We dropped Ian and Carmel at the train station for their trip to Florence, then left Montaione and drove to the coast to a seaside town of Viareggio. This place is setup as a resort town, with businesses called "bagnos" lining the foreshore. The businesses own the piece of beach in front of them and charge tourists to rent a chair and an umbrella, or just a piece of sand. There is little to no public beach access here and literally thousands upon thousands of umbrellas lining the sand.

The town is very interesting because in 1917 it was decimated by fire. They had to rebuild the entire foreshore and at that time art nouveau was in style, This means that the hundreds of hotels lining the boulevard across the road from the beach are all built in the art nouveau style. The rest of Italy is either ancient or eclectic, so it is very unusual to find a place where the architectural style matches across the entire place.

The next day we drove into Florence and after driving 2,529 kilometres over the past 5 weeks we dropped the car off at the airport and made our way into the centre of Florence. We met up with Ian and Carmel again, who had arrived the previous day. The Florence marathon was on and there were people everywhere. We had booked tickets to climb the Florence cathedral dome and had to wade through throngs of people to the entrance. We made it with minutes to spare. Then it was a matter of climbing the 463 steps to the top of the dome. This is the famous dome built in 1436 by Brunelleschi. At the time they had built the cathedral and no idea how they would build the massive, double-layered dome. Brunelleschi won the contract but never revealed how he built it. It remains a mystery to this day.

So we climbed the steps, squeezing past hundreds of people going up and down the narrow stairs and hallways and found ourselves 114 metres above Florence with panoramic views of the entire city of Florence and the surrounding hills of Tuscany. The cathedral itself is stunning, a gothic structure built entirely of red, green and white marble, the colours of hope, faith and charity.

That night we went out for our last meal with Ian and Carmel. We went to a tiny Florentine trattoria and the meal was fantastic. A couple of bottles of chianti made it even better! After dinner we had to say goodbye to our friends who had driven most of the 2,529 kilometres with us and walked 352 kilometres and 424,500 steps. Together we discovered some beautiful cities, some quaint towns and lots of stunning scenery, food and wine. We had a lot of laughs along the way and loved every minute. We will miss them terribly.

The next morning we joined a local tour guide, Bruce, for a walking tour of Florence. This city is gorgeous. A renaissance town dripping with superb architecture and fascinating history. It was the true base of power in Italy for a few hundred years when the Medici family ruled. During the renaissance period it harboured brilliant artists like Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo Da Vinci, Botticelli and many, many more. Their paintings, architecture and sculptures are found in every corner of the city.

We spent the afternoon exploring the city and admiring Ponte Vecchio, an ancient bridge lined with jewellery shops. This bridge is the only bridge that survived the German occupation during World War 2. All of the others were blown up to prevent the allies from entering the city. So lucky that it survived because it is beautiful and awash with history. We then visited the Uffizi gallery, which happened to be free on the day we went there. Apparently this doesn't happen very often, so we weren't complaining! We saw paintings by Michelangelo, Rafael and Leonardo Da Vinci. That covered off 3 of the ninja turtles. Botticelli's famous "Birth of Venus" is there as well.

The next day we started with a visit to the sculpture museum where we saw sculptures by Michelangelo and Donatello. That covered off the fourth ninja turtle! We then walked over to another cathedral, Sante Croce, where the tombs of Michelangelo and Galileo Galilei are located.

We then went for a walk to the other side of the river, passing over a bridge designed by Michelangelo. This bridge was destroyed by the Germans during the war, however the Florentines rebuilt it using stone from the original quarry and even cut the stones using the same ancient tools that they dusted off from their museums. Our aim was to walk to restaurant recommended to us by Bruce and after over half an hour of walking I realised that it was shut on Mondays. Oops. Anyway, we hadn't wasted our time because our intention was to visit the Boboli gardens after lunch; the gardens attached to the Florence Palace, which were close to the restaurant. So we walked to the gardens and entered the only building we could find looking for the entrance to the gardens. Some lady started yelling at us and it turns out that we had walked into a high school. So we hot-tailed it out of there and found a local to ask where we enter the gardens. Turns out the gardens are closed on the 2nd and 4th Monday of each month and guess what? It was the fourth Monday! So after wasting the entire afternoon walking to a closed restaurant, followed by a closed garden, we walked back to the other side of the river.

We went out for dinner to a tiny family-owned trattoria that night. Mama does the cooking and the daughter is the waitress. We had some pasta fagioli (bean soup) which Lidia's Mum used to make. On the way back to our apartment we stopped to listen to some buskers. They were a string quartet and their talent was incredible. The lead violinist belonged in the first chair of a major orchestra. He was simply incredible.

The next morning we had to get to the airport and we left our accommodation to go to the taxi rank outside. It was raining and there were no taxis. We waited for 10 minutes or so and then I went back inside to ask the receptionist at the apartment to call one. She tried 10 different companies and couldn't get a taxi. Finally she organised one to pick us up. So I went back outside. By this time Lidia was completely freaking out that we were going to miss our plane. We waited another 5 minutes and still no taxi. So I walked down the road a bit and finally found a free one. The driver was an old lady with grey hair and I thought that if she drove like an old lady we would surely be late for our flight. Turns out she drove like Fangio. She was flying down the wrong side of the road, passing buses with only centimetres to spare on each side and taking small one lane roads like a rally driver. We made it to the airport in 15 minutes, plenty of time for our flight.