drive

Saturday: Collodi

Posted on by Susan

(I am not sure why this post came up blank for a few days, but I only realized it thanks to my friend, Daniela. I’ll summarize my original post.)

Collodi is an interesting and somewhat quirky little town and the place where Carlo Collodi created Pinocchio. It was on our way to Scandicci, where we will stay for the next five days, so we made a stop there.

What a delightful place. We walked around the gorgeous gardens of Garzoni – the 17th century estate built by one of the most important families of the time. Probably because it is so huge and expensive to maintain, some of the upkeep seems to have slacked off but the stairways and statues are beautiful. We enjoyed checking out the expansive grounds.

We had lunch at a cafe next door and then walked around seeing the cute Pinocchio-themed everything that is a huge part of the town’s livelihood.

We took a series of winding dirt roads to the absolutely perfect Tuscany villa where we are staying. If not for GPS, there would be no way to find it.photos: Pinocchio is at the entrance to the town; the entrance to the gardens; waterfall statue at the Garzoni  gardens

Sunday: Lyon

Posted on by Susan

We left Clermont-Ferrand this morning and drove to Lyon. The city was just over two hours away, but we had to take our time because check-in for our Airbnb was not until 4pm.

We stopped a few times along the way, most notably about an hour outside the city of Roanne, which was described online as having some delicious restaurants. Not on Sunday though. We drove through the town and nothing at all was open on Dimanche.

I found an open restaurant in a town about twenty minutes away. Yes, it was open but no, they couldn’t serve us. They were packed. I asked the woman who turned us away if there was anything at all open. “Not on Sunday,” she told me in French. Okay, we would wait until Lyon.

So we drove into the big, busy city, located the parking garage suggested by our host, and found dozens of restaurants open along the river and beyond. We ate, then found our rental apartment, then went back to the car to get our luggage. All the walking helped us get our bearings.

The tiny apartment is great: centrally located so we can walk everywhere, and super-cute in a very old building.

We will have fun discovering Lyon this week.

photos: A small part of our pretty drive to Lyon

below: used books for sale along the Rhone

The River Rhone