Time to rally

Italy: So many museums, so little time. Ditto for delicious eats. With just a few hours left we had to choose wisely. Our hotel was across the street from the Palazzo Pitti that tempted us with some illustrious garden behind its walls, but we went with the Uffizi Gallery. And there went half a day . . .
We are not art smart but it was still a worthwhile stop. With two full stories and four main corridors, there is a lot to see and all for 11 Euros per person. We could spend a day just staring at the magnificent ceiling art. Of course, our weird sense of humor drew us to the paintings with things like sea monster attacks.

http://www.sciencemusings.com/blog/uploaded_images/perseus-773234.jpg

For lunch, we struggled between the popular Nebone in the central market or I Trippaio di San Frediano. We ate at both earlier in the week. It was Trippaio for the win - there was still a weird cut of meat Jason had his eye on. The lampredotto alla cacciatora (3 Euros). We also grabbed a final gelato (of course!).

We walked the city for some last views of the river (which was packed with rowers), the bridges and the markets, where for once we did not blow our final coins on trinkets. In four weeks, we bought almost zero souvenirs. I bought a scarf and Jason bought a t-shirt from the Archea bar. The bar had beer from the Northwest, their own brew was good and the shirt has a minotaur on it - how can you not like that.

For our last meal, we took advice from Twitter (Thanks @writewayaround!) and went to I Tarocchi, a restaurant with rave reviews about its pear ravioli and gorgonzola gnocchi. We got the gnocchi and roasted pork and potatoes. It was an excellent meal to close out our month-long menu. Walking home, we also hit a convenient store to stock up on European candy.  Jason has a serious thing for Kinder Buenos and foreign Kit Kat bars. We always look like candy smugglers when traveling abroad.

We ended the night, and our European shenanigans, at the Palazzo Pitti. And probably just in time, as there is another austerity rally scheduled for April 12^th and we have seen our share of marches on this trip. It has been an adventure-filled four weeks, and we are grateful for all the support from our family, friends and readers, not to mention our employers and coworkers who let us take this trip.

Next up, 18+ hours of travel to the Tri-Cities. But we are not done yet – stay tuned for behind the scenes, lessons learned and many more photos!