Getting up this morning was rough. You might initially want to blame the wine tasting and the couple bottles of wine at dinner. But you’d be wrong. I ate way to much. The meal was amazing, by far the best meal I’ve ever had in Italy. If only I’d shown some restraint and not eaten like a starving teenage boy.

Our ride to the train station was getting us from the villa at 8:30am. I was still so full from dinner I could barely move. I didn’t eat breakfast. Didn’t even try. I was still stuffed. The kids ate, but at least one expressed that they probably didn’t need to.

The most difficult part of the morning saying goodbye to our new friend Cecilia. As the owner of the villa we had seen her a lot and she feels a bit like family. She stood and waved as we drove away, text messages were already being sent. It’s always nice to know you have made a new true friend.

We arrived at the train station about 20 minutes before our train giving us plenty of time to get our traveling circus up to the platform. When the train showed up the circus was in full effect trying to find seats and stow luggage on a regional train that does have a ton of room. We all ended up in the same car, but spread out in small groups.

The early train was full of people commuting for work and school, and had a more somber feeling than their high speed siblings full of people traveling longer distances for fun or other less mundane reasons.

The young woman that Michelle and I shared seats was quiet and spent most of the ride looking out the window. But then the unexpected happened. While Michelle was sleeping, the young woman began rummaging in her bag and pulled out items to begin assembling a breakfast. And she offered to share with me. We hadn’t spoken since our initial “ciao” and neither of us had given any friendly signals other than simply respecting privacy and quiet. But now she was offering to share. It gave me a chance to politely tell her in my best Duolingo Italian “no, grazie. Io non ho fame” or “no thank you, I’m not hungry.” She gave me a polite smile and a nod, knowing that those six words were likely the extent of my Italian. It’s these little moments that help make travel so much fun.

Arriving in Florence we made a beeline for a luggage storage shop where we had reserved lockers for our bags. It was staffed by an apparent former Italian army drill Sargent who liked having things done a particular way. After a lot of frustration in a few short moments, we were lighter and on our way out the shop.

We started hustling to the Galleria Dell’Academia di Firenze where we had purchased “skip the line” tickets to see Michelangelo’s David. It was a big challenging to find the flag we needed to grab our tickets, but once we did it was only a couple minutes until we were inside looking at paintings and sculptures that were as many as 600 years old.

But the real star was the small hallway of sculptures by Michelangelo himself, with David triumphantly standing at the end looking over the crowd. We’ve all seen pictures. I used to walk by the worlds most accurate copy a couple times a day when my office was in Caesars Palace, but this was still impressive. The smooth stone was almost mistakable for skin and he somehow looked lifelike. It was a stretch to make it happen, but definitely worthwhile.

We had roughly an hour to kill before we needed to grab our bags from Mr. Sparkles at the bag storage and catch our train to Venice. The square around the Baptistery of Saint John has a number of little cafes and restaurants, and was a short walk away, so that’s where we headed.

Some pizza and calzones later we wandered back, grabbed our bags, and got ready for the train. We were all wiped out so the train ride was pretty subdued, and thanks to the business class seats, each of us were able to grab a snooze.

Stepping off the train in Venice and out of the station is just as magical as I remember. Before visiting in 2019, I had no desire to see this city. But now, I’ve been waiting to return. Something about it speaks to me and there is a peace to being here. Being able to share it with friends makes it even more special.

Tonight we had dinner at one of the places we eat the last time we visited. It’s been a running joke about them remembering me as “Mr. Brad” when we went a second time.

Their broad menu and great seating down on the Grand Canal makes it a win. Plus, a solid wine list is nothing to to be upset about.

Was it cold on the canal for dinners? For sure. Did we complain, not even a little bit. When they forgot to bring drinks for the girls or Rylieb’s pizza weren’t huge problems. We were on Italian time.