Food, Food, Food

Of all our experiences as tourists, you often never really feel the differences until you try the food. We had certainly had a few surprises already. You think you know Italian food. I mean who hasn't had spaghetti, pizza or lasagne?

But just as everybody is different, everyone has a different way of preparing food. Italian pizza has way less toppings than kiwi pizza etc... We feel that it is our duty as tourists to partake of as many culinary experiences as possible.

Even the musicians are different. We thought these musicians were hired by the restaurant. Nope. They just wander in off the street and try their luck. Which is okay if you like their music I guess, but the good thing about this is, if you don't like their music, the buskers don't tend to hang around for long. They milk the crowd and then move on to another restaurant.

Looking for the more romantic side of Florence.

I had been so looking forward to being in Florence, that it was hard for me to admit that actually I was finding it to be a rather grubby city. In the hopes of finding something a little more along the lines of...dare I say it?-"Room with a View", but lacking enough time to really get outside of the city, we headed off to what looked like a higher point.

Apart from the roads, and the traffic, walking up to the Piazzale Michelangelo where the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte can be found nearby, was certainly scenic and more like what I had envisioned Florence to be like.

There was a really lovely restaurant and trellises and roses etc... overlooking the city which we would have been eager keen to bring the rest of the family back to for dinner but sadly it turned out to be an American bar!

Inside the Basilica, it was incredibly dark. It was near impossible to see the beautiful interior and paintings. Everything they say about Italian churches is certainly true. Outside there was a lovely cemetery. Well worth a visit.

Need we say more?

Ponte Vecchio

As you can see, Il Ponte Vecchio, can be quite lovely and romantic. Well, romantic apart from the masses of tourists all jostling for a place to take a photo. Probably you could get just as lovely a view from one of the other bridges but along this bridge are a lot of little shops.

Apparently, in the 15th century these shops were greengrocers, butchers, and fishmongers. But in 1565, Ferdinando I replaced them with goldsmiths. The jewellery stores were nice to look at but the prices were rather Ouch! We contented ourselves with gelato, waffles and whatnot.
Later in the evening, the street vendors come out- lots of paintings. I was very tempted to buy one, but with so many vendors all selling the same thing, it's a bit offputting.

More entertaining is watching the vendors scrabbling to gather their gear and skedaddle as soon as the cops make an appearance.