Florence

3rd - 5th September

We arrived into Florence, slowly, but eventually. We had no problems finding our hostel, which was only a short stroll from the train station. We dropped our bags, cranked the air conditioning and set off in search of some lunch. We wandered into the city and stumbled upon heaps and heaps of market stalls set up. We browsed through them, not really looking for anything, but I ended up buying stuff. I walked out with a new watch and some leather wristbands for the grand sum of 6 Euros. Bargain. We found a few eateries and decided upon one with wood fired pizzas. As soon as we'd sat down and gotten our free glass of something very alcoholic, I recognised a familiar face coming towards me; my old teacher (and then later supervising teacher) Mr. MacLoughlin from Golden Square. We had a bit of a chat before he went back to his table and ate his lunch. I had a yummy, but sadly soggy Calzone and Dan had a slightly soggy pizza. We said goodbye to Mr. Mac as he had only a few minutes get his way to the train station to catch a train to Milan, and then headed back out into the markets. I had promised to buy Dan a wallet for his birthday, and considering it was in April, I thought I had better come through on my word soon. With the amount of leather shops in Florence I thought this would be the perfect place to pick something nice up. We ended up settling on a really nice buffalo skin one. I liked it, so that's all that matters!

After lunch we did a bit more of a stroll through the streets of Florence before trying to locate a supermarket to pick up some dinner supplies.We did eventually find one, but I was completely grossed out by the smell of the small store. I'm not sure if it was rotting fruit, or not refrigerated meat, either way, it was disgusting. We bought some frozen chicken things and some stuff to make a salad, as well as Dan's staple, beer, before heading back to the hostel for the evening. We enjoyed catching up on some TV shows thanks to a super fast Internet connection, as well as doing some research into how we were going to spend the next couple of days in Florence.

The next morning we were up a little later than usual, breakfasted and showered and out the door. Our first stop was going to check out the Academia, home of David. I've read in many places that the queues are generally horrendous and its much better if you book your tickets and time in advance. Reserving tickets comes with a 4-euro fee each, so we thought we'd go have a look before parting with 8 Euros extra than needed. When we found the place, we were surprised because there was a small queue, but that was only for the people that actually had reservations. There was not a single person waiting to get in, so we passed through the security and straight into the museum. We checked out some old instruments and a few of Michelangelo's unfinished sculptures before the big man awaited us. He was huge. Much bigger than I thought he'd actually be. There were a few security people around making sure no one took photos, but I sent Dan around a corner and made him take a snap for me.His willy was pretty small also. His little finger was bigger, but that's not saying much, both his hands and hit feet were massive. After a bit of a look through the rest of the museum (which wasn't very impressive - just plaster moulds of other work and a few religious paintings) we made our way back out into the hot Italian sun.

We popped around the corner to find the impressive piazza that contained the Hospital of the Innocent. It was an orphanage from hundreds of years ago, and it only closed in 2000. We saw the 'wheel' where parents would leave their unwanted children, but we didn't bother paying the 5 Euro admission price.

From here we walked up to the Musee de San Marco. This was an old monastery, and its now partly turned into a museum. We looked through the old religious paintings covered in gold leaf, before heading up a few flights of stairs. We found ourselves in the 40 monk's cells. Each we're decorated with a nice Jesus picture and we're probably no bigger than any of the prison cells we've seen recently. There was lots of interesting other rooms in there, but we had no idea what any of it was because all the signs were in Italian.

We left San Marco and headed down towards the massive Duomo, which dominates the skyline. The domed church is bloody huge, and very impressive to look at from the outside. It's made of green, white and pink marble, although it is quite dirty and stained from hundreds of years exposed to the weather.We didn't bother going inside at this point, as we were quite hungry, so we ducked into a nearby eatery for some lunch. I had a quite simple tagliatelle, and Dan tried some gnocchi - both were quite enjoyable. After we'd eaten we headed back to the Duomo to have a look inside. Inside was pretty cool, but incredibly vacant. There was hardly anything inside the actual church (that is except for the hundreds of tourists) The inside of the massive dome was beautifully decorated, and I could've easily gotten a sore neck from staring up at it for too long. We wanted to climb the 463 stairs up to the top of the dome, until we found out that it would be 8 Euros each. We ummed and arred about it for a while, and then decided that we wouldn't bother, instead we'd make the free climb up the massive hill to the side of the city, tomorrow. We sat outside the Duomo in the shade for quite a while just relaxing and people watching. It was getting into the late afternoon and we were both pretty stuffed so we decided to make moves back to the hostel. We picked up some gelato on the way, and stopped to have a look at the Santa Maria Novella Cathedral, again decorated in greens and pinks. We got back to the hostel into the early evening and enjoyed some relaxing time, before cooking up some dinner and an early night of sleep.

