This morning it was cold. And it stayed cold all day. I whipped out the gloves and double layers, and Mike had on a hat and mittens. We were reminded that the East Coast transition will be difficult, and Mike pondered the idea of sweatpants under his work clothes.
Brilliant ideas like this are the result of waking up really early to catch the 7 AM bus to Volterra. For some reason, what should be a relatively easy day trip is made unnecessarily complicated (by whom, I'm not sure). There are four buses each day between Florence and Volterra (we got the complete printed schedule in Florence before we left). Since it's a two-hour bus ride (each way) that requires a transfer in the small city of Colle Val D'Elsa, we chose to catch the earliest bus. The bus from Florence took us to a random bus stop where the driver said we could transfer. Then we were shepherded onto a small shuttle bus that took us to Colle Val D'Elsa, where we found out the bus we were planning to transfer to doesn't run on on weekdays. We made the best of the hour we had to wait by getting some hot chocolate at a nearby cafe.
We could easily be to blame, being the silly tourists that we are. But we quickly removed blame from ourselves when we tried to do the trip in reverse later in the day and things not only were more confusing, but they were confusing to everyone on the bus (locals included). After we arrived in Colle Val D'Elsa from Volterra, we got on a bus to go the strange transfer location. Then everyone got off the bus (before it left), and got on a smaller bus - us and another 25 high school students. Then all the students got off the bus (again, before it even left), and got on another bus. Finally we were taken to the mystery transfer spot, and everything went smoothly after that.
Back in Florence we went to a recommended restaurant for dinner and got some serious servings of some seriously hearty food, perfect for a cold night.
Gelato Gusti per il Giorno (for those who are stupid tough enough to brave the cold):
Mike - Amarena e Stracciatella
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