A morning visit to see the statue of David at Accademia Gallery. It is 17ft high and was originally positioned in Piazza della Signoria. Amazing to see also the unfinished marble works that are also on display. David was moved indoors due to damage by weather and people - one guy in 1800's took to David's feet with a hammer. There are replicas in different places around Florence. There was a coloured copy of David in an outside courtyard done by a German artist. ...

A wonderful day full of surprises today. I fell in love with the gorgeous city of Verona. It was quiet with lots to offer. The main highlight was visiting Juliet's house and seeing the balcony, the statue and the graffiti and love letters everywhere. The pic shows our tour leader Romano showing the men how they should rub Juliet's breast for everlasting love! We have the best tour leader and his sense of humour is full of surprises everyday. There is also a huge ...

Have just spent two nights in Venice. I had no idea how big it is - made up of 113 islands. Our welcome was a gondola ride through the canals accompanied by a piano accordianist and tenor singer :-) We stayed on one of the popular islands for two nights - Lido island and had to catch our private launch everywhere. The visit to the Murano factory on Murano island did some major damage to the finances! We spent half a day on the main island and hung out around St M...

A very long day of travel today from Sorrento to Assisi. We stopped at a war cemetery along the way. This afternoon was a time of spiritual experience. We visited Santa Maria degli Angele church. Here was where St Francis of Assisi worked and died. There were many Franciscan friars in the grounds and church St Francis built a small church which is now housed within the larger church for protection. I saw the two doves that live always near where St Francis die...

We ventured to the Isle of Capri today. The trip over was extremely rough. My breakfast stayed down, others were not so lucky :-( We explored the four different parts of the island, including the house of Axel Munthe who lived on Capri for most of his adult life, and we also walked down to the gardens of Augustus The views from different places was majestic!!!! Our journey back to the Marina Grande was via the finiculare, which is like a motorized train that go...