Florence, Italy

(October 13-20) Our destination club, Quintess, had recently added some “villas” in Florence and in Tuscany to our choices so we decided to try one of their Florentine places and invited Gary’s sister’s two children to join us.

Villa Il Poggiale near Florence

(October 12, 2007) For our second night en route to Florence, we chose to stay in Tuscany and enjoy our time there before picking up our niece at the airport in the early afternoon.

La Saletta in Certaldo

Via Roma, 3 ; 0571 668188; www.lamiatoscana.it

(October 12, 200) Hats off to Pat and Bill who told us about this restaurant, saying it was the best meal they had had in their recent three weeks in Italy. Not only would we never had made our way to Certaldo, but we would never have found this place.

The Marches

  (September 25-29)                   We left Nice for the Villa Giulia in Fano (www.relaisvillagiulia.com), on the Adriatic coast in the Marches region, where we planned to spend four nights touring the northern Marches and then ferry over to Croatia for a leisurely drive north into Italy.

The first part worked out perfectly. We spent our days driving around with our GPS programmed for villages we particularly wanted to see. With that operating we were directed to back roads, many of which had no name or number and where intersections were not marked. This was quite a treat because

Ferrara

(September 29 and 30) Wending our way up north from The Marches, we decided to spend some time in Ferrara. Driving in, one cannot help but notice that all the signs subtitle the place as the city of bicycles. Sure enough there are just masses of them in the old town and its immediate environs. It seems that the city fathers have decided to really discourage cars in the historic city so have made bicycles equal to pedestrians in terms of where they can go.

Trattoria Maria (The Marches)

Via IV Nov 86, Fano; 0721 808962

(September 26, 2007)   Our most sumptuous and the most creative meal in the Marches was at the Madonnina del Pescatore (see separate listing), but perhaps our most memorable meal was at Trattoria Maria, a restaurant we would never have found without Anna Passi at Relais San Guillia and GPS.

Madonnina del Pescatore (the Marches)

Lungomare Italia 11, Marzocca di Senigallia, 39071 698267 (between Fano and Ancona)
www.madonninadelpescatore.it

(September 27, 2007) Because this is a two-star restaurant in the Michelin Guide we were quite surprised when we found a storefront location in a nondescript building across from the beach. The surprises continued as we walked inside and were seated in a very casual but trendy environment.