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Florence
We had to say arrividerci to Montepulciano the next morning. Some of us stopped at an elegant coffee house on the way down to see the amazing view from its terrace. From the bottom of the hill we took a bus to Chiusi, then train to Florence. Florence is the birthplace of the Renaissance, the rebirth of culture in the 15th and 16th centuries. It’s home to world renowned art and architecture. And leather markets! Those markets were one of the things I remembered most from my last time here many years ago, and our hotel is nearby for convenient shopping. But, those markets seem really cheap compared to the…
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Montepulciano
So much more to see in Rome, but we have to move on. We took a tram to the Termini station, where internal and external trains and metro all meet. Trains go nearly everywhere in Italy, which makes it so easy to move around. Imagine if we had them in Canada, or the US, how much easier travelling would be! The train took us to a small city, where we got on a bus taking us to Montepulciano. This extra step is probably what makes the town a bit of a hidden gem. The medieval town (built in the 6th century) is set in the heart of the Tuscan countryside,…
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Sunday in Rome
I could have gone to see the pope in St. Peter’s Square but I wasn’t up for that. Instead, I took the metro train to the Trevi Fountain station. I had seen the fountain briefly on my Vespa tour, but just wanted to see it again on this beautiful sunny day. I decided to follow the crowds from the station, and ended up at the Spanish steps instead. The Spanish steps aren’t Spanish, they just used to lead to the Spanish embassy. At the base of the steps is the Via Condosi, a famous street full of mostly high-end shops. Some of the shops had lineups outside due to covid…
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Rome Vespa tour
On my last evening before meeting my group, I had signed up for a Vintage Vespa tour. The Vespa is the iconic scooter that is symbolic of Italy. The scooter you would picture near a fountain in Rome, with a dark handsome driver. Its name means Wasp. However my driver was not a young hot guy, but an old guy who thought he was hot. Buddy, it’s not you that people are staring at, it’s your vintage Vespa! I hopped on with Orazio and he showed me ancient baths, miles of the Aurelian walls around the city up a hill to a viewpoint, a church, homeless people, and one of…
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Rome
Getting There I arrived in Rome around 9 am with very little sleep – the flight attendants woke us up for breakfast around the time I would normally have been going to bed due to the 8 hour time difference. There is a regular train from the Rome Fiumicino airport to the Termini station in the city centre where my hotel is located. There you can connect to the metro, then you would walk about 15 minutes to the hotel – that might have been too much for me on no sleep! But knowing now what I didn’t know then, it would have been fairly easy and cheaper of course.…
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How to Get to Italy 2021
Why Italy? I finally made it to Italy in October of 2021! How did I get there? Here’s my story….. I had booked a trip to Chile and Argentina in April of 2020 with G Adventures, a Canadian small group adventure travel company. I’ve travelled with G Adventures many times and highly recommend their trips. I had booked flights through Air Canada (which is my only choice for international travel from Regina). Then covid came. Just a few weeks before I was to leave, G Adventures and Air Canada informed me that the trip was off. Both companies gave me credits. This made sense to me, since if travel companies…
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and more Havana
Today at dance class my Ahmed was booked so I had a new instructor, Abelardo, who couldn’t remember my name so called me Baby. (no one puts Baby in a corner – Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing). For the second hour we did Casino de Rueda with all of us, it’s a circular dance where a caller decides the moves and you switch partners all the time. The guys were performing, sliding into the middle like into home plate, shouting and singing, it was lots of fun. Back on our patio with a beer to recuperate, then lunch at a great paladar named 304 O’Reilly (pronounced oh rrelly), and a…
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more Havana
Back at the dance studio, another 2 hours of casino (Cuban salsa, named after the dance halls where it originated in the 1950s). I’m starting to get it, and got a bunch of thumbs up, Eso!s (that’s it!) and Agua!s (water?? or also good, or that’s it, apparently) and even a few I love you Lynn!s from Ahmed. Back at the casa again, we sat on the deck for a bit of sun. It was kind of cool and cloudy for the first couple of days after the tornado, but now it’s perfect sunny weather. We had lunch at a cheap corner bar, with a great salsa band, and locals…
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Havana continued
In the mornings we had breakfast on the patio. Rooms are 35 CUC per night, plus 5 CUC for a hearty breakfast. We walked a few blocks to Casa del Son for our lessons. I’m with Ahmed, and two of the others and their instructors, all in the same room. So fun, the instructors are all great, very well trained. I had to make several adjustments to my LA salsa style. After that we went back to the casa to regroup, went for a nice outdoor lunch, and stopped in the Revolution Museum and Granma memorial (the Granma was the yacht that was used by Fidel Castro to transport 82…
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Havana
I’ve been to Cuba and Havana twice before, 10 years ago and 3 years ago. I found it to be a strange place, with reliable disorganization, some really bad food, and dancing everywhere. When asked about returning, I said well it’s not my favourite place….but this time it’s a dance trip! My connecting flight to Toronto was delayed, then the flight to Havana was delayed a couple of hours, so I arrived with two friends around 3:30 am at the airport. After waiting for bags and changing money (Cuban pesos aren’t sold outside of Cuba) we found a handsome cabbie who drove us through strangely dark streets and fallen trees. …