Advertisement
Published: August 21st 2014
Edit Blog Post
P1070246
Ponte Vecchio bridge was the only bridge left in place when Germany marched through in WW11 This was at the demand of Hitler Bongiorno,
We have wandered around Florence and have seen all the medieval attractions and the magnificent shops too.... We found the market at St Lorenzo and it's truly amazing much better than ours in Australia - almost matches the one in Barcelona. It is very well set out and upstairs there is restaurants and bottle shops and butcheries etc - it's an amazing place to visit - so many choices. One thing we can't understand is the almost obsession about Nutella - they have it with ice cream, gelato, on crepes (lots of creperies in Paris) and on almost anything. I understand there is the standard one and a chocolate one - haven't been game enough to try it though. There is even a recipe book on all things Nutella!
We had lunch and went on a hop on hop off bus and toured around Florence - OMG it is just beautiful, the countryside is just so lush and green everywhere with great views from up in the hills - Florence is surrounded by hills therefore it's in a valley. We were told that only 20% of the centuries old buildings remain in Florence as most were
demolished since the Renaissance era - mainly from war and floods.
The people are lovely here and very accommodating - it's busy in town with very narrow footpaths and streets but everyone just works around it all. A lot of people selling from stalls on the sides of the main roads - you can buy so many different things from mobile chargers to sunglasses, umbrellas, cards, hand made items etc. When wandering around there is usually someone playing one instrument or another which adds to the beautiful ambience of it all. They all have a tin out for donations as do the beggars. Also have seen people sleeping around the railway station too.
They say Paris is the city of love but we have seen so many more people showing public displays of affection (PDAs) here in Florence which is lovely to see. There is a kissing tree which I would have loved to have taken a photo but the bus moved too quickly to do that. We have seen a lot of people riding bicycles around here and in Paris - no helmet required.. (Like Brisbane you can rent a bike from a bike station and leave
it at another station around town, in Paris you can do that with small cars that are plugged in when finished with it.) Wonder if Campbell Newman - Premier of Qld, got his ideas from Europe... also the light rail is here too - although fairly new think it was 2010 when it started here.
Sometimes John went missing while we've been out and about - generally taking photos for people trying to do selfies - he's not a bad photographer apparently as they've all been happy with his photos.
During our time in Europe so far we've found that PAISLEY is coming back in fashion, how about that?!
We spent one day here 'at home' just enjoying the view and the spa and catching up with washing etc. We are so glad that we didn't stay in a hotel in town as we would have missed this place, and that would have been a real shame - we have loved it here and are now packed and ready to move onto the next part of our adventure - to Rome this afternoon to stay overnight before catching our plane to Malaga, Spain. We will pick up
a car there and drive to Costa Del Sol - Marbella (pronounced Marbey). We think it's about 50 kilometres from the airport. We expect to chill out in the beautiful sunshine and top up our Vitamin D requirements.
Hope everyone is well and happy and enjoying the blogs - quite happy for you to comment at the bottom of the blog and also note there are more photos at the very bottom of the blog - not sure if you have to click on See Full Blog - as I do to see the extra photos.
Love from us Mitchies xxx
Advertisement
Tot: 0.27s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 6; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0717s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb