last day in florence

Wednesday morning we had to switch hotels in Florence.  It seemed pretty funny that we packed up our stuff, walked maybe 1/4 mile through the streets and checked into our new hotel.  It was a little bigger, a little nicer and smelled a whole lot less!  I took this not so great picture for my boys.  They wanted pictures of what our rooms looked like.  My favorite part of the room?  The heated bathroom floors...oh so nice.

Wednesday night we went to bed grateful we didn't have to get up for Steve's classes.  He was done Wednesday afternoon and the rest of our time in Italy was just us.  We didn't set the alarm and figured we would wake up around 6 or 7 am like we had done the past few days.  Plus, we didn't have to check out of our hotel until 10:00 am.  We were heading on a train to Venice Thursday afternoon.   

At 9:20 Steve wakes me up in a panic, "We've got to be out of here in 40 minutes!"  

It's a good think I had mastered the art of quick, non-high maintenance hair my previous four days in Italy.

We showered, quickly got ready and were out the door by 10:00am.  The hotel was willing to keep our luggage for the afternoon until we were ready to leave on our afternoon train. 

We decided to spent what was left of our morning at the Boboli Gardens.  It sits behind the Pitti Palace.

We didn't go into the museum at the palace, but spent our time walking around the gardens (working off the last few days of gluttony).  If I had know what a hike the gardens were going to be, I might not have gone.  It was all up and down hill, but the view of Florance was beautiful!

Along with mastering quick hair...Steve and I have mastered self portraits.

(we are so lame!)

Steve had to be coerced into this picture.

I'm a tacky American and proud of it!

This picture does not do the steep grade justice.

I was glad I had already walked up the hill and we were on the way down.

We wished there had been snow so we could have skied down!

The gardens and fountains really were beautiful.

But (no pun intended), I could just hear Colby's giggle in my head over all the naked bum statues.

(Oh man, did I miss Colby!)

Once a dentist...always a dentist.

Breaks for pregnant chicks are a good idea!

By the time we had walked through only maybe half of the gardens, I was ready to go.

My only regret?  Not eating more pizza before we left Florence...I was about the enter the gluten free waste land.  So so sad.

We picked up or luggage and headed to the train station conveniently located 2 blocks from our hotel.

Steve was amazing this way, he always had us stay close to where we needed to be next.  My feet and back appreciated him!

The above picture doesn't show it, but by accident we booked tickets on a high speed train that was super nice.  (we purposely booked tickets from this company on the way back.)  We took a shot of the speed we were traveling on our train...just to show the boys.

270 km/hr.   That is 168 miles/hr.

That train was hauling!

More self portraits!

When we got to Mestre, a town just outside Venice, we walked to our hotel and then decided to do something really exciting...

our Laundry!

I had brought soap and dryer sheets from home and was SUPER glad I had.  It was wonderful to have our clothes smell like home again.

However, if it cost me $12 for two loads of laundry at home, I can promise you this...our clothes wouldn't smell so nice all the time.  We would be stinking it up a little more. 

After our laundry was done and folded, first went to the grocery store and bought food for dinner and breakfast the next morning.  We then headed down to our hotel lobby and took advantage of the wifi.  The Internet wasn't working in our room.  I texted my mom and sent her a few pictures and Steve downloaded a few Top Gear episodes for us to watch in our room.  Italian television is (duh) in Italian and only CNN was in English.  Top Gear on the I-pad was much more fun.