After what I hope will be a fantastic week of exploring a new part of Italy, our next destination will be a familiar place – Florence, via Bologna. I settled on this route after investigating the other available flight options, such as Florence and Pisa, and deciding that the combination of available times and price, made Bologna most appealing.
The train travels directly from the airport to Santa Maria Novello and we’ll likely catch a cab to our accommodations in the Porta Romana neighborhood. Once again, I get to stay with Gabriel, my favorite son of Firenze, and I couldn’t be happier to introduce my travel companion to him. We’ll be with him for three nights and I imagine our first night will be fairly quiet. I’m picturing hugs and pizza and wine. ❤️
The next morning, we will meet some American friends who will be in Italy at the same time – Christopher, Chris and Susan. I’m so excited for these two days of overlap when the plan is to take a day trip to Siena, (a city I’ve not visited before), as well as celebrating what was once my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving.
The Siena day has not been buttoned down beyond our thought to travel by bus, rather than rail, as the drop off point is more central to where we’ll want to be upon arrival. We have nothing other than this day trip on our agenda and it should be a relaxing excursion.
We have dinner reservations for Thanksgiving for a late seating. This preserves the entire day to do other things in town, visiting markets, maybe some holiday shopping and generally a leisurely kind of afternoon. Our evening meal will be at Ristorante Accademia and the person that I communicated with regarding our reservations, is funnily enough married to someone from Saugerties, NY of all places!
I’ll take this bit of kismet as confirmation that we selected the right venue for our holiday meal.
Friday we’ll pack up and travel south to Rome for our last couple of nights together. We’ll have the afternoon and evening open, but Saturday we’ll have a traditional Thanksgiving meal with a shared friend (and her gang of celebrants) at her home. Friendsgiving! In Rome!
After Margaret heads back to the States, I’ll still have another 10 days or so out of the country. I’ll bounce down to Naples for a couple of nights, staying at my favorite B&B and visiting my preferred optician for a new pair of frames.
And eat some pizza and sfogliatella, of course.
When I return to Rome, I’ll get to spend a couple of bonus days with my friends who I gallivanted with in Florence prior to their departure. I’m merely along for the ride, but am thrilled that we’ll have this additional opportunity to hang out. I imagine we’ll drink some wine and eat some pasta.
My final weekend in Europe comes with a major change in location…
Athens!
My teacher friend/daughter/sister/niece/cousin, Alex, has a long weekend and we decided to get out of Italy for a few nights and bop over to Greece. It’s been a few years since I was last there (also with Alex!) and I’m psyched to once again visit this lively city. We have no agenda, but I’m sure we’ll manage to fill our days and nights without too much difficulty.
I’ll wrap up my fall adventures with a couple of nights in Rome and then head back home ready for the holiday season. The trip spans nearly a month, an indulgence by all measures, and I understand how fortunate I am to be able to travel for such a length of time. It is not taken for granted, but it is what I have worked my entire life to be able to do.
If you have any favorite spots in Florence, Siena, Rome, Naples or Athens, please send them my way in a comment. Grazie mille!
