John: Day 4 and 5, we spontaneously decide to go to Florence/Firenze by train and book overnight accommodation, as it is a 3 hour return trip from Lucca. The day is very wet. Once again, this trip provides us with much better 'Firenze awareness'. We find locations previously unfounded, though it seems that with every new passeggiata, we seem to ultimately find our way back to the leather markets, which coincidentally, are also only around 50 metres from our accommodation. The accommodation is perfect in that is only 5 minutes walk from the railway, very clean due to recent refurbishing and at night, very quiet. It is much better than our accommodation in Lucca, also having a kitchenette and much more space. Also, a last minute deal at €50 a night. Honestly, when we do our next European trip, we will only book the first and last accommodation.

The second day returns those deep blue skies referred to earlier. We walk to other non-tourist areas of the city- a release!!, as my two previous trips to Firenze have never been as crowded as on this occasion. We wander round a local's flea market and then head back to the leather market so Loretta can buy me a whip for my birthday to enable me to effectively administer self-flagellation. Whoops, got off kilter for a moment - it is actually a trouser belt. A BIG disappointment for Loretta is that despite trying on 4387 different pairs of leather boots, that 'perfect pair' proved elusive. Two weary travellers catch the afternoon train to Lucca, really happy that we made the decision to spend a couple of days in beautiful Florence and just as happy that our 6 days in Rome at the end of the trip will be fulfilled by more 'boot searching'.