We accidently slept in a bit again the next morning but made it out of the hostel by about 11. Our first stop was going to be Uffizi Gallery, which also is reported to have very long entrance queues. After our luck the previous day we decided to try and save ourselves another 8 Euros by just turning up and hoping for the best. We found the area where the gallery was, and the piazza was pretty impressive. Lots of statues and sculptures (including a fake David) were just scattered throughout the courtyard. We also found a gigantic queue to get in. Asking the security guy at the front of the line, he expected that the wait would be an hour long. It was just before 12, and I didn't really feel like spending an hour in a line, so I went in, spent the extra cash and reserved some tickets for 1. We still wouldn't get in for an hour, but we'd be free to go and have a look at some other things rather than wasting time in a line.

We walked around the corner to the River Arno, and checked out the Ponte Vecchio - a big bridge over the river. This bridge was the only one in Florence not to get flattened during WWII. It was smathered with gold shops and jewelers on each side of the bridge, and it was also difficult to cross it, due to the sheer number of tourists trying to take their photos and what not. There were a bride and groom taking their wedding photos at the top, and we latched onto the back of a tour group - looked like a contiki one - and Dan found out about some guy that did some sculpture of something (He mumbles a lot, and I tend to tune out often). We crossed the river and went for a quick stroll up to another palace. Palazzo Pitti I think it was - it was home to the royals of Florence up until recently, and has a massive garden park type of thing, the biggest in Florence. We planned to go and have a sit in them until we found out they were 6 Euros to get into. We ended up just sitting out on the concrete in front for 10 minutes - long enough for me to get pins and needles in my feet. It sounds as though we're being tight by not going into things even though they don't seem like much for entry, but seriously, if we went into everything each day, we'd end up spending 100 Euros a day just on admission fees. We just have to be selective of what we go and see and what we don't. It's annoying, but I think if we went and saw everything I might have another culture meltdown.

Anyway, buy the time we'd had drink and gotten back to Uffizi it was time to go in. Straight through security, and up to the gallery, and still no one had looked our tickets. I was cursing that we'd bought some, until just around the corner a woman spotted us and quickly asked to see our tickets. (Speaking of tickets, I don't know why we continue to buy train tickets, I've not seen a single conductor yet and no one has even asked to see our tickets once. If I was brave enough I'd stop buying them, but they're pretty cheap as it is anyway.) We made our way, at Poss speed (A stroll, only pausing to look at paintings that I enjoy) through the gallery. We saw work by lots of famous people, and Dan got to see his "Birth of Venus" that he'd been crapping on about, a lot. There was some Da Vinci work as well, with the usual crowds gathered in front. Surprisingly we made our way through every single room in the place. It was really nice to navigate, much better than the Louvre, we even checked out the temporary exhibition at the end! Dan found a shield with Medusa's head on it. I thought it was a man, but apparently I was wrong, because apparently Dan knows everything.

After the gallery we had lunch at a nice little place in the piazza outside the gallery. I had a pizza called the "Atom" - it wasn't spicy at all, and Dan had one similar to mine except his had salami instead of the pepperoni mine had. While we were eating an old homeless women comes up and shakes her little cup at us and continues to whine something at us. She persisted, even after we'd told her no several times, until the waiter came and shooed her away as if she were a pigeon. Don't get me wrong, I do feel for some of the homeless, but I am become more and more pissed off with them ruining my time. These beggars are everywhere over here. The second you step off a train, out of a restaurant or church or wherever. Just piss off and beg elsewhere. I'm never going to give any of you any money. Ever.

Anyway, after lunch we made the decent trek up to Piazza Michelangelo. This was a nice hill just outside the centre of the city. The walk to the bottom of the hill only took us about 15 minutes, but then the climb up the hill nearly killed us. I think we took a bad path, and found the steepest point to climb possible. It was ok once we reached the top, because there were some amazing views of Florence.Our book also told us that this is where David used to stand, looking over the city, until they moved him to the Academia for some protection from the crowds and the weather.There is a tarnished bronze replica there now.

We made our way down off the hill and back to the hostel. If you looked at a map of Florence, we'd gone from one corner to the opposite. It probably took us about an hour and we stopped in to pick up some beer for Dan. Lots of the little grog shops here stock "Duff", so Dan paid the 3.50 for his little bottle of Homer's brew.

We relaxed for an hour or so at the hostel before heading back down to the train station to have our Italian McDonalds fix. I had a McCrispy Bacon, which should've been called McAnythingbutcrispy Bacon, while Dan tried a McRoyal Deluxe. We also tried the McBrie, which was highly disappointing; it might've been much better if we got it when it was fresh. The Patates West were also a nice alternative to fries; like big lattices of potatoes, that tasted like wedges. After our healthy dinner we headed back to the hostel for some TV time, followed by sleep.

We're currently on the later train to Pisa, as the one we planned to catch had been cancelled. I'm losing a lot of faith in the Italian rail system. There's a woman behind me that's singing, quite loudly, and very badly. I'm sticking with my thought that if want to own an iPod, you must train yourself not to sing-along with it in public spaces.