Fun in Florence

Another walking tour of another city saw us all exhausted yet again. Florence is much smaller, cleaner and has a nicer feel to it than Rome. It was also very quiet today. Being Saturday it seems that the only people moving around were the multitudes of tourists. Thus less traffic and subsequence noise – it seemed very relaxed 2 blocks away from any major tourist attraction.
Under Louisa’s astute guidance we first went to a supermarket to stock up on vital supplies (we had learnt in Rome that Gatorade a few hours in is a good way of reviving energy levels) and we then headed off to the Museum uncommonly known as “David’s place”. Whilst Ro and Izzy waited in line Neil and Louisa whipped around town to tidy up some shopping loose ends and in timely fashion met them back in the front of the line about 1 hour later.

David is very impressive. So is his marketing. You pay to see him, but you can’t take your own photos – you have to pay for others impressions. Thus the only memory of ours that we can take away is a stolen view of his bum, which according to the women folk - is very impressive.

Worn out – we then sojourned to a quiet piazza with trees, pigeons and miniature busses - to revitalise with our previously procured provisions. Aptly re-energised we headed off into the hot centre of town, took one look at the queues at the Duomo and instead headed off in search of a WC. This turned out to be a paying but worthwhile respite. More walking took us across the river (the nice cool breeze was very welcome) and then armed with ice creams we sauntered over the Ponte Vecchio back into the touristy chaos of the Palazzo Vecchio and then on to the Duomo.

We struck it lucky – no queues – so up the countless steps, narrow passageways and claustrophobic tunnels we trudged - stopping to argue the point about the constant stopping with some tourists from another western society who seemed to think it’s their god given right to hold everyone up – we will forever be labelled as “complainers” - we will however stand on our soap box that we were actually considering the welfare of the 200 or so people behind us.

The views at the top were great, the vertigo somewhat disconcerting for some. Afterwards we headed out for dinner and finally managed to find a restaurant in Italy of substandard quality and exorbitant prices, this was offset by the fabulous facilities back at the hostel in which we cheaply filled our partially empty tummies and recuperated with a game of billiards.