HELP! I’VE FALLEN IN (love with) TUSCANY AND I CAN’T GET UP

Firenze Tours—The Right Way, The Paolo Way (Late April 2010)

     Marianne located Paola’s name from Rick Steves Florence and Tuscany 

2010 book.   Paola Migliorini does personalized tours, a little spendy, but 

since we felt we needed a guide to take us around the Oltrarno on our last

full day in Firenze, I agreed 

with Marianne. 

Hi: My wife and I my need a half day tour of the south part of Firenze: Pitti, Oltrarno, 

San Miniato, etc. Marianne has mobility issues and can not do a great deal of walking. 

Possibly Friday June 25. 

Any information would be helpful.

Thank you, David and Marianne Jones 

David & Marianne buongiorno from Florence! 

25 June 

Yes we can customize the tour for you with our van 

9 am or 2 pm meeting at your hotel 4 hours driving guided tour with private van driver & guide, 

same person- Piazzale Michelangelo, San Miniato abbey inside, Santo Spirito area and Pitti 

Palace and visit the Palatina gallery inside 

65 euros x 4 hours total 260 euros total for both of you 

Due to the dollars/euros I offer same tour to you at 240 euros 

Entrance fees Not included 10 euros per person for Pitti Palace to book we need all infos 

requested in the attachment grazie Paola 

Paola: 

Thank you for responding.  We are very interested in a 4 hour tour at 2 PM on Friday, June 25th..   

Our problem is that Marianne is experiencing walking issues.  She can not climb many stairs and 

she can not walk for more than three or four blocks.  She is using a cane. 

The Oltrarno and points south of the Arno are what we would like to see. We would like to do 

the Pitti and Boboli Garden on our own.  We are thinking of these specific places for an afternoon 

tour 2 PM:  San Spirito, Brancacci Chapel, Piazzale Michelangelo, and finally San Miniato, 

where we were hoping to stay for Mass (5:30 PM). However, we are concerned that, one, 

there is a way to drop Marianne off at the door of the church, and two, if we are left at San Miniato, 

can we get a taxi back to our apartment?  Would the guide be able to return us at 6 PM? Sorry 

if we sound helpless, but we do hope we can work this out without it being a "mal di testa" for the 

guide.  We will be at the Pitti at 2 PM and our apartment is on piazza Cimatori. 

Please let us know. 

Thank you, 

David and Marianne Jones 

Paola Migliorini <info@florencetour.com> wrote: 

Your itinerary if ok for us 

- Santo Spirito - Brancacci Chapel (I will make reservation for it) 

- Michelangelo square 

- San Miniato 

I will wait for you at San Miniato untill 6 pm and drive back at your apartment in Via Cimatori in 

the center You wish to be picked up at 2 pm at the Pitti Palace at my right? I promise there are 

not many stairs and not much walking on this tour as with our license van we can park close to 

your sights 250 euros for both of you (as there is extra time)plus entrance fees for Brancacci 

Chapel to book I still need all infos requested in the attachment grazie 

Paola 

Paola: 

This looks great.  Thank you! 

Yes, we will meet you at the Pitt at 2 PM.  We will be having lunch somewhere close.   

Where exactly do you want us to wait? 

- Our tours don’t include: entrance fees, meals and gratuities 

EUROS CASH PAYMENT AT THE END OF THE TOUR  €258? 

How much do you need for the entrance fees?  €8 (€4 each)  You will make the reservation, 

correct? 

Grazie, David and Marianne Jones 

Grazie for your booking! 

