We transferred to the Aubergo in Greve, a town 30 minutes from Florence. We dropped off our suitcases and set out on our hike. The guidebook told us it was a 2.5 hour easy hike. We learned once again to not trust Italians about time and distance. It was a beautiful uphill climb for the first 2.5 hours.

We went through fields, olive groves, vineyards and forests – all uphill. Then with some relief we started our decent. It was steep on scree-filled roads originally built by the Romans. Going down was harder than going up. I managed to fall and tweak my knee on a particularly steep portion. We will see how it feels tomorrow. We eventually came to a vineyard where we stopped for lunch.

I noticed the family next to us was speaking Swedish, so of course I had to say hello and practice. They were kind. Then our waiter told us the whole vineyard/hotel was owned by Swedes. We had a great time. The food and wine were 😋 delicious. We geared up for the last 2 km of our 11.4km journeys day made it back to our hotel minutes before the skies opened up. Dale got in a swim before the real deluge began. It was over quickly and we had a lovely meal in the Greve town square.