Its Tuesday evening and we need to recap and catch  a little on some of the memorable moments over the past 3 days.  Most of Sunday was spent in Assisi.  It is a hill town in the Umbria region of Italy.  The main focus of the town is the basilica (aka church) which focused on St Francis.  Francis was the son of the wealthy family in Assisi.  The family got their wealthy through making cloth and clothing.  Francis preferred the simple life and decided he did not want to live the wealthy life style of his family and demonstrated this by sheading his clothing in the town square and running naked through town and out into the country side where he was greeted by peasants who clothed him (for me this brought back some surpressed memories of high school)..  They gave him scratchy brown cloth to wear.  The scratchy brown cloth reminded Francis constantly what he had done and why he had given up the comfortable cloth for the scratchy brown cloth of the peasants.  That is why monks wear the brown robes that they do today.  Its these kind of stories which make traveling worth it.  The simple living life style has been around for awhile.
It was shortly after that when the day got a little weird.  Older men running around with big white ballons on their head.  Who thought that one up.  Some day we will find out why.
That evening was spent in monticilifino.  A hill town in the Tuscany region just 20 minutes from Montipulciano.  The restaurant was called LA Porta  It is called that because it is located right next to the huge doors which were the entry way into the town way back when.  I suspect the restaurant used to be the gate keeper house or cottage.  The restaurant was recommended to us by Lucca who we rented the apartment from in montipuliciano.  Well the meal was wonderful … The wine was flowing and the credit card took a big hit.  What a wonderful time. 
Monday – Day 9 began our time in Florence.  We got in to Florence a little late because of the late night before.  We spent the evening at the Duomo (church) and then found a restaurant recommended by rick Steve’s.  After another wonderful meal we got back to our flop room (in Florence) for the night and got a good night sleep.  The next day was spent at the Uffizi (art museum in Florence).  The saving grace was that I was able to listen to Rick Steve’s audio take me through the paintings and sculptures.  It made it more interesting and tolerable.  We ate some pizza at a sidewalk cafe and hit the road for home(montipulciano). 

Tomorrow is going to be a catch up day for us.  Although we hate to just sit in the apartment … Sometimes you have to get a break from the gogo.  Also we have laundry to do. 
To sum up.  Italy is wonderful.  The history, people and the Gelato.