25 June 

2 pm meeting at the main entrance of the Pitti Palace with our van 

I make reservation for Brancacci chapel hours tour 250 euros cash payment at the end of 

the tour + 4 euros per person for Brancacci Chapel When you have your Italian phone 

number grazie to give it to me I would like to have the street number of your apartment in 

Via de Cimatori too if possible (just in case I need to reach you and your phone for some 

reason don't work) 

Paola: 

This is embarrassing.  The rental company, Tuscany Accommodations has not given us 

an actual street number.   I will email and get it. I do have a picture of the building the 

apt. is in... Grazie, David Jones 

I have recognize the building, I don't even need the number anymore, this 

is right next to Birreria Centrale and nice local trattoria 

I do need your Italian mobile phone when you will have it ciao Paola

From Fiona we contacted Todd Bolton about a wine tour because Donatella 

had never bothered contacted us again since Christmas, after promising the 

tour of “our dreams”.

Hello:
My wife and I are planning on a week long stay in Firenze, June 19 through 25. We had
planned to take a day long tour of Chianti, but we think that our guide forgot us. We haven't heard from her since Christmas.
We were given your name by a friend's niece, who recommends you highly. Your website looks great,
but we sure would like to know some details about the daily tour with 8 people. Our free day looks like Monday, June 21.
We would appreciate any information you can share with us. We are hoping this works out. We will be looking forward to hearing from you.
Thank you,
David and Marianne Jones

Hello David and Marianne,
Thank you for contacting us, and sorry to hear your guide sort of bailed out on you.  I currently have space on the 21st of June on my Daily Chianti tour.  To give you a little background about the trip, our tours run from 10:15 until about 4:30.  We meet at a point on the Arno river which is pretty centrally located to hotels in Florence and we depart from there.  Our tours are small group wine tours so you always have more personal attention with us, and our guides are trained Sommeliers (wine stewards) and have a vast knowledge of the areas you would be traveling to.
Once our tours depart it is usually about 30 minutes or so to the first winery where we explain the history of the winery, the wines produced there, and taste about 3-4 wines plus the olive oil.  From there we head to a small family run restaurant where you are served an excellent multi-course Tuscan lunch, which includes 2 appetizers, 2 pasta dishes, dessert, water wine and coffee. From there we head to the second winery; where you again taste 3-4 wines and oil, see the cantina and fermentation area of the winery, etc...  Then we head back to Florence.  The total cost for the tour is 125 Euro per person and this is all-inclusive.
If you have any other questions feel free to contact me directly, and also let me know if you would like to make the reservation and I will hold the spaces for you.
Thank you and best regards, Todd Bolton

Todd:
This is great.  Unless, and I doubt it, the other guide contacts us we will go with you.
Marianne is having some walking issues (she will be slow and lots of stair are hard on her) so let us know if there will be a problem.  We are staying about three blocks nord of Piazza Signore (Pzz. Cimatori) so we'll probably be able to walk to Ponte Vecchio.
I am curious to find out which two winery's you have planned to visit.  Do you know now?
Thanks so much. 
David and Marianne Jones

Walking is pretty much at a minimum on the tour, and if she wants to sit some or the walking out she easily can throughout the day.  The two wineries we typically visit are the Castello del Trebbio and the Fattoria Selvapiana.  If you would like more information or to make the reservation let me know.
Todd

Todd:
Sing us up.
Just need to know where the pick up is to see if Marianne can walk there.
Can you let us know?
Thank you, David and Marianne Jones

Hi David and Marianne,

I have blocked the two spaces for you on June 21st. All you will need to do is show up at the meeting point (time and place written below).  You can simply pay on the morning of the tour.  Tour cost is 125 Euro and this is all inclusive (guides will need to be paid in Euro as we do not accept credit cards).  Please email me a confirmation that you have received this email and that you will be joining the tour on June 21st, and we'll look forward to seeing you then. Thank you

Directions to meeting point: 

We meet at 10:15 at the north east corner of a bridge on the Arno river called the Ponte Alle Grazie.  To arrive at this bridge, what you need to do is go to the Ponte Vecchio (the bridge with all of the gold shops on it), stay on the train Station side (also the same side of the river as the Duomo), facing the Ponte Vecchio you will want to go to the left on the road which runs along the Arno and walk up to the next bridge. This is the Ponte Alle Grazie.  We will have a silver ford transit 9- pasenger van parked on the corner of this bridge and a street called the Lungarno Delle Grazie.  I have attached a link to a map of the area so that you can see the bridge.   If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me any time via email or on my cell at 340-930-1794 (add the prefix +39 if calling from outside of Italy). 

