Au revoir Paris..........ciao Italy.

This morning we were up early and downstairs in our hotel ready to meet the private car we hired to take us to Charles de Gaulle for our flight to Paris. Fortunately it is Sunday and traffic will be, and it was, light.
Check in went sort of well.....some of us had checked luggage and others were doing carry-on. Thing is, the French  are VERY sticky about carry-on size and weight.  Soon the carryon girls were passing items to the checked girls in an effort to lighten their load.!!!!! It all worked out in the end.  When we got to our gate we discovered one coffee kiosk and a very long line up! Finally after ordering coffee and crossiants  we were on our way. It was a full flight and pilots came on to warn of turbulence. I was feeling quite nauseous and started to search for a barf bag! It was not needed and we landed in Florence just after 12 noon.
Joanie (travel master extraordinaire) had arranged a car to pick us up.  We were met with a hand lettered sign On the arrivals level by Junko.....he said we could call him Jack!  He turned out to be a very personable and chatty guy, he talked non stop about his impending wedding, his diet, his city, which he clearly loves.  We all quite enjoyed him and were happy to hear he will be our driver tomorrow when we venture out to the countryside.
We were early for our hotel checkin so walked out for some lunch. Lunch was a variety of italian appies and a bottle of wine.  Next it was back to the hotel to settle in and then meet our guide for 3:30 pm. We toured the Uffizi Gallery and the Vasari Corridor. The Uffizi is one of the largest galleries in the world and the Vasaro Corridor is a lesser known site that we were fortunate to find out about and book a tour. It leads out of the Uffizi and is a corridor lined with portraits, it was built by the Medicis, to take them from their place of work to their palace, it is just over a kilometre long. A tour of the corridor must be booked in advance, is $120.canadian per person. We were 7 persons and were joined by another 3, so 10 in all, the number of persons is limited to small groups at a set time. While there with our guide, we had a security guard in front and one behind who followed alone with us to open locked doors and relock them behind us. We were able to take photos of all that we wanted. The corridor goes over top of the famous Pont Vecchio bridge. It was interesting to look down at the people walking over the bridge from the windows.  As you near the end of the corridor the portraits become more modern as the years advance.   We ended the tour and walked across the bridge at street level back to our hotel. It was quite a full and tiring day. We had about an hour and a bit before dinner.
A  few bottles were bought at a wine store and we had a toast to our day and went out for dinner. The restaurant we were booked At was closed so we crossed the street and chose another. We ordered an assortment of small plates to share family style and a nice wine. It was all delicious! Bruschetta , eggplant, ravioli, white beans, mixed vegs, charcuterie, some lard fried on bread, (not particularly liked) typical italian fare, along with bread that rivals the French and sublime olive oil.
The day was starting to catch up on us and we have another full day tomorrow. It was a short and pleasant walk back to our hotel.  The area we are in is mainly pedestrian with only taxi's, police cars and service vehicles allowed, lots of wine, shoe, clothing, purse shops to view!
Maybe there will be time tomorrow..........
We are all in love with Italy !!!