We very much enjoyed our 5 day stay at Mario's apartment in the southeastern part of Sesto Fiorentino. Since it is only one minute walk away from the Castello train station, you can literally leave the apartment two or three minutes before the scheduled train arrival and, voila, you are in Florence in about 10 minutes once on board. It was this convenience that I selected Mario's apartment. The train fare is only 1.4 euros each way and we saved a lot by staying at Mario's, compared with lodging in Florence, and that enabled us to do lots of shopping in Florence.

Mario is an excellent host. He offered to come to Refredi train station to pick us up, which is the stop between Castello and Florence SMN. Fearing the uncertainty of our trip from Rome, I asked Mario not to come. Exactly as I had feared, we did not catch our train because it was moved to another station instead of Rome Termini. We had to get onto the next train. Mario did not know what had happened and drove to Refredi to look for us, but without any luck of finding us. Later we found him waiting outside Castello station when we finally arrived. He had waited 2 and a half hours!

The apartment had almost everything we needed upon our arrival. Mario took us to the local café, where we bought train and bus tickets to Florence. He also walked us to one of the supermarkets where we bought our groceries. In one of the evenings, we took a walk toward downtown Sesto Fiorentino and stumbled into a huge supermarket Mario had mentioned.

Mario advised us on where to go and what to see in Florence. I was surprised when Mario presented me a copy of Rick Steves' Florence and Tuscany, 2012 edition. I almost bought this book before leaving the States. He also had other books and maps that I consulted. We did not experience any problems with Wifi and used Mario's PC as well since there were three of us. Mario had updated train schedules posted on the wall for visitors' convenience.

During our stay, Mario kept communication with us via emails, giving recommendations on the best train routes that we should take when we were about to visit Pisa and Lucca.

The most memorable part of our stay was the trip to Siena, San Gimignano and Monterriggioni. Mario offered to drive us to see these three places and spent almost an entire day with us. He is truly an angel and we felt we were blessed.

Ron