Day 20

Italy 2010

Day 20

The four of us took a train to Prato, a small town northwest of Florence renowned for its biscotti. Knowing something about trains, and knowing a little bit of the local language, is a giant step in getting around. In trips past, we often rented a car because train and bus travel seemed impossible.

Anyway, the Prato biscotti are very good, but we took a vote, and our friend Ruth makes as good a biscotti as the world’s number 1. We didn’t take to the suggested method of eating it – dipping the biscotti in sweet wine. On the other hand, a certain member of our group did like her octopus.

If blindfolded and not told what you were eating, lots of people would like it. But when people see it close up, it conjures up some sort of horror scene.

The restaurant featuring this fine food and other more traditional foods was recommended by the nice lady where we bought the biscotti. It was a great recommendation – the food and prices were outstanding. This town is noted for friendly people. All the people we met here were very nice and patient with our attempts at speaking Italian, and they were helpful with information we forget to ask as we try to find the right Italian word or phrase.

The duomo in Prato was recommended in Frommers partly due to the artwork on the inside. We hope we are not repeating ourselves, but the art was a significant way to illustrate bible stories to the illiterate public. There are many stories illustrated, and the artists have different ideas for displaying the stories.

We finished off the day playing euchre, a great card game, and the men won all three games!