Tuscany - Wednesday (19/9)

Wednesday morning l wake and the sky is black and it's raining hard.  The drive is going to be crazy.  1 hour to Florence and then another to the outlets on the opposite of the road with rain and no idea where l am going.  Lucky l have the driving in Spain to thank for my experience as Florence is as bad and even worse in some places.  There are one way streets which you can not go down and if you do there is a photo taken of the car and massive fine issued. This l cannot afford.  I get through the morning traffic in Florence after 1.5 hours and would you believe it there is no lines marked when getting to roundabouts. It's who gets there first, goes.  So l just breath hard and go for it slowly building my confidence and if there is one thing l know l am good at, its driving.  In no time lam beeping and weaving through the thousands of cars it seems through the traffic.  I drop Ange and Paul off finally and then head onto the freeway to outlets.  Prada only let's in 100 people at a time so l need to be there by 9am to get my ticket and grab myself the first items which come out otherwise there is nothing left.  At 9.30 l am still in Florence traffic, taking it easy and not via the freeway  (thanks Tom Tom) l get to the outlet at 11am.  We park, walk in and there are no bags left.  Each Asian person (no offence) has snatched them all.  Liz walks in leisurely looking around and l am like WTF are you doing snatch bags and review later....no idea.  I grab some and place them over my shoulder as 2 people follow me tugging  at the bags and wanting to take them from me.  Over my dead body, even if l don't buy them they are not having these...bloody pains in the you know what.  I finally decide that these are not the the bag/s i want and even though they are half price l really want my original and current version of the Prada bag which is expensive but l guess you only live once and it is my big40 after all. I reserve the bags with the lady l had on my shoulder for them to hold as l walk around and they hold these bags for 3 hours.  I walked out laughing as l knew that those people following me should they want them would need to wait the 3 hours to get them.. Karma l say for being such pains in the you know what and pulling at me.  

Off to the other outlets we go and drive as safely and as fast as l can knowing that soon Rachael will arrive at Florence train station and l need to be back by 1.45.  The other outlets were crap and quickly we got out of there all soaked from the rain to get to Florence.  I need to be at Florence by 2 but cannot reach Rachael until 3 due to one way streets, rain and traffic.  It was so good to see Rachael finally and l look forward to spending the next couple of days together to commence celebrations.  

We head across the road to the nearest bar as l need a drink and some food after all that stress.  We catch up and then all 5 of us squeeze into the little car we have (inc her suitcase in the boot) and head off back to the villa. On the way l need to change this car as it struggles to get up hills even in first gear and seeing as we are going to Siena and San Gimignano as a group tomorrow l need some power behind me.  We get to the town where th car is from and l exchange it for a 2litre car and omg what a big difference it makes and people can now sit comfortably.  We stop to do a grocery shop and this evening we are making pesto pasta with tomatoes, prosciutto, olives and mushrooms...yum.  We buy a bottle of vodka to celebrate our catching up and why wouldn't you at 8euro a bottle and 2 bottles of red wine.  We are all thinking that  it might be too much alcohol but at that price if we don't finish it we can tip it down the sink if we have to once we leave the villa to Venice.  Who were we kidding.....we drank the lot.

Dinner was amazing thanks to Liz and Rachael for cooking and l was prep.  We had some drinks and at some point giggles came on and we were drunk.  Looking forward to tomorrow as we are going to Siena and San Gimignano.

Ciao Zana xx