Prada, Gucci, Armani, Dolce and Gabana

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We had intended to go to Florence today, but we tried to buy tickets online for the museums and discovered that we can only get them for next week. We would rather have tickets than queue so we changed our plans. We still headed near to Florence but instead of art today we looked at clothes.

Even top designers have goods that are slightly imperfect and in Italy the factory outlet stores are designer brands. We went to two malls today and had a very different experience that outlet shopping at DFS in Melbourne.The first place we visited was the Prada outlet. It was set out like a normal shop, was bright, clean and organised and the cheapest things still cost more than the most expensive in Moorabin. If you were going to buy Prada bags or clothes this would be the place to do it. It's just that 50% off really expensive is still expensive and nothing really caught our eye.

The clientele were a little different from the usual factory outlet shoppers too - there were loads of Asian tourists and Italians with their dogs - in the shop! One lady had to remove her dog quite quickly as it was about to do something in a Prada store that it really shouldn't.

The second place that we visited had several stores and was imaginatively named 'The Mall'. Just as with other outlet shopping, some days you just don't see anything you want to buy. It was one of those days for us so we tried one last place which was a Dolce and Gabbana outlet. Fiona and Harriet actually tried something on here, but neither of them bought anything. We may come back to the outlets another day, but for today it was nice just to browse.

Toby asked Aine what to order for our aperitivi and the only new option she came up with was Campari aranciata - with orange. Another night, another order. Still not what we wanted! But we still enjoyed what we had, the atmosphere in the village and the staff at the cafe. Whilst we were eating a lady brought her dog in the piazza. He was just like Digby, only fluffy. Lots of people were taking photos. We hope our Digby is managing without us.

We have been here 5 days now and hadn't eaten dinner out since we arrived. We have driven past the pizzeria every day to get out of the village and there is always a man sat outside waiting for customers. He never seems busy, but it is the only pizzeria in the village so we tried it out. The food was fine, the service great- well we were the only customers, but Toby was terribly disappointed when he got ready made, defrosted tiramisu. He is now on a quest to find the best tiramisu as well as gelato. He better keep up the running or he will need 2 seats on the plane home.

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