We were so reluctant to leave our wonderful Florence apartment that we didn’t even pack until the last minute. We left right at 11:00, the stated check-out time. At check-out we met Robert, who is half owner of the building, and let him know how much we loved the place. In return for the compliment he let us keep our network cable for free - haha!  Robert also called a taxi for us to go pick up our rental car.

As the taxi whisked us away, we had a last look at the Palazzo Vecchio and hoped it wouldn’t be another ten years before we go back.

Our rental car is from Avis. Again, we didn’t get the car we expected, although this time it turned out better.  We had expected a Fiat Grande Punto, but instead got an Alfa Romeo 147 - a sporty little hatchback.  It is a turbo diesel, so although the gas mileage probably isn’t so good, Kevin is having fun driving it.  And it is more comfortable than the Mercedes was, go figure.

I almost forgot to mention the (elevator) lift incident. On the night we arrived in Florence, we went out to walk around and have dinner. When we returned to the Relais Piazza Signoria, we called the lift to take us up to the 4th floor. When we got in and punched the floor number, it was slow to get going. It started up, then just stopped and the lights all went off. We were stuck, and it was pitch black. I happened to be holding my camera, so I turned it on to let the lcd give us some light. We could hear people moving around in the building and figured the electricity was off for everyone. Kevin pried open the lift door and we were between floors, no way at all to get out. We sounded the alarm bell a few times just to make sure someone knew we were in there. It seemed like a long time, but it was probably just five minutes until the lights came on and the elevator started moving - back down. At the bottom floor the doors opened and there was Rosa the manager. She convinced us to stay in the elevator for the ride back up - it was safe now, she said - and old us that the circuit breaker for the whole building had tripped. She had run down to the basement from her sixth floor office to reset the breaker. She thought it was because they were fully booked for the first time, and it was a warm day meaning that people were turning on air conditioning all at the same time causing the circuit to overload. Anyway, she was very apologetic, and it was kind of funny.

By the way, Kevin refused to ride the lift for the rest of our stay. He took the stairs, I took the lift.