tremendous heat and papermaking nooks

Leslie and I spent the day in Florence today, after conquering the Cinque Terre hike yesterday (which was BEAUTIFUL…but had so many stairs!).  Florence is like a giant oven, it’s so hot…but once the evening hit it started to cool down, and Leslie had some great spots to show me.  And the papermaking shops!  I was enchanted by these tiny, precise, beautiful things.  The patterns on the paper, the binding on the books…each spoke of such care and artistry, I was very impressed.  We also stopped at an amazing gelateria, that had dark chocolate gelato!  I was definitely in heaven. 

Also, in Cinque Terre we climbed down off the trail at one point to a stone beach…the water was so clear you could see every stone on the bottom, and the towns of Manarola and Corniglia were silouetted to the sides.  Then, swimming out, I held my eyes at water level and just saw blue blue blue.  The sea reflected the clear blue cloudless sky, and sail boats drifted lazily past.  I was tempted to stay out there until I dropped from exhaustion, the cool water and bright sun and blue view were so perfect (especially after a long, hot hike!)