Wed 05 Nov- Villa Gamberaia

Wed 05 Nov- after our buffet breakfast and learning Obama had won the election, we asked the hotel to print the tickets to the Galleria dell Accademia and Uffizi Galleria that we will visit tomorrow. We had bought advance tickets through the Internet to ensure entry, and to avoid the possibility of long lines (even in this off-season time, the lines at the Uffizi can be quite long).
We met with Roland and Ragnhild and they drove us to the Villa Gamberaia, located on the hillside of Settignano, a suburb of Florence, with extraordinary views of Florence and the surrounding Arno valley. It was built in the early Seventeenth century and been renovated after WWII.
After the garden, Kiyomi and Ragnhild decided to visit Pittarello, a shoe store near Prato in Sesto Fiorentino. We drove to the town and had lunch at the Opera Cafe, a modern snack shop with a piano theme that served good fusili pasta with clam sauce and shrimp curry rice. After lunch the ladies looked at the hundreds of different women's shoes in many styles - boots, heels, pumps, ballet, exercise, etc. while Stan and Roland looked at the men's shoes. Another popular shoe store near Prato we skipped was Scarpe & Scarpe, which apparently also has a huge assortment at reasonable prices.
Back at the Londra's Garden Lounge Restaurant, for dinner we had 'Montecarlo Rosso 2007' red wine; a ham quiche appetizer and welcome champagne; linguine alle vongole veraci' (linguine with clam sauce); 'zuppa di verdure invernali' (winter vegetable soup with carrots, beans, peas, potato and cabbage). It was quite good, cost E 33.