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So firstly, sorry to both my avid blog watchers and myself for the lack of effort on the posting and uploading front!
Florence, to do it no justice at all was THEE best place i went in Italy i think. It had a romantcism to it just unlike the rather dirty Venice and boring Rome. As far as cities go, im appliying a rigid test of walking around and rating it according to how enjoyable my walks are. Florence was one of them places where around every corner there is some ancient marble carving in the side of a random building, a neat fountain in the middle of plentifull squares and all those monuments dotted around the cityscape. I guess what makes a beatifull city for me is the proper balance of old and new. Rome, was too new, and you had to walk for ages to get to some of the good old stuff, most of which was inside buildings. Venice was stuck in the past, leading to filthy stinking narrow streets full of shops trying to sell overpriced masks and other tatty wares to the hoards of tourists. The gondolas to me were just a joke. enough said.
Back to florence, more specifically now the Chianti hillsides around Sienna. I ended up going on that horse riding day out with kate , having negotiated a good 40 Euro discount with the owner. The riding was great, but very much surpassed by the amazing lunch in the 13th century castle. Lunch... pfffg! more like 3 course heaven of certified local produce, acompanied by the 4bottles of wine left on our table for....tasting. i could blog a full page on this meal alone, but hopefully kate has done it justice on her blog.
We spent a good deal of our time in florence with kates Italian friend Mario and another traveler named Camile, who we dined with in a great restaurant reccomended by marios uncle. The Gelato was abunant too in Florence, strangly, as it was too in Rome and Venice!
I forgot to mention our friend Robin came to visit in Venice, which was really cool and fun too, but imsure kate has covered that in her blogs also!
okies onto Budapest.
What a day!
Arrived in Budapest after the 16hours on an overcrowded braking down train overnight.
Dev's been a legend (one of many online gaming friends i hope tomeet during this trip), showing Kate and myself around this beautifull city. Im amazed how chilled out it seems. Im lovin it!
So we met Dev, Peter to his friends, where after tackling a bite to eat he ran scout for us on a guided walking tour of his city. Then it was time to jump to the zoo to meet his girlfriend who works in the childrens play area. We managed to avoid being tackled for entrance fee due to the connections rank 5 Dev and his girlfriend had. The zoo was a real blast from the childhood past, so much fun! After further evading the rather large public transport costs, we rested up on the central island in Budapest to recharge batteries with bite to eat. Before too long we found ourselfs drinking large beers and the local 70% tipple Palinka, made from honey and peach. This of course was the reason for my rather embarassing 3/0 defeat to the local table football champion... The very deviant, Peter Ant. A few phonecalls later, we dropped a tired kate off at the hostal and Dev and I walked to the local supermarket to grab some more of hungary's fine wine. Drinking this en route to the open air rock concert was a fine way to see budapest at night. Thankfully by the time we got there we were feeling sufficiently drunk to stomach the 200Foreint entrance fee, thats under a Euro each! Whilst looking for the meeting palce by the table football i discovered the table air hockey and it was time for some payback. Mat 7, Peter 2. It was there we met the real life EVE and her friend and partied the night away, with another round of beers and some champagne, a bargain at around 7Euros a bottle The hungarian rock/metal was really neat, and being seranaded, at the top of his voice, in both hungarian and later translated into English... still at the top of his voice, by a now very drunk Dev was perhaps a highlight for the equally drunk Cubic.
Sadly i couldnt speak a word of Hungarian to communicate with Eve's friend, so I had to let the moves speak for themselfs.
/ Rock on Budapest, Peter and his awesome friends....
Today Kate and i are guna go checkout the Hungarian Baths.
LOTS of pics promised from the last few weeks within the next 2 days.
Toodaloo.
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