A surprise window of time for a nice, but short, ride.

We had a nice day and one half with some friends with Denver, who departed this morning.  All day yesterday was tour the Centro, museums, food, a lecture, and more food.  A long, but fun day.  Today, we had electricians scheduled to upgrade our electrical system to what our landlord calls the "latest".  I misunderstood the amount of time it would take, thinking they said 3 or 4 days, when they said 3 or 4 hours.  They were done in 3 hours and I unexpectedly had a little time to get out for a ride.  Yesterday it was quite rainy, but today the roads were dry and the forecast was for better weather until very early Saturday morning.  I decided on a nice ride that I do fairly often up Via Carota to Osteria Nuova, then up and over San Donato in Collina, turning off around 1/3 the way down the other side in Cellai to take the super fun, tiny road over to Bombone.  From there over and down to Rosano, then back to town on the busy road, turning off for the little detour through Nave a Rovezanno, then home.

I had a wonderful meal last night at Trattoria Giovanni in the Oltrarno, close to Piazza Santa Spirito.  Our guests were taking us out, and I had a special crostini to start with a cream / white truffle paste on top.  Really, quite awesome.  Last time I was there a friend had a large piece of veal which he loved, and I was jealous that I had not ordered.  I did not make the same mistake twice, and really enjoyed the quite large and very tasty vitello.  Italian phrases - crostini (small toasted tuscan bread pieces with interesting toppings), vitello (veal), and interrutore (circuit breaker).  Ciao.

Not too many leaves left on the vines behind the olive trees here.

A beautiful little road and some nice color below a villa.

I loved the look of the sky today, as I assumed the storm was going 

away, as tomorrow's forecast is for good weather.  I was surprised

by a downpour later this afternoon as Emily and I were picking

up the grandchildren from school.

Remnants of the storm clouds and sunshine on the hillside below

Saltino from the road to Bombone from Cellai.