Me again !

We finished up Rome with a lovely meal in a typical trattoria and a day spent in the gardens of the Villa Borgese (it was great as it was a carnival day and the park was full of children in fancy dress, one little girl had a cute flower petal hat !) and then a walk through the Piazza del Popolo and onto one of the museums that had a really interesting display on all the pictures from National Geographic over the last 125 years.

Tuesday morning we were up bright and early to catch the first train, and for me to quickly catch up on all the Oscars news having being unable to do my usual staying up all night to watch it. Typically, the sky was blue and the sun was out, just perfect after 4 wet days in the rain - although handy as we had left the umbrella in the room and didn't realise til we were at the station. We were relieved to find the car was all ok having left it 4 days at a remote train station, and we drove on via Siena to Florence.

Florence has been really lovely, it's as good as we were told it would be - the architecture is superb if a little ott - especially the Duomo (the main cathedral) which is jaw dropping as you round the corner to see it. Yesterday we climbed the bell tower (jeez, that was exhausting) for a fabulous view across Florence, and also visited the Duomo - despite it's elaborate facade it's very plain inside apart from the painted dome.

Last night we went to a local Tuscan restaurant, it was a great dinner (pepper stew a local dish, very tasty) despite the waiter showering me in red wine as he knocked my glass over - still, that earnt us a free litre of wine so no complaints from us, and it's hardly as if my clothes are fresh or new after all these months away ! They had a tv crew in the restaurant so it was very funny to eat whilst the next table were being filmed 'and action' with sudden bright movie lights ! Apparantly the restaurant has just set up a bartering system and the film was for the Italian tv - I offered the waiter a barter for my freshly stained top but he wasn't going for it !

Today we were up very early to get to the Uffizi Gallery as they have very long queues, we were there just after 8am and only had to wait about 20 minutes. It's a very big gallery with loads of famous artists although we didn't recognise any of the works. Afterwards we climbed up to the Piazza de Michaelangelo for another great view of the city and then headed to see Michaelangelos famous David statue, it was well worth the wait - the statue is very impressive and much bigger than we expected (although not all parts are, ha ha )

We are heading back into Florence this evening to see it lit up at night before moving on tomorrow to Pisa, Monaco and Nice.

I've put up some more photos too

Much love

xxx