This morning we had a tour at 9.15am.To Pisa and Lucca.

We got to the bus station pretty early, cause we pushed it a bit yesterday, so we had time to wait. I tried to buy credit, but it didnt work, which was annoying cause it was 10 euros.

We drove to Pisa first, there was only 7 people on the tour, and they all spoke english, 3 Americans, and 2 other Aussies, so the guide didn't have to repeat everything in a different language.

Pisa is really nice, we just really stayed in the historical part of the city, around the leaning tower, which actually isn't that tall, but it leans so much, 6 degrees I think, which when you see a big thing like that it's pretty scary.

The cathedral there is really nice aswell, gothic again, black white and pink, the inside is really intricate, the roof is covered with designs and real gold. Theres carvings, etc. etc. I could go on.

I had to wear a piece of cloth to cover my shoulders, cause I was wearing a singlet, hahaha you think we would learn.

We just looked at the souvenir shops after we visited the cathedral, and the bapistry is also pretty fantastic. The streets of Pisa look really old, but the most fun we had was taking silly photos with the leaning tower.

After Pisa we drove to Lucca, further in the tuscan region, and had Lunch. We actually walked to the Piazza de Napoleon, which was nice and quiet, lots of people, and a couple of horses that Trud fed our apple cores. It was quiet though, as is the whole town, no traffic, everyone walking or riding bikes, or horses, so it was great.

There is this really big church in Lucca, we visited it...Gothic again, as they seem to be in this area, but also fantastic. We took a really cool photo, with the really cool stain glass, and just looked around.

After navigating through the alleys and back streets, we finally made it to the wall, which is this really wide brick wall the Lucca-ians built to [prevent the town from being flooded by the river. But now, the city is expanded outside the walls, and the river is diverted, so all is well.

It's like a giant park that surrounds the city, nice and green, lots of trees, some play stuff for kids, we just enjoyed our walk, which was almost the whole way round. About æ.

We dismounted the wall, and walked through the city, saw small church and the Roman ampitheatre, another highlight. It was a little ampitheatre, but now is a circle of old houses, built all around it. Really cool, we bought some postcards, then made our way to the wall again.

Got back to Florence at 4.30

Back out at 5.25.

We walked through Florence, ended going further than we expected, but hey, we had fun.

Saw the world's largest Gothic cathedral (it's not actually, but it was totally massive!!!) It't called the Cathedrale di Santa Maria del Fior. Massive, really nice...as usual, just a bit dirty from all the car pollution I guess, they were cleaning it though.

After we walked through the Piazza della Signoria, nice place to the Palazzo Vecchio, which has a museum, but we did not enter.

---->TO the river, saw the famous bridge with houses, cool, and we walked across, all the houses are now shops, and I swear every single one sold just jewellery??? weird.

We walked along river, followed signs to where the canadian/ aussie girl yesterday told us to go, Piazzale Michelangelo.

It had to be just about the highest point in the city, so many stairs, that were so steep to get there. BUT it was worth it.

The view of the city was great, really nice around sunset, but it was a bit hazy. There was a group (big group) of Aussies on Contiki there, weird hearing familiar accents.

There was a statue of Michelangelo...I took a picture.

Trekked up more hill and saw a little church. It was really plain, small, not like other ones we've seen, but still different and interesting.

Went up the hill even further, after that until we found a place that looked like a house, but was actually church, cemetery to right, and city views, then church on left, really nice church.

Marble and stone work everywhere, really nice, two levels, mosaics paintings, interesting again.

THEN we started our major journey home.On the way we saw the Basilica Santa Croce, which looked almost identical to the Santa Maria we saw just before.

Went to spar, got ham, cheese, salads, bread, peaches for dinner, went to hotel, ate, watched movie, sleep.

ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz