Well, we managed to escape Venice. We were both pretty happy to leave there. While picturesque, it left a bad taste in both of our mouths. We caught a fast train out of the city in the morning and happily watched the flat countryside outside of Venice merge into the rolling green hills of Tuscany. We arrived in Florence by 2pm and were overwhelmed by the heat as we got off the train....it must have been nearly 40 degrees! We quickly found our way to our hotel and set off to wander the streets of Florence. We already like this city so much more than Venice. There is a great contrast between old and new here. While the city still shows off all of it's Renaissance glory, you can tell that there are still lots of things happening here...people actually live here and enjoy the same sights, restaurants, and bars as the tourists. We really just spent the day getting our bearings in the city. Matt has been a little map obsessed, so we wandered and he swears at Rick Steve's for not listing all the streets names on his maps. It's very entertaining.

I've been enjoying Matt getting us lost though. It is much more fun when you suddenly turn a corner and unexpectedly see a large cathedral or an incredible statue. Florence is a very easy city to see on foot, so we wandered in the blazing sun for a few hours. The other thing about Florence is that it is well know for it's gelato, so we of course had to sample it. Poor Matt, he was so excited to order his gelato and for once was very adventurous and decided to order a completely unknown Italian named flavour...this spontaneity totally backfired on him when he found that one of the flavours he had chosen was essentially fruit cake flavoured and was filled with candied fruit (not his favorite thing). After a long day of exploring we decided to get ourselves out of the sun. I enjoyed a nice long bath in our hotel room (Yippee!), and then we ventured out for supper. Unlike most nights where we usually eat on the cheap we decided to dine out in style tonight. Matt chose a restaurant from our guide book, got us lost trying to find it, but it was all worth it in the end. We really lived it up.

We were a bit perplexed at first, trying to figure out the menu. Matt ordered an incredible rigatonni dish with fresh tomato, basil and cheese sauce as his starter (yes, starter). He followed that with a perfectly done steak served on a bed of fresh rosemary. I had a chicken, rabbit and vegetable dish that was also pretty incredible. Of course we washed this all down with a bottle of local red. Aaaah, we could stay in Tuscany forever!

So far, it has been a great time in Florence and we can't wait to explore it some more. Tomorrow my goal is to find us a reasonbly priced tour of the Tuscan hill towns and the chianti wine region. I'll let you know how it goes.

Goodnight.

P.S. The picture on this blog is the view from our hotel window...not bad, thanks expedia!