Florence - Day One

We said goodbye to our friendly (very friendly) Italian host this morning, shedding a few tears (on the inside anyway) as we prepared to remove ourselves from the coast and move inland once again. We gave Sergio a small greenstone to thank him for his hospitality and he gifted us a bottle of red wine with instructions to drink it chilled. Climbing aboard the first of our three (four in the end - hopped off one station short, oops.) trains we waved goodbye to Cinque Terre and turned to meet Florence.

Arrived in Florence about midday - I sorted out my mobile data issue with Vodafone, got some lunch, and booked out hotel. We walked the 1.7kms in the stifling, relentless heat and didn't get lost which was novel! Our hotel isn't homely like our last one, but isn't scary like our place is Pisa, it doesn't have aircon, but it's ok. We are both dripping in sweat by the time we arrive and decide that we are over it. We have a siesta while waiting for things to cool down and eventually head out around four.

I will admit that I didn't expect much from Florence, but it's pretty phenomenal and I am pleased that we came. We wandered through the city streets (we are very good wanderers now, had a lot of practice!) and found Spedale degli Innocenti, the Museum of Architecture, and the Galleria... I may have also spent way too much money on a leather jacket I never knew I needed... Oh well, it's beautiful and the guy was a great salesman. We continued walking and came across the Duomo - wow. Just wow. What an incredible building. As we continued we also walked past through Piazza Della Signoria and past the Uffizi. I can't get over the sheer number of people, both tourists, locals, street performers and hawkers. It's quite surreal and seems significantly more intense than any of our previous stops. We make our way across Ponte Vecchio with all its glittering gold and Willy buys some sandals at a store opposite Pitti Palace.

At this stage we decide that it's time to make our way back in the direction of the hotel so we walk down the river and cross at Ponte alle Grazie. We find a lovely little resteraunt when I have pasta in a mushroom, truffle and cream sauce, Willy has the pasta in the wild boar sauce - of course.

We head back to our hotel with a couple of beers, some cheese and olives which we eat while the fan blasts us with warm air and we make our respective calls home.