Cathy here. Sorry respectable readers that we have kept quiet for so long but the shopping in Florence has been quite good.

We left Portovenere by taxi to La Spezia. We had this crazy red haired female italian taxi driver who road raged her way to the train station. She kept telling us everyone else was crazy in the head. It was hilarious.

The trains were great and it took about 1 hr to get to Pisa. We put the bags in Left Luggage and headed by taxi out to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Yes it is still leaning but is a spectacular site. Most of the sights I saw in 1988 have been cleaned and spruced up now and almost look new again - apart from the lean the tower is looking good. Then back on the train to Florence.

The apartment in florence was in piazza piave right on the river and 10 mins walk from the centre of town. Very handy and great accom. As we had been here a few weeks ago we knew our way around which was great. The first night we had a great dinner at Baldovinos near Santa Croce square - only 5 mins walk. Krista had rabbit and I found a rum and coke so we were both happy.

Next morning we battled through the leather shops and then to the post office to post some stuff home as we can only have 20kgs of luggage on the flight to Prague. Thanks to a very helpful guy at the post office we got it all sorted. Then we found the hop on hop off tour and did a round or 2. That night we dined at La Fracesca also near Santa Croce.

The 3rd day we did an afternoon tour of florence that got us into the Uffizzi Gallery. Elvio was the guide and was very informative. We saw many masterpieces - Michelangelos, Botticellis and heaps of other unbelieveable pieces. That night we went up to Piazza Michelangelo to watch the sunset over the Ponte Vecchio and the river arno. Spectacular and we had an ok dinner up there too.

The 4th day we did a tour of siena and san gimignano. We had been to siena before but saw some completely different things and loved it. San Gimignano was fabulous little town on the top of a hill - looked like the town in the 2nd Twilight film when they were in Italy to see the Volturi. A huge storm came over just as we were leaving san gimi so we were thankful we missed the worst of it. That night on recommendation from a friend of Kristas - it is called Ciro and Sons. The food was fabulous and they had rum and coke so all good. The place is so well decorated and photos of the family everywhere. We spoke to the 2nd son and he said he'd love to open up a store in aust as they have so many aust visitors. I had pork fillets and krista had ?gnocci? and we shared a lovely cheese plate.

The last day we headed out early to the airport in Florence. We flew Swiss air to Zurich.