​​“Florence. The city of queues”

​Florence - Rome

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​​As previously mentioned, we may have been too spoiled with cities, and I didn’t think Florence was ‘all that’. For starters it was a proper, proper tourist town (read into that Americans everywhere. Not a bad thing, but you know it’s a popular place, if they can be bothered to come all that way for something) Secondly, as per our hotel booking tactics, we weren’t in the most pleasant part of town (contrary to what Meg thinks, I do believe ethnic diversity to be a good thing)

In the morning, we managed to book a slot to see the statue of David (side note. It is 11 euros to wait in a queue for at least an hour to see David, yet 15 euros to pay for an allotted slot/time. Why would anyone pay the 11 euros and wait in the baking sun?), and went on Meg’s inaugural walking tour. Unfortunately, due to a misjudgment in the size of Florence, we managed to pretty much see what we were meant to see within an hour or so (from the outside of course. We missed seeing all the stuff we should have seen from the inside. Some paintings or other). So, it was back to the wandering around town, and taking it all in.

Florence started to grow on me. Yes, it was way too touristy, and perhaps a little salubrious when compared to Verona, but still very Italian, and a world away from any other cities. These Romans really did build amazing piazzas, statues, bridges, etc, etc like we build barratt starter homes. And the fact they have managed to stand for as long as they have, is testament that the Italians have done something right over the last 2,000 years.

After collecting Milo from the parking garage (delivered by an Italian mechanic who was loving Milo, and who found it hilarious that he got into the wrong side where there was no steering wheel), we left a couple of hours earlier than originally planned, to account for any issues. Thankfully there were none, and it was a pretty straight shot to Rome, and besides a few sat nav ‘issues’ (she seems to get lost at crucial moments), we had no problems.

It seems that the Italians appeared to be appreciating the car, with quite a few thumbs up and beeps on the motorway. At least I think that was the case – they may well have been beeps for us to get out of the way, and thumbs up for us to pull over and view the leaking car…