Wheels in Florence

We arrived in Florence midday with the sun shining on our packs. We made a 15 minute walk to our hotel Bavaria. It was more than we could of asked for, especially for price. After 3 flights of stairs we meet the hotel tendant and his overgrown pug. Our room overlooked the bustling street which was fun to watch while eating our new jar of peanut butter from Steve with carrots and apples. It has been difficult to keep a regular digestion pattern with the kebabs, pizza, crissants, and wine....so we went to the store for some produce. At 9 we attended an Italian play, originally called breakfast at tiffanys! After we walked the streets, we settled for getting jipped at a university bar by getting 7 euro glasses of wine. This morning we anticipated heavy rains, but we decided to make the most of it and headed to the bike shop after our wonderful complimentary breakfast. We were able to leaveourbagsat the hotel. We met our bike guide Rebecca from England and four other bikers from Boston and Israel. We jumped on our bikes with zest and rode out of the city to the chianti region. We had a minor setback when our fellow rider fell into the rode and the back spoke broke. We made our way to coffee shop to wait for someone to bring a new bike....and of course he biked to meet us. We pedaled through villas and rolling hills of olives and grapes. We arrived at our destination at the top of a hill andhadlunch at an olive orchard where the owner also gives cooking classes. We ate a wonderful lasagna paired with red wine, bread with tomatoes topped with their olive oil, cheese, and salami unique to this area. It was the best meal dill and I have eaten since luca and Elena's! After we stuffed ourselves they brought out a strawberry tiramisu paired with a dessert wine. It was money well spent. After ride back into city we grabbed our bags and walked to hotel Montreal.....