No trip complete...

...without a gelato. Even if it was a somewhat prosaic one, in terrible drizzly rain, at the station.

Fruitfrul trip from an academic point of view, but I continue to be a bit accident prone. I slipped over in the hotel last night, and bruised my coccyx. Not too badly (I can say that now from the vantage point of Sunday by which time it was already much less sore), but I was a bit constrained walking wise on Saturday.

I'd also been running a cold since Thursday evening and was feeling rotten.

Consequently, I was a bit worried about my trip back, which included a short 50 min connection at Charles de Gaulle, which is a famously confusing airport. After a certain amount of discussion with some ticket staff in Florence airport, I ended up booking assistance, and it really helped.  We ended up in a outlying position in the airport and had to be bussed to the terminal. I was given my own special bus, and then was wheelchaired at an alarming speed through passport control. Quite bizarre. I wish I'd had my phone to hand so I could have used it to video the experience. Then back into my own little bus, to the gate, see the gate staff, get a new boarding pass (that's a whole other story which I will relate on Sunday's blip) and then back into my little bus and direct to the aeroplane. Since I had a terrible experience at the hands of KLM last week, I don't feel in the slightest bit guilty at making Air France sort me out this week.