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We reached Florence pretty quickly from Pisa. Camping Girasole was the first of the "Camping" series of accomodations we are going to stay in for our Italian leg of the journey.
The layout and feel of the place was just too nice! The restaurants, cafes and ice creameries were blended in well with the surrounding natural environment. We were given some time to settle ourselves into our rooms and then gathered for our typical Italian dinner in one of the restaurants.
Once everyone was gathered at the fountain, Daniel brought us to this classy restaurant located a little further into the camping ground. The restaurant was so-so on the outside but really classy inside. And its not just about appearance, as we found out, its cuisine was just as good. It started off with pasta and then to our surprise, everyone had a whole pizza to themselves! It ended with a scoop of ice cream for everyone. A fulfilling meal!
We then went back to our rooms after dinner to rest. But some of us decided to head for the local bar at the camping ground for a couple of beers and some music.
The next morning, after breakfast, we were brought straight to the City of Florence where were dropped along the roadside and were led towards a bridge where we met our Italian guide for the morning. He was a charming man and he was the best "external" guide we had for the whole journey in my personal opinion.
He was extremely knowleadgeable and professional. Some of the places he brought us to and introduce to us were Ponte Vecchio, Duomo Cathedral, Uffizi Gallery and Santa Croce and Palazzo Vecchio.
There were tons of statues everywhere in and around Palazzo Vecchio but we managed to identify the more famous one with the expert guidance from our guide. Those more notable statues are David, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, Perseus, Neptune, Galileo, etc. It was interesting learning about these great thinkers but soon things got boring. It was just too much statues.
We were then guided along the streets and finally ended up at Leonardo's Leather. There was then a short demostration by an American exchange student in Italy, who was working part time there, on distinguishing real and fake leather goods. It was a pretty interesting and informative session. After that we were left to roam around the area and hunt for our lunch before we had to head back to the bus.
We found a place and had pasta and pizza but the order took so long to come that we had to gorge everything down and wrap whatever we couldn't finish in serviettes and head for the bus.
Florence is a really nice city full of history and culture but we were really looking forward to our next destination though, which was ROME! Where arguably, Europe's history really began. So up the bus we go and off to Roma, the Italian way of calling it.
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