We set off this morning and travelled along the French and Italian Rivieras from Nice to Pisa, going through over 150 tunnels in the process. In places the scenery, both inland to the mountains and along the coast, is spectacular. Not long after leaving Nice we visited the Fragonard Perfumery where scents are manufactured for companies across the world. We were both quite interested in how they extract fragrances from natural products, from all around the world including wattle, frangipani and Euchalypt from Australia.
Seeing the leaning tower of Pisa was quite interesting, with it seeming to have a greater lean than photos suggest. We were also not aware that it was part of a walled area with a very large church and baptistery building, all three of which are in marble.
After Pisa we headed inland for our two nights in Florence. After a better than expected breakfast (our tour guide Eleni said that Italians would offer a coffee and cigarette if they could get away with it) we arrived at the top of a hill dominated by the Piazza Michelangelo. After taking in the view of Florence across the River Arno we walked downhill into the city and across the Ponte (Italian for bridge) Delle Grazie to visit the Peruzzi leather and jewelry shop. Peruzzi pride themselves in producing high quality goods. We bought some gifts and then had a guided tour of the city centre from a local lady who has probably been the best guide of our whole trip - very well spoken, knowledgeable and with a sense of humour. In our free time we decided that we did not have the time to seriously visit any museums (some of which you have to book weeks in advance in order to avoid queuing up to three hours) so we walked around the city centre. Highlights of this included the Duomo cathedral and baptistery, an exact replica of Michelangelo's Statue of David (the queue for the Uffizi Gallery for the original was about 2 hrs long but the replica was still impressive), various other marble statues, the Ponte Vecchio, Pitti Palace - and the streets and people in general. It seems a nice place, being well kept and clean with about the same population as Canberra (350,000). At lunch Bill had the best lasagna he has ever tasted, and for both of us the best tasting gelato - you could put on a lot of weight in Tuscany. We did a lot of walking across the usual rough surfaces so were glad when we sat down to a group evening meal and turned back to our hotel for a rest.