Europe

A driver picked us, Georgia and Lori up from our respective apartments at 3:45 am, and we arrived at the airport half an hour later. We were all smiles in this photo, but we were half-asleep and sad to be leaving Florence. 

On our last full day in Florence, we walked through the Giardino Boboli (Boboli Garden), one of the few places on our “must see” list that we hadn’t yet visited, and then bade farewell to our Road Scholar classmates and group leaders over yet another fabulous meal.

Today was the final day of language classes for three people from our Road Scholar group enrolled in the Classical Italian course (the others, in the Survival Italian course, had their last class the day before). We were all starting to pack up and prepare to head home, but we met together for dinner in the evening.

With just three days remaining, we were trying to cram in a few more experiences that we’d missed so far, including a walk through the Giardino Bardini. Then in the evening, our group all got dressed up to attend a symphony in the city’s beautiful modern concert hall.

We met up again with art historian and tour guide Emanuela for a walking tour focusing on the Italian Renaissance and featuring a visit to the Galleria dell’Accademia to see Michelangelo’s David.

We started our last week of language classes this morning, then had lunch with our RVing friends Peter and Theresé, who were in Florence for a few hours as part of a month-long tour of Italy. Then it was back to the school for a Road Scholar group meeting.

Today was a national holiday, so we didn’t have class. We slept in a bit, met up with friends for lunch, and then sought an escape from the heat in the Leonardo da Vinci Interactive Museum.

We spent Sunday at home to catch up on sleep, laundry, and our language homework, and then we went out for dinner in the evening.

As the summer heat suddenly arrived in Tuscany, we traveled by bus from Florence to the town of Greve in Chianti (that’s the full name of the town) for our final Road Scholar field trip. After visiting the market and having lunch in Greve’s famous triangular square, we rode up a steep hill to the 11th-century village of Montefioralle, which was the original nucleus of Greve.