Firenze (Florence)

Thursday - Florence.


It was a mixture of excitement and disappointment. We started the day off with a ladder... no, letter... no wait. Oh yes, a leather demonstration. This was hard to work out, seeing as we weren't sure what Papa was saying to start out. The 'demonstration' consisted of a man running a hot poker over a strip of gold leaf to gild a leather wastebasket (30 seconds) and a different man telling us how soft the leather was in their particular shop, and so we should buy some. And that was it. 3 minutes. It was all completely out of our price range, anyway. After that, a local guide named Sammy took us for a walking tour. He was very friendly and (easy on the eyes, as Bek says) helpful. He showed us a courtyard full of statues, including Michelangelo's famous David, or at least the original copy. That was pretty impressive. He also showed us many churches (Italians love their churches!) and the beautiful city itself, which we loved. It's also Papa's favourite city in Italy, so we had to like it.

We had free time, in which we had some more gelati (I think we are up to about 6 so far, Papa laughs every time he sees us with another cup - it's become a family joke). We saw Michelangelo's tomb inside one of the duomos (churches), and some very impressive mosaics. We also got a lot of unnecessary shopping done. Oh well. Bek and I took a horse and carriage ride through the city, which was scarier than the taxi ride! Almost. It was so much fun - our driver didn't understand much English, but was happily chatting away to us and the horse in Italian anyway. I think the horse understood him. We trotted through some of the alleys, almost hitting one unlucky tourist! So much fun though - we've been eyeing it the entire trip and finally got our chance.

Getting to know our tour ground really well now - a lovely bunch of people (coconuts). Going to miss Papa and Giuseppe and the rest of the family though!

Love,

Bek and Belle