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Pictures taken out the train window...
...and our first look at Florence:
Florence (Firenze in Italian) is a world away from the hyper, dirty streets of Rome. This city has more of a small town feel to it--if you can ignore all the tourists.
We walked through the center of the city to get to our hotel. Here's just a glimpse of the eccentrically-coloured Duomo that towers over its surroundings. It's a very famous cathedral, but more on that in the next post.
Our hotel was quite pleasant and the staff were extremely friendly, even if they didn't speak English very well! Here's the view out our balcony.
After finding a great little restaurant nearby, we hit the sack.
The next morning we walked out along the Arno River to get to our meeting point for the bike and wine-tasting tour we signed up for.
We got picked up in a couple of big white vans. We drove up and out of the city into the Tuscan countryside, reknowned for its endless rolling hills and vineyards. The girls driving us were both Americans, one from California and one from Michigan. They were good company.
Our destination was a castle. I can't recall how old it is now, but it's pretty damn old. It's used today as a winery and we got a tour of it.
Our tour guide was a Scottish guy named Andy. He and a friend just decided to start up a biking tour a few years ago and operate the whole thing on their own. I like that sort of thing.
Ah yes, the wine. There was a lot of wine. We bought ourselves a bottle of a particularly delicious red wine for the whopping price of 4.60 euros.
And then we hit the bikes.
There were about 12 people in our group, which was a nice size. Most of them were Americans, although there was one Chinese lady who was crazy. There was one other Canadian, a female hockey player from Edmonton who was travelling while working in a hockey camp in Austria.
We stopped for lunch in a local restaurant. There was a LOT of food!
And then back on the bikes for another long ride.
Near the end of the trip was a gigantic hill. The guides warned us that it was really long and really steep, and that if you felt tired at all you were advised to take the van up. Screw that, I said, and went for it.
It almost killed me--seriously--but I made it up.
After the bike tour was over we got dropped off at a little garden area that overlooks the whole city. There was a replica of the famous "David" statue; the real one is in a Florence museum.
I told you that cathedral was big.
[NEXT FLORENCE POST]
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