Geo: 43.7687, 11.2569 Today was our last day in Florence before transferring to Rome. We decided to visit the Mercato Centrale, where we found the most amazing French pastries for morning tea. We also had a wander through the San Lorenzo market and purchased some trinkets. Our next stop was a visit to the Palazzo Medici Riccardi, a really lovely Renaissance palace. We stopped for lunch in the Piazza del Duomo, so that we could eat with a last look at the amazing cathedral. I had a delicious Penne with Lemon, Salmon and Courgettes and G had Crab Risotto. The afternoon was spent wandering around, picking up our last load ... read more

Geo: 43.3187, 11.3305 This was the second day that we spent touring with Alessandro Cammilli. He picked us up smack on time at 9.30am and we headed straight to San Gimignano. This was a gorgeous little town, although it didn't feel like a real place, more like a theme park town, such as Sovereign Hill here in Australia. There didn't seem to be any real shops for people to buy groceries etc, only touristy type shops. Still, as said it was gorgeous and we paid to climb up the tallest tower, Torre Grossa, for the sensational views. Next stop was Siena, another lovely place, much larger than San Gimignano. Ale explained about the 17 contrades that compete in the Palio and showed us how each area of Siena has different signs according to its contrade – ... read more

Geo: 43.7793, 11.2463Our day started with the included Italian style breakfast. Lots of very sweet food – cakes, cereal with chocolate, sweet pastries, sugared croissants and so on. Fortunately there were delicious hams and cheeses as well as very good cappuccino.We then set out to Piazza del Duomo. We decided not to climb the dome of the cathedral itself, but rather to climb Giotto's Campanile. It wasn't a too difficult climb, there were spots to rest along the way, and the view from the top was worth any effort that we expended.Next we visited the Duomo itself and the Baptistery. Unfortunately we could only see the copies of the Gates of Paradise as the originals are kept in the Opera del Duomo which was under renovation.After the Duomo area we headed to the Museo Bargello as ... read more

Geo: 45.4371, 12.3327 Or last day in Venice – sigh. After breakfast we caught the vaporetto to the Rialto Bridge and spent some time wandering around the fish market. We then walked through the Canareggio sestiere to reach Fondamente Novo where we hopped on another vaporetto to Burano. We spent an hour or so wandering around the little shops and taking photos of the gorgeous houses. We were so lucky, it was a pretty, sunny day, which showed the colours to perfection. We finally ended up at Da Romano, where we had to try their delicious fish risotto, which was superb. After lunch we caught another vaporetto back and this time got off at Murano. We wandered around a little and then we... read more

Geo: 45.4371, 12.3327Today was such an exciting day as we were finally going to Venice, which was the city we had chosen to be in for our actual Wedding Anniversary. Unfortunately we only had three nights available, both due to time and money (the hotel we chose in Venice was by far the most expensive of the trip), but we intended to make the most of it.We caught a taxi from the hotel to Milano Centrale station to board the train Venice. We booked all our train trips in first class, it only cost slightly more and we loved having the extra space available. It made for a very comfortable ride.The scenery was fairly bland, with the most exciting part being the journey over the causeway into Venice Santa Lucia station. We decided to splash out ... read more