Eating out in Sagginale
There had been some talk of people possibly wanting to go explore Florence on Tuesday. Me, hubby and my niece had explored the city a few years back when celebrating my mother’s 70th. So we had no plans to go to Florence this time around. By morning plans changed as it was clear spending a few hours in Florence would not be enough to see much of anything. Everyone agreed that if they wanted to see Florence, they would make their own separate journeys at a future date.
Shop ‘til you drop
With the Florence plan scrapped we decided to look at other options. We had spotted an outlet mall on the way to the villa and looked at what shops it offered. As the selection seemed quite appealing, we decided to head out for some shopping. Everyone was not keen on shopping so we took one car with 5 people and the rest stayed at the villa. The outlet was called Designer Outlet Barberino. We ended up spending a couple of hours walking around the mall and buying a couple of things. I bought two pairs of Converse sneakers and a hoodie dress from Superdry and hubby bought a pair of CK jeans. Everyone in our small shopping troop found something to buy so I would call it a successful trip.
Two more guests arriving
After returning from the mall we went to pick up more guests from the Borgo San Lorenzo train station. Once the train arrived, we stopped by the grocery store for some provisions and returned to the villa. We had looked at dinner options nearby and decided to hit the nearest restaurant (at walking distance from the villa) as soon as it opened to ensure that a party of 10 without a reservation would be accommodated. So after touring the villa with our newest guests and freshening up it was time to head to dinner.
Dinner at a nearby restaurant
The restaurant Trattoria la Pentolaccia was in a small village called Sagginale at the bottom of the hill from the villa. Walking down the hill was easy enough but as we figured walking back up after dinner in the dark would be too much of a challenge our driving gents took the cars down and the rest of us walked. We got seated at a long table on the terrace and started by ordering wine. We had some communication problems as the waiter did not speak English and none of us really spoke Italian but we managed. For communication, we used Google translate, Spanish, sign language, and very broken Italian. We ordered various starters to share and our mains ranged from pizza and pasta to grilled meat. Some of our party even had room for dessert. The dinner was super fun and delicious and on top of all even affordable.
After returning to the villa we hung out for the rest of the evening with some drinks. Wednesday would mark the arrival of our final guests and on Thursday it would be time for my birthday celebration. The pictures in this post are courtesy of our guests at the villa and not taken by me.