The summer is winding down, and so is my time in Italy. I
just walked away from the table of my last dinner in the old country for 2019.
Tomorrow morning Melissa and I catch our first flight, this one to London where
we’ll have a 24-hour layover. It’s not a lot of time, but enough to get a taste
of our British heritage, which is a big part of my makeup according to Ancestry
DNA. 
After spending two nights in Rome, Melissa and I headed to
Florence for a night on Sunday. It was great to walk around Florence again,
seeing the Ponte Vecchio, Piazza della Signoria, Piazza della Republica, The
Duomo, Piazza Santa Maria Novella, and the leather mart. We really enjoy
Florence, which is a little city compared with Rome and Milan. It was also
really nice to have a chance to run into our friends Melissa and Alethea. It
had only been a couple of days since we’d seen each other, but our paths
crossed in daVinci’s old neighborhood, and we stopped for a last meal together
over here for 2019.
This morning we had to return the rental car to the Hertz
office in Milan. We woke up in Florence. But instead of making the direct
route, we decided to take a quick excursion to Pisa to see the Leaning Tower.
Melissa had never seen it in her travels and it has been a few years since I have
been able to see it. It’s still neat after all of these years.
We arrived in Milan this afternoon, and have spent the
better part of the day resting and preparing our bags for the trip home. We
push out tomorrow and return home on Wednesday. We had a last, delicious cena
(dinner) in Italy at the gourmet restaurant in the hotel, and have been
relaxing in the room since we finished. Italy has been fun and I will truly
miss it this year.
