Greetings! Today was 7 miles, bringing our total miles walked to 31. So much to talk about, so little time!

We were forewarned about mosquitoes being a problem in Florence, but really didn’t see too many there. Yesterday in Fucecchio, we learned that  the little nippers were all on vacation in Fucecchio! Seriously! While touring the town and reading a sign, Bill looked down to see a swarm of mosquitos dining on his legs. About 8 bites later, we were running back to our place where a bottle of 30% deet awaited us. After spraying, we went back out and thoroughly enjoyed the town. We had our best pizzas yet in Italy!

Lost Tippers: We use hiking poles. When on pavement, we put rubber tips on our poles for better grip and less clacking noise. Almost immediately after starting today, Bill found a metal drain grate where the tip popped right off! So, for the rest of the  walk, Bill sounded like: step-click-step-click, etc. Somewhere in the Adriatic sea, Bill’s lost tip is floating along …

Found Money: Last week we talked about our “Sophomore Stumble”.  We forgot our ATM cards and never bothered to set up our credit cards for cash withdrawal. That forced us to visit the money changers and their remarkably high service charge.  To avoid that in the future, we requested a cash withdrawal PIN for our credit cards, and metered our cash expenditures very carefully!  Yippee and Hallelujah! Our very, very gracious friend,  Barb, kept checking our mail and reported to us, this morning that our PIN number came in! A trip to the local bank later confirmed that everything works! We’re in the money! Thank you, Barb!

The view: We’ve just arrived in San Miniato, located at the top of a hill. The view is stunning! Just a couple shots:

Tomorrow is a longer one, but the scenery is promised to be spectacular. We can’t wait!