Florence in 3 days

---

We met an Italian girl on a train from Venice to Florence, 3 hours to the south and she told us that Italian train can be worse than that of Laos and Cambodia where she'd just spent a month in. During the conversation the three of us were sitting on the floor of the train, sandwiched together with our giant backpacks between the restroom and the train door. The area wasn't AC'd so we were sweating profusely and two and a half hours never felt so long in my entire life. Every time the train slowed down we would peek out of the window, hoping fervently to see the sign for Florence. Yeah, it was my welcome to Florence.

Luckily Florence turned out to be a delight. The weather has been kind to us, food is aplenty, and the city centre is so compact that often you turn around a corner at random and you see a venerable looking building with a line of people around it. So you fish out your guidebook to figure out what that building is, what the people are waiting in line for, and whether it'll be worth it to join the line.

Personally I think Uffizi is overrated. When you have to wait 2 hours to get in like that I feel that I'm entitled to at least bring a painting home with me, you know? I would have to recommend the smaller, less waiting in line, and cheaper museum behind the Duomo. It has works by Michelangelo, Donatello, and the original Baptistry door. You're even allowed to take pictures!

We got lucky when we went to visit David. We were ready to pay extra for reservation to avoid waiting hours in line when accidentally, thinking it was the door for making reservations, we went it through the exit and avoided the line altogether! (we still had to pay the regular admission fee though) David was bigger than I thought, and just as sexy. He looks a little bit worried, don't you think? Understandably so I guess, he's about to fight Goliath! I think he's worth every cents of the 8 euros I paid.

All the churches that we visited charged admission fees, unlike what I've been informed. So we didn't visit many of them, actually we visited only one (Santa Croce, 4 euros and worth it). We figured Rome would be a better place to spend our money on churches.

Today we went on a day trip to Pisa. Glad to see that yup, it's still leaning. Do you know that it used to lean the other way? They tried to fix it by inserting a slab of concrete and then it started to lean the other way. I overheard this from another tourist. It costs 15 euros to climb to the top of the tower!

We spent time watching people pose for pictures. It was quite hilarious, really.

Anyway, I'm gonna try to upload some pictures, hope it'll work. Tomorrow, we'll be on our way to Rome!

---

Photos

Florentine buildings
On our way back to our campground

Yummy Italian food!
You can see Chris pressing the camera's remote.

I lied...
Tower of Pisa isn't leaning anymore.

Chris at a street market
St Lorenzo church in the background.