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Bonjourno everyone.
What a wonderful week we have had in Florence which is fast becoming my favourite city so far.
It is known as the art capital of Italy & is a world heritage site. It is full of piazzas with fountains & statues, lots of churches & art museums & the famous old bridge. So for an ignoramous like me about art it has been mindblowing to see pieces of works by Michaelangelo & Leonardo da Vinci.
So many tourists though – just huge groups of them. It must be worse in the height of Summer. It is so funny to see so many people with maps or tourist books standing on street corners studying them. Us included!!
We had a great day trip outside of Florence & went to Sienna & San Gimignano both medieval towns in Tuscany. Sienna has the most wonderful cathedral – it was just breathtaking when you got inside. But it is most well known for it’s annual horse race called The Palio. This race has been going for 600 years & 10 horses race around the town piazza. They showed us a video on the bus about it & the townsfolk go crazy with it. The horses are even taken into church & blessed before the race!! And the winner is the horse that crosses the line first with or without the jockey!!
San Gimignano looked like it was a nice little walled town but it was absolutely pouring with rain so instead of venturing to the sights we headed for the World Champion gelati shop that Amy reckons they possibly deserve the title. She should know because she has been doing a lot of testing of gelati since we arrived in Florence!
We had a great lunch that day at what they call an organic farm – I don’t know why they don’t call it a winery because they produce their own delicious wine & we got to try their dessert wine that you dip biscotti into.Yum!!
Another day we took a day tour to the Cinque Terre which is 5 fishing villages that you can walk between. We arrived at the first one which was Riomaggiore & walked what was called the Lovers path which is the coastline on a cliff to the second village Manarola. From there we trained to Vernazza where we had lunch. The towns are all so cute & picturesque with their houses all painted in complimentary pastel colours & their boats all parked up in the narrow streets because there are no moorings.
Then, on the way home we stopped at Pisa & finally saw the famous Leaning Tower. I was so amazed how much smaller it is in real life to what I had imajined all these years!
Two of my favourites of Florence were food related. I took myself off on a handmade pasta course. OMG it was so much fun & the chef Roberto was excellent. He taught us how to make it handmade or with a pasta machine He did tell me I would need to practice a lot when I got home so you can imagine what my efforts produced. I am seriously wanting to rush out & buy a pasta machine now though!!
The other foodie tour we did was a chocolate & wine tasting afternoon at Florence’s oldest cioccolateria dating back to 1936. This is a kind of café that specializes in all chocolate products plus coffees & wines. As you know I am not a great chocolate fan but even I found it awesome. Needless to say Amy loved it. My fave was the strawberry & chocolate jam Yummm…(had to buy some!)
Feel like we did heaps in Florence but theres still so much more we could do so hope I get back there one day.
Well it’s arreviderchi to Florence & next stop is Verona – the town of Romeo & Juliet so will blog you all from there xxx
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