PAUL AND LI

Leaving Rome, we were looking forward to arriving in what we'd been told is one of the prettiest cities in Italy, Florence. Once again, we tested out the local transport system to get to our accommodation and ducked next door to the shop for some food supplies. Our walk into the city took us through the high end shopping street and to the 'Duomo' (the basilica) as well as its accompanying baptsitry and campanile (bell tower). All of these were covered in green and white marble and were probably the most visually striking of all the churches we've seen so far. Our next stop was the leather markets where we spent some time wandering through the many stalls. One our way back to our hostel, we walked over the PonteViacchio, a bridge lined with jewellery sotres which have replaced the butchers that were originally here. After dinner, we climbed up to Piazzale Michelangelo, a public square giving us great views over the city as the sun set. A night time stroll through the town saw us come across an hilarious puppet show (or at least we assumed it was hilarious because it was in Italian and everyone was laughing).

The next morning we rose early to get to the Galleria dell'Accademia, home to Michelangelo's Statue of David. Unlike the Mona Lisa in Paris, we weren't in the least disappointed with the statue which is over 4m high and was carved from a single block of marble. Li managed to take a couple of sneaky (prohibited) photos by hiding in the crowd (sshhh don't tell anyone). We then headed back to the leather markets to try out our bartering skills and did a pretty good job of looking like broke backpackers I'd say. We had some mixed success and, if we are to believe one of the salesmen, eventually managed to make a deal where the seller made zero profit - yeah sure.

Due to some very vague instructions, we thoroughly tested the local bus system on the way to the train station and missed the intended local train to the intercity train station. Fortunately, we managed to get to the front of the information services line and find another train with about a minute to spare and the delay of our connecting train meant we had a chance to cool off before boarding the train to Venice, phew.