzerella omelet that was very good as well. For dessert, we had fresh pears that were crisp and sweet. A DELICIOUS dinner! I was so excited about the gnocchi too; they laughed when I got out my camera again to take a photo of it.

Now I’m going to stretch and read for a bit before bed. And then I’ll probably go to bed early; the sun really wears me out. It was really a lovely Sunday and I look forward to many more wonderful, relaxing Sundays in the future. I hope all of you had beautiful, relaxing Sundays as well!

xoxo Kari