Florence day 1

We woke up to a wonderful view outside our room window, we could see Tuscan hills, the church next door and the courtyard below us. 

 

The sun was shining so we were excited to go out and explore. The lady at the reception desk recommend a great place to have a typical Italian breakfast which had the best coffee I have ever tasted. Such fast service too!

We took a bus to the centre of town and found the most helpful tourist information lady. She highlighted all the sights on our maps along with all the best places to eat (very important). So we made our way to an attraction just around the corner. We noticed a huge crowd of people straight away, and had a moment of 'what are they all looking at?' And as we walked a few more steps we saw exactly why. In front of us was the most huge elaborately designed cathedral we had ever seen, we couldn't even fit the whole thing into a picture! (so far this city was off to a good start and it wasn't even 12 yet). The famous dome had been cleverly constructed by the great Michael Angelo himself. 

 

Weaving our way through the crowds of selfie sticks and fellow gawkers, we found the streets lined with bustling markets. Fiona had her eye on some leather bags (made in Italy, or so they said!) and I was just looking through all the pretty jewellery like a magpie. We quickly found the sales techniques a little bit full on, being very British we like to casually browse unnoticed but if you so much as wander into the line of vision of a salesman he's showing you around his market and nearby shop (not taking no for an answer) introducing you to his ma, pa, grandparents and pet dog and practically getting you to agree to buy their entire stall and firstborn child. Okay that was maybe an exaggeration, but it was very pressured. So we looked for a safe route out and retreated to the indoor food market with our purses intact. This market was a lot more relaxed so we salvated at all of the Italian delicacies on offer and made our way upstairs where there was lots of choice for lunch options. I got myself some fresh mackerel grilled right in front of me and Fiona got a beef burger that she also watched them prepare before her eyes. The prices were very decent and our bellies were very happy. 

Afterwards we made our way towards the river to see the famous bridge, it's one of the last remaining bridges of its kind that has houses and shops along it. We were a little overwhelmed by the heat and crowds of other tourists (sometimes we'd forget that we were also tourists when we'd get annoyed by the amount of people). But nonetheless I found a water fountain to fill my bottle and we squeezed in to see a lovely view of the river. It was also at some point after we'd crossed the bridge that we bought the most expensive ice cream ever... We made the mistake of thinking that we were selecting the cheap option of just one scoop in the smallest plain wafer cone. It was 7 euros! Seven! Oh well... It cooled us down I suppose and it didn't taste too awful. 

 

We carried on up to the palace where we bought tickets to wander around the nice gardens. On top of a hill there was a little porcelain museum and a nice view over the Tuscan countryside. We managed to find two other Scottish people! So we kindly asked them to take our picture in front of the view and exchanged stories about our travels. We then found a little green lizard taking a break from the heat in the shade so we thought we'd do the same thing.

When the day had finally begun to cool down we headed out of the gardens and climbed another hill to get a view over Florence in time for the sunset. This time we had plenty of time to make it up and even got there a little early, so we were only slightly dying at the final steps and not completely dying like we were in Budapest. We perched ourselves on some steps, a perfect location where we could see the view. However, as the sun was drawing closer to the horizon, the hoards of tourists gathered and started filling up the spaces around us. We watched some interesting human behaviour which was almost as entertaining as the sunset itself. Let's just say some people aren't as considerate as what we are 👼🏼 one couple did their best to purposely block the path where people were trying to get past, but karma got the best of them and they got thoroughly trampled. But one of my favourite bits was when an older gentleman managed to lighten the mood by getting everyone on the steps to wave for a picture. The sunset was very pretty indeed, we left promptly as to avoid the traffic and once we were back on ground level we could still see everyone on the hill looking like tiny ants. 

 

 

I don't know if youve noticed but we were pretty sick of people at this point, so we purposefully went down streets that had less and less people on them until we came to a really nice little restaurant with a welcoming chef who made us a generous portion of simple yet delicious pasta meals in an open kitchen. We shared a carafe of red wine and laughed at the table and chairs that they'd stuck on the ceiling. And the best part was that we could afford it on our tiny budget (our pasta was much cheaper than the ice cream we'd had earlier!). We walked back through the centre where we found a square lit up with statues and live music and got back to our hostel in a good mood.

 

Claire.