Florence

Beautiful, beautiful Florence.

Thursday, Friday, Sat, Sun, Mon

We arrived on Thursday, and when we first got to Florence I was a bit mardy (default setting), the station was bloody hot, crowded and a bit mental. We had to leave our luggage at the left luggage bit, which had a distinct Del Boy air about it. Unlike the left luggage in Madrid, which was all security intense with lockers that you access directly, this was just us passing our stuff over the counter to two guys with a radio on, having a fag under the sign "We our not responsible for your valuables." Needless to say I lacked confidence, plus I had to pay a tenner for the privilege.

Anyway, once we got to our place and cooled off things seemed nicer. Our apartment was large, a huuge bedroom and then sharing the bathroom and kitchen with other guests. The highlight of this has to be the American chap by the name of Ralph, equipped with bum-bag and peaked cap (inside) who knocked on my door asking for me to help him figure out the Internet as it cut out while his wife was watching Coronation street archives. Naturally, I laughed but it turned out he was deadly serious and didn't understand why I was amused. In true I.T. Crowd style we fixed it by turning it on and off again.

Anyway, Florence.

On Saturday we went up to Piazzale Michelangelo to get a view over the town. Florence is that nice size where you don't have to get on a metro or a bus, which was a nice change for us. Anyway, we stayed up there most of the afternoon looking out over Florence and the Tuscan surroundings. On the way back we saw a load of people in medieval gear looking like they were practicing some kind of reenactment.

On Sunday we walked around loads and debated going up the Duomo but I didn't fancy the queue and having to cover up (it was hot). I wanted to go see Michelangelo's David in the Academia gallery, but the queue was like 3 hours long. We nipped back an hour to closing time and there was still no way we were getting in so instead nipped into the Uffizi. Because we only had 40mins in the rooms, we walked straight in, the museum was dead and we got discount for being under 26 and in the EU. Awesome, AND I got to see birth of Venus.

Florence has loads of market bits, and we were bang over one that was a little away from the main rabble so really cheap, with cheap leather too. if I wasn't lacking space and sick of lugging an already overlarge/overweight bag I'd have been tempted to buy a leather coat. Instead I bought scarves. lots.


There's a lot of pestery people trying to sell you fake Gucci bags and glasses and all manner of crap but I just pretend they don't exist and keep walking while everyone else who  gets heckled - but it wasn't a major issue like I thought it may be. You also still feel like everyone's eyeing up your possessions but then I'd prepared for that... plus there's enough people with huge cameras swinging around their necks that the thieves are probably after them.

I got the distinct feeling that Florence really was just for tourists - does anyone actually live here that works in something that isn't a restaurant, museum or some other tourist related venture? But I don't care, it's such a beautiful place for once I didn't mind (unlike the many Americans I chatted with, I don't throw the word 'beautiful' around lightly so I really mean it !)

- Sally