Firenze - Florence

Italy day 2 and 3

Another train ride and e arrive in Florence. A quick check with a poiliceman for directions and we found our hotel just down the road from the station.

Note to friends.....DO NOT STAY IN HOTEL MARTELLI!

Four out of five so far and I haven't done too bad with hotel selection. This hotel is very bad. Room certainly not up to online pictures.....stained wallpaper, lampshades, bedspread. Mould in bathroom. No glasses for drinks. Toilet wonky and leaking around pipes when sat on. Broken nights sleep due to generator outside window starting up every half hour. Front desk ain't bothered! To top it off, breakfast orange juice served in flimsy plastic cups....watered down.

Anyway......

Florence certainly an improvement on Venice. We did an open top bus tour on day one to take in all the sights. Walked around the Duomo later in the evening and had a lovely dinner in a nearby restaurant finishing with Tiramisu. Peter cheekily told the waiter it wasn't as good as mine!

After a sleepless night, we met our Tour guide Becky, a lovely English girl married to a local (with two small children) for our Tuscanyy in one day tour.

FABULOUS!
We saw Siena, San Gimignano and Pisa and lots of lovely Tuscan countryside. Included in the 12 hour tour was a delicious lunch in a vineyard overlooking San Gimignano with generous samplings of four different wines including a dessert wine to dip our biscotti into. Yum yum!

Becky gave us directions to one of her favourite restaurants in Florence so we headed there when we got back for dinner. As we had been given a substantial lunch we didn't really want a big dinner but with Becky being but a favourite of the restuarant owner we were plied with extras such as sparkling wine to start, a mousse thingy that I quickly passed over to Peter to eat for me and a limoncello for afters. We staggered back to our hotel (I'd much rather have slept at the station) for the last night before packing up to set off for Roma.

Florence .....good one!