Italy 2017 - it's a wrap

Just a few pictures I took with my phone and just got around to downloading them this morning (12/11) while waiting to leave for the airport.  I gave up trying to sleep at 4:30 this morning, it's now 5:20 and we'll leave for the airport at about 7:15, with Chris dropping me off on his way to work.

This is buon Natale from Italy... this one and the next two were taken on my walk back from my evening cooking class.  I had pondered taking a bus, calling a taxi, etc., thinking did I really want to walk that far at that hour of the night but I was glad I decided to.  I didn't make one wrong turn, there were far fewer people out and about, and it was a clear, lovely evening.

I love Italian shop windows whatever city I'm in.  And I loved these little dresses that look like little girl dresses rather than women's dress-up clothes cut down to size.  (That's showing my age, isn't it?)

 And the Ponte Vecchio at night...

This isn't a clear picture - the fluffy bumps of the clouds were very clear-cut - not fuzzy like this.  After taking it, I wondered how high we were and looked up the flight details and here's the scoop:

 Check out that temperature!  Glad it wasn't THAT cold in Florence. :)

Yeah, I was pretty bored, although actually this was probably the best flight I've had in my traveling history.  There were many empty seats on the flight and I ended up having three seats to myself which meant I could put all the arm rests up and stretch out!  How great is that?  And the crew were just fantastic, laughing and joking with the passengers, constantly bringing drinks, food, treats, etc.  I told the woman sitting across the aisle from me that I probably had put on about 5 pounds just on the trip.  And I told the crew I thought they were the best crew I'd encountered in my travels and the steward laughed and said "they have happy pills in Paris" so if that's what happy pills do, I'm all for them.

By this time we were headed into Maine as far as I could tell from the map they show on the flight tracker.  This was land I was looking at and a very snowy land.

And that is well and truly the last post for this trip.  I'm about 99.9% positive it was my last trip to Florence.  If I go to Italy again, I would pick a new place to explore and if I just had to see the Duomo, eat at Enzo & Piero, or whatever, I could take a train up (or down) for the day and do it.  I'm still trying to figure a way to end up being able to drive around the countryside, visiting little hilltop villages, and smaller towns with good things to see (and eat!)  I can't imagine driving a rental car out of a large city like Rome but I think if I could get out of the city and then rent the car, I would probably be all right.

At any rate, I enjoyed this trip and, as with all the others, will have plenty of wonderful memories!

A bientôt!