Florence, Italy.

Myself and Anna (a friend from Australia who was also here in Brown Town for 6 months) spent a long weekend in Florence in mid-November, and Rikki another Aussie joined us for 2 days of the weekend.

We met up with Rikki at Pisa airport and after 20 minutes of raving about the awesome weather (it´s amazing how balmy 15 degrees can feel when you are coming from 6 degrees) we hopped on a bus to Florence. We dropped our stuff at the accommodation and then it was off to a nearby trattoria for some good food and good red wine (which are sorely lacking here in Deutschland) and then off to bed early for a full day of sightseeing.

We stayed in a backpackers to save money and I dropped off to sleep no probs and woke up refreshed in the morning to have Anna whinge about getting no sleep because the girl in another bed snored like a trooper...I thought she was just being a princess until Rikki agreed that she didn´t sleep a wink because of the snoring and had even kicked the girl in the middle of the night to stop her tractor impersonation. Thus, proving once again that I am a world class sleeper - if it was an olympic event I think I would be in with a chance for a medal!

That day we pounded the cobbled streets of Florence taking in art (including Michaelangelo´s David at the Academy - which was really impressive - well for the artistic aspects not so 'anatomically' impressive), gelato, views, gelato, shopping (I bought some chic purple leather gloves ), gelato and a super yummy lunch at a place called Yellow and ended the day with some wine bar hopping tasting a few good chianti´s along the way. The next day we bid farewell to Rikki, then Anna and I headed out to a medieval village called San Gimigiani...the place was pretty cool in a ye olde kinda way - with tasty pizza and awesome views over the tuscan countryside but better yet the weather was sensational with sunshine galore to replenish the vitamin D - Henno even stripped down to a t shirt at one stage.

Feeling energetic and loving the Tuscan countryside we decided to join a bike tour the next day that would take us to on a 20km loop stopping at wineries and tavernas along the way for refreshment! I didn´t do too badly and only had to pike out and walk for about 200m up a rather steep hill (the brochure said "relatively flat" I think they were using the term relatively rather loosely!) but Anna was a champ and fanged it up the hills.

The next morning we got up super early to get to Pisa so we could see the leaning tower and the "Field of Miracles"...we spent quite some time perfecting our touristic shots with the leaning tower (it´s gotta be done), made the dizzying climb up to the top - dizzying not because of the height but because of the angle of the tower -it messes with your balance something shockin´ then it was off to the airport to return to Deutschland....

....and to the shocking reality of 3 degrees!

Best things about Florence:


* it was warm enough, interesting enough and tasty enough to keep the mood up to get me through the cold weather that lay ahead.

*the coffee was GLORIOUS!

*the actual city of Florence is small enough that you could see all of the major sites and visit a couple of museums in a day and a half (if you plan it just right to avoid the lines at the museums).


Worst things about Florence:

*In essence it is just another European city and has contributed to my city fatigue...the next holiday definitely needed to be adventure based and not city based to get a different taste of Europe.