Explore the beautiful sites of Florence on a Saturday with lovely weather - how perfect does that sound? Apparently half the world thought so too, so we spent our first day in Italy crushed from crowd to crowd. When 9 out of 10 people on a very busy street (not even an exaggeration) are clearly tourists it's hard to not let that detract from your impression of a destination, particularly when we had just come from a quiet town in Slovenia. It did become a bit less chaotic over the few days that followed, our theory being that Italian day trippers made Saturday as busy as it was.

Taking the above into account, all of the tourists, us included, are there for a reason, right? We were very impressed by the buildings and the incredible detail and effort put into some of the façades, particularly the main cathedral, which had Jansen hypnotised and is so far the single most impressive piece of architecture that he has seen.

Jansen got up early on Sunday to see the statue of David before the endless queues built up and snaked their way out of sight, around buildings and down little streets. Getting to the museum at the 8AM opening time meant the wait was very short. Sonja had already seen David years before and didn't feel the need to go back to see the statue again so instead she climbed a hill overlooking Florence to get a good view of the city and we met up again in time for breakfast before setting off to see Siena for the afternoon

Siena, like many European towns we've visited, follows the formula of modern looking neighbourhoods on the outskirts that lead into a medieval "old town" that people go to visit. The old town is situated such that your first glimpse of it climbing its way up a hill side is a spectacular site. We didn't escape the crowds in Siena either, but we found it to be a very impressive example of a picturesque medieval city that is well worth a visit, particularly if you're already in Florence as it's barely an hour away by train.

If it weren't for all of the galleries and museums in Florence, we would recommend Siena to be higher on the bucket list.