Parting Ways and Heading Home

After our morning hike, we came back one last time to our apartment and picked up our luggage. Luckily, we could just walk to the train station - as a matter of fact, you see many people just rolling suitcases in the streets of Florence.

Once we got there, we discovered that the Florence train station on Saturday is a very busy travel destination. Unfortunately, Greg and I hadn't pre-purchased the train ticket from Florence to Milan (we bought most of our other tickets ahead of time). There were no 2nd class tickets left to Milan, so we had to pay a lot more for 1st class tickets - oh, well, another lesson learned!

While we waited, we sat on our luggage for awhile and then made one last stop at the bathroom.

I do need to make a comment about this feature of European life. First of all, in all of our outings in France and Italy, we always found it extremely difficult to find a public restroom. I jokingly concluded that maybe Europeans don't need to go to the bathroom whenever they are out and about. Secondly, when you do find a restroom, you have to pay to use it - anywhere from 1 - 1.5 Euros!

Kevin and Kris took one last picture of us before we parted ways and we boarded our high speed train for Milan. We took the train to Milan (about 1.5 hours), then a bus to the airport (that was about 50 minutes away) and then a shuttle bus to our hotel room that is fairly close to the airport.

Tomorrow, we'll leave early in the morning for the airport and our trip back home and to reality.

We have had a wonderful time - all our planning seemed to work out well, and we loved the variety of experiences we had. We felt like we did a lot of things right (thanks for the advice that many of you shared) and we learned some other lessons that will help us on our next trip. The entire experience has truly been a dream come true!!