Tuscan Treasures Tour: Days 1 & 2

Thursday, June 6-Friday, June 7: SMF > ORD > FRA > FLO > ZUR > FLO

Mr. E and I got picked up at 5:45am for the first leg of our trip to Italy, flying from Sac to Chicago to meet up with his mom. We had a lovely First Class experience, including a viewing of Anatomy of a Fall for me, which is one of the French films I've been wanting to see. Thumbs up! We connected with Mr. E's mom in the Polaris Club at O'Hare, where we all enjoyed some food and beverages and Mr. E and I managed to fit in our Duolingo Italian practice for the day.

The three of us settled into our Polaris pods for the flight from Chicago to Frankfurt. The overall experience was rather underwhelming this time around, compared to previous Polaris trips. Customer service was lackadaisical and inconsistent, the menu options weren't great for me, no additional wines were offered, and apparently there were no hot breakfast items loaded onto the plane so Mr. E was only able to have a very basic morning option (I was still snoozing). Bleah. Totally a first-world problem, but when you pay a hefty price for this level of travel, you do have certain expectations, so it's disappointing when they're not met. We did like the new amenity kits and blanket but I totally forgot that our return flight was on Lufthansa rather than United to missed the opportunity to snag a blanket for home. Oops!

My movie experience on this flight wasn't too successful. I tried Oppenheimer and The Imitation Game but didn't finish either due to annoying characterization in the first (gratuitous sex scene) and slow pace in the second. But I did enjoy my final choice of Freelance (one of those movies that was probably better than it should have been) before shutting down my entertainment unit for the night.

Our departure from Chicago had been delayed, but we seemed to make up time during the flight. Until we started circling around the airspace above Frankfurt... By the time we landed, we had less than 30 minutes to make our connecting flight to Florence. Surprisingly, there were two Lufthansa employees waiting at the end of the jet bridge specifically for us, and they did their best to get us to the flight, but as we were driving in a small van across the tarmac, they received notice that we were too late. Darn. They stayed with us so that we could go through a special and quick customs check and then brought us directly to Lufthansa Customer Care for re-booking. Amazing and unexpected personalized service!

Due to this delay, our new itinerary took us to Zurich first with a connection to a Swiss Air flight to Florence. We spent time in the (crowded) airport lounges in both Frankfurt and Zurich. The Lufthansa flight to Zurich was lovely, with attentive and friendly flight attendants, a breakfast offering, and a special bon-bon to finish off the meal (added to the stash in our bags for later). The Swiss Air flight was quite unusual, as the brother (from South Africa) of one of the flight attendants was on board, and she was so excited to see him and celebrate his birthday! There were at least two rounds of singing, some gifts, and even a special cake. 

Once we arrived in Florence, we quickly found our driver and claimed our checked bags (very fast belt!). Two other members of our tour group were on the same flight, so we all headed to the van as the driver packed up our suitcases. We started to leave the airport but then circled around to fetch two more people who had arrived the day before and were coming from Florence to meet up with the group transportation.

We arrived at our home for the week, Villa delle Rose in Pescia, around 3:45pm, about 6 hours later than expected due to the changes in our itinerary. L was in Room 23, and Mr. E and I had Rooms 22 and 20, all on the first floor, which was quite convenient. We discovered that Room 20 at the end of the hall was actually slightly larger than the others, so we made that our home base and used Room 22 as an extra space for working out, napping, etc. Mr. E and L rested a bit while I unpacked and did my workouts for the day. We had time before the evening group meet-up to explore the hotel a bit, including dipping our feet in the lovely outdoor pool. Chilly!!! Despite the decent size and great lane lines, I realized I wouldn't be partaking of that amenity during our visit...

The first gathering for our tour was a cocktail and snacks orientation at 7pm on the covered patio near the pool. P welcomed us, gave some info for the next day, collected the mandatory gratuities and optional activity payments, and then herded us to the restaurant for our first group dinner. Each dinner at the hotel was multi-course, and over the week, the staff got to know which of us had certain dietary restrictions, so they were very accommodating in making sure we had special dishes compared to the standard group dinner menu.

I was in bed before 9pm. *Yawn*