W’s last day. decided to go to pistoia for leisurely lunch as opposed to driving 2 hours south to reach a 2 star Michelin restaurant. ate at la bottegaia (RG) which A and E had previously dined at and raved about. had the cereal and legume soup and the linguine with squid in pesto. the crostino and pappardelle in hare sauce were good. shared dessert of mille feuille, ricotta and tiramisu. bottle of vino spumante (sparkling wine) and sauvignon. came to 30 a head. in the overall top 3 with l’osteria di giovanni and cavolo nero.



checked out the duomo, ospedale (frieze) and sant andrea, with pulpit by pisano, his ‘third and greatest.’ oddly enough, there were lots of young people about for such a small town. and finally, shopping i could get excited about at a benetton outlet. W came in halfway to announce that there was a rail strike and that he couldn’t get to florence (to take the bus to pisa for the flight). eventually, decided that A would drive straight to pisa instead. made it in time for the flight and then went by the piazza dei miracoli since D had never been. quick pit stop under 10 min. all in all, an eventful unexpected trip to pisa, including a hooker sighting near the airport. D memorably said that if she forgot everything else about the trip, she would remember the hooker by the road.
headed back to rufina via the fi-pi-li. took a while to figure out that this meant the firenze-pisa-livorno highway, which shaved a third of the distance between firenze and pisa via the A1. wanted to try l’acquecheta which we kept passing by but found it full at close to 9pm. tried sotto sotto instead, which turned out to be a new restaurant la bottega di nanni. so new that the previous name was still on the building and beside the entrance. also seemed as if the diners all knew the owners of the establishment, with a private party going on on the second floor. 58 for 2 pizzas, a calzone, a tagliatelle and a bottle of brunello for 30. undistinguished food.