4/2 Vatican and on to Florence

 I had been really stressed about today, but it all worked wonderfully.  B and I were almost totally packed when went went to join our tour.  The meeting place was right around the corner from our apartment.  This was a guided tour, which I’m usually not found of because the guides sometimes feel the need to tell you more than you eve wanted to know.  Elena  was great.  Gave us good background for what we were going to see and made sure to point out the “biggies”.  Otherwise she moved us through pretty efficiently.  

6 million people visit the Vatican museum, Sistine Chapel, and Basilica each year.  I think 3 million of them were here today.  B is very good about keeping my arm tucked into hers so I don’t stumble or fall on the many, many, many stairs.  Elena told us that if we sent postcards from Vatican City we would get the official Vatican stamp, so we made it a point to do that.  Since not many others were doing it, I think it was a great tip.  

We scurried back to the apartment to finish packing because I had reserved an Uber to take us to the train. Everything worked.  We had enough time to get some lunch and decompress before the train came.  We got on ok and found places for our luggage.  B had to do the heavy lifting because my back is still problematic.  

Lovely smooth fast train - it only took 1 1/2 hours.  I had planned on knitting, but we went through so many tunnels, I gave it up and read.  Once at Florence, a nice man carried the smaller carry ones off the train for me.  We found a cab and were soon at the Westin Excelsior.  We have really moved up in the world.  Our room is large and luxurious.  The concierge recommended a restaurant that would give us a taste of Florence and made our reservation.  When we were walking to the restaurant B suddenly saw a friend from her junior high across the street.  She yelled hi and the other girl yelled back.  They were just getting on a bus so we didn’t do more.  So strange to just randomly see someone like that.  B did know the girl was in Italy because she had posted about going to the coliseum the day before we went. 

At Buco Mario, we gave our name to the doorman, he said, “From the Excelsior “.  Then the maitre de did the same thing as he passed us to the waiter. Everyone kept saying “the Excelsior.” It was a bit weird.

We chose 2 appetizers to share.  Pecorino cheese with apples and honey and burrata with tomatoes.  B had lasagna (again from grandma's recipe and I had a pillow type pasta filled with cheese and spinach with meat sauce.  We shared two desserts - tiramisu and chocolate cake.