Italy - Como to Florence

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Our foray into Italy began on a sunny afternoon when we arrived in Como at the height of rush hour traffic. This was a quick introduction to driving Italian style (lots of horn, small cars, and generally no rules).

Como involved a stroll around the old town checking out the churches and streets and also a boat trip up the lake admiring all the chateaux and stopping off at a small village called Torno for an hour.

From Como we headed for Verona, stopping at Lake Garda for lunch and a much needed gelato. Verona is a very beautiful city, famous for the setting of Romeo and Juliet, also for the third largest and one of the most well preserved amphitheatres, where they still hold concerts and performances. We spent a busy evening and morning soaking up all the sights extended due to the fact that we ended up accidentally in a museum which we weren't intending to go to and couldn't find our way out.

Next port of call was the fabulous and completely unique Venice, unfortunately we only had two days here and there were thunder and lightning storms for a day and a half so we were unable to explore as much as we wanted to. However, we were still blown away by the tiny interlinking streets, sheer size of the grand canal and St Marks Square. As it was bucketing down it was a good excuse for Jared to sit in an Irish pub all day and watch Liverpool and the All Blacks both have victories.

Heading south we stopped off to try some Spaghetti Bolognese in Bologna and wander around the massive piazzas in the city centre

Next on the itinerary was the much anticipated Florence for two days. Arriving at our B&B we were told that our booking hadn't been recorded and that there were no spare rooms, however after some negotiating the owner moved out of his room for the first night. Once that issue was sorted we set about exploring the city. Major sights we saw included the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore with its massive Duomo which is made of over 4 million bricks, the Ponte Vecchio (old bridge) which has rows of shops along each side, and Michaelangelo's David sculpture. Rather than take the lift to the top of the Duomo we decided that we had been eating far too much pizza and needed some exercise so decided to climb the 414 steps to the top of Giotto's Bell Tower for a stunning panoramic view over the Duomo and the city

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