On Saturday we went to the Villa Medicea La Petraia, one of the Medici Villas we had earlier tried to visit but just missed its last entry time. The reason for the visit was both our earlier failure as well as, more critically, Linda's half-birthday (required due to her actual birthday's close proximity to that distracting event, Christmas).
After our successful entry into the grounds we were happy to bask in our success by sitting on a bench and eating another of the spectacular panini they make in Italy. (When ordering, we had to fight for the contents of our panini because when we asked for porchetta, pomodoro e mozzarella (spicy pork, tomato and ... mozzarella) the man making the sandwiches launched into an diatrabe about why porchetta and mozzarella did not belong together. In the end we had to settle for porchetta e pomodoro, solo. Grazie.)
We wandered into the Villa itself for a guided tour and Linda got trapped into being the designated attentive guidee when it was discovered she spoke the best Italian out of the four of us on the tour. The guide showed us most of the interior of the Villa, which had been redecorated by Vittorio Emanuele II, the first king of united Italy. The Villa was primarily for the use of his moglie morganatica, Rosa Vercellana (aka La Bella Rosina, but make up your own mind about that).
Afterwards we tried our luck getting into the Villa di Castello which was only 1km away, but it wasn't open for unspecified reasons. After all this walking on a Tuscan summer day we were hot and thirsty, so were very pleased to find a little shop with iceblocks and cold water.
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