Firenze

I arrived to Florence on Sunday evening after another good train ride through the Tuscan countryside. Train travel is so nice: no security checks required, and no waiting around at the station at either end.

Florence struck me immediately as a very different city to Venice...aka "things are happening that aren't tourism" - most of the people around at that time of evening are Italians living their lives.

Walked the 20 mins to where google maps said my hostel would be, only to get lost again. In venice it's several names for each street, in florence it's two sequences of numbers for each street, black and red. I had just told google '104' and that had defaulted to 104-red, a few blocks down from 104-black. But when i found it, Ostello D'Gallo Oro was amazing. A friendly 'ciao bello' on entering, and just the most laid-back atmosphere. The room was great, with shared bathroom and a balcony. Met Baz from Perth, who is on 13 weeks long service leave after working 7 years as an IT project manager for the WA state goverment. I told him that our labour laws had been somewhat more liberalised in the 90s and we joked about life as public servants. Also did the whyPhD/whyAcademia/whyUSA spiel for about the 200th time in the last three months. Getting those business/life story cards printed any day now... The hostel also had free internet, free distilled water, and free breakfast - ace!

I woke up early monday morning hoping to hit the galleries, only to discover monday is the city's attractions' day off...bugger. So Monday was church day, visited about 4-5 cathedrals in the central city, Duomo excluded (big queues by time i got there). The buildings were amazing. I'm not a big fan of renaissance art, because of the repetitive subject matter, nor am i religious, but something about those buildings made my spine tingle. Probably just the cool temperature.

After churches, the Palazzo Vecchio (where David stood until the late 1800s, there's now a copy there), and being mistaken several times for an Italian (highest compliment for a tourist, prob something to do with my facial hair, sunglasses and two necklaces), i crossed the Arno river on one of the 'new' bridges. All but the Ponto Vecchio were destroyed by the retreating germans in 1944.

Then up the hill to Pallazo Michaelangelo, which has a view over Florence that i think is better than the city itself. Terracotta roofs, punctuated by church domes and towers, with the hills of Tuscany behind. Also up there was some kind of Korean wedding party: couldn't quite work out if there were multiple brides and grooms because everyone was to the nines, and the locals and tourists alike were fascinated. A short walk later i was at the highest church above the city, and then continued around the hills on Galileo Galilee drive. Loads of cars but no pedestrians so i had the pavement and flora to myself. Then it was down through some nice gardens, also to myself apart from the aforementioned wedding party(s), and back into the city.

After about 4-5 hours walking in the heat i needed a good rest back at base, but not before meeting the two kiwis (!!!) in my room, both cops in South Auckland who reckon John Keys will be good for the police and fuel prices. I said i hoped he could deliver on what he's promised the Police Association...which is probably nothing and everything yet. Popped to the pizzeria down the road with other roommate Christian from Austria, a political science student, so thats what we talked about.

Tuesday morning i slept in, took a last stroll round the neighbourhood, realised once and for all that the real Tuscany (and Italy) must be outside the cities, despite their obvious beauty, and got on the train to Pisa airport. Might have got to tower and back, but decided it safer to leave that sight for another day.

Arrividerci Italy, i'll be back asap for some closer inspection!