This morning we headed off from Rome but had only a short trip to Florence. We were taken in to Florence and went to a leather work outlet where various leather work things were explained to us. Tom and I bought a beautiful leather waste-paper bin! We then went and had a gelato in the square whist watching a puppeteer at work. After that we were joined by a local guide who took us on a walking tour of Florence, including into the art gallery to see and hear an involved account of the statue of David. Michelangelo was an interesting fellow. He worked on David when he was young and was enjoying his work when he was noticed by a pope. The pope asked him to work on his tomb, telling him there would be so many statues he could make for it but when he got to Rome the pope said no, paint the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo said he wasn't a painter, but the pope said "I'm paying you, so you'll paint". So Michelangelo got his revenge - he used blue paint, made by using lapis lazuli, the most expensive colour and he painted everyone in the nude, which was offensive to everyone at the time. We saw where Michelangelo was born. And dinner - what a treat! We drove for about 30 minutes out into the Tuscan countryside to a restaurant run by a chef who has a TV show on SBS. We were met with blue sparkling wine and then had the most delicious Italian meal with a buffet of antipasto, followed by two different pasta dishes (one with truffle sauce) followed by a T-bone steak barbecued the Florentine way, followed by tiramisu and berry cheesecake. Oh and music! of course there was much serenading, and the little Italian man chose me (sitting as far away as possible) to dance with. Much embarrassment!!!! All of this was accompanied by as much red wine, chianti, strawberry wine or blue champagne as you wanted. Needless to say, when Bob put the music on for the trip back to the hotel, there was a lot of singing.