Thank you and best regards,

Todd

     I decided to give the Tuckerberry’s one more “poke”.  I went to their website and found that Jill was currently in a production of the new musical “The Kid” by the same people that brought us twisted bit of childhood TV “Avenue Q”.  I wanted to get their ideas on what we shouldn’t miss in Spoleto and tell him what we thought of his performance as Nelson Lehman in the “Brazil” episode of “Laws and Order”.  Marianne is a die-hard fanatic for the series; that is the only thing on when I come home from school.  He replied:

Go to the Palazzaccio, you may see us.  Jill's show runs to the end of May and we'll be getting there around the time that you do.  We may just miss you, actually.

 Have a great trip,

Mike

One last attempt with Dario…

Thanks for your help with driving through Chianti. 

Sounds like Dievole would be too much for you that morning. 

How can we get a copy of Osteria and Too Much Wine?  Can we get it passing through...?

Great success with the book.

Saluti!

David and Marianne Jones

     The whole process of reserving a time or ‘tour’ as they like to call it at the Pisa was confounding, but not daunting.  I didn’t understand at first what the Pisa website was doing—why at certain times it would be up and running and other times I would get a “problem loading page” message.  By hit and miss I found that the website was up from 11 PM to about 9 AM PDST.  They apparently close down the site outside their business hours, which is day time for us in the US. 

     So on Sunday night, May 16^th, I waited for Pisa to come on line so I could book and 9 AM Torre climb July 1, 2010.  Now I still kept doing the math, counting back 45 days from the tour date and I would get Tuesday May 18^th.  I figured the 17^th because it’s nine hours later in Italy.  But I was a little puzzled by the 16^th.  I visited the site at 11 PM on the previous night, May 15^th and sure enough the calendar on the website said June 30^th.  Great, so now all I had to do was start up until 11 PM our time, 8 AM Italia time, book and buy the ticket (biglietto).  That morning, Sunday after, getting to church at 8 AM to practice the organ, so I would be ready for the 9 AM service, Marianne and I part-took in our first mid-day espresso; a ritual that would be repeated several times over the next month and a half.

     Unfortunately, it ‘wired’ me so much that I was absolutely awake at 11 PM—no problem.  I fact I was so awake, I had to take a Benadryl to ‘wind’ down to sleep, 

because I had school the next day.  This was another ritual that was to be repeated more often than I would have liked, but I didn’t have an allergy attack, and I nearly slept 

through 9 hours of plane travel.  Chemicals —modern miracles.  I realized then that a 

sleep mask, ear plugs, and a sleep aid were going to be my best friends.  Hopes of 

getting a tranquilizer prescription were not to materialize, because I have a doctor that 

just won’t prescribe things like that. 

     At 10:54 PM the Opera Pisa website came on line.  I maneuvered there the calendar and reserved one ticket for 9 AM on July 1, 2010 for E 17.  I had to run to the dining room table where our travel binder and the passports were, because they asked your passport number.  I had a bit of a problem with the phone number field, but after waking Marianne up and going through international prefixes and 00’s and 001’s, it was just a simple matter of not putting any dashes in the number.  When you confirm and pay, a separate pop up has your ticket with and barcode and a button to print.  I printed two copies just in case.  An email confirmation followed not long after. 

     So at 11:11 PM PDST I now was set to climb the leaning fucking tower of Pisa!  Holy crap-ola!  A life long dream now to be realized.  Everything was now set in place for the grand tour.  With the exception of treno biglietti and, oh, now an up date on the rental car from a Ford Fiesta—a no-brainer--to a French sedan, it was all complete.   

We could leave tomorrow.  We had done it.  Booked our dream—spent my retirement money—but book the dream anyway.  Now, I thought, if l could only get to sleep.