Day 17 – 8th August – Florence

I slept in a bit so by the time I was up Rachel was already showered and ready to go.

We headed to Florence town around 10ish in the morning and with it being only a 10 min walk we were soon there. The town itself was packed with tourists and in parts was unpleasant with the amount of people about.

We saw most of the major sites but did not go into any of them, as some of the queues were honestly almost a mile long.

As we were running low on supplies of fruit and veg we decided to go to the market to pick up some bits which in this case turned out to be some pretty expensive oranges and grapes. This should have been a sign of things to come. After the market we continued our walk around the city and decided to stop for an ice cream as we were pretty warm and had been told Florence had wonderful ice cream shops. We both decide to go for pots instead of cones and this turned out to be the wrong choice as when we got to the till to pay for the two pots the bill was 18 euro’s. This was bit of a shock but thinking about it the pots were very large and came with waffles so it makes sense that they were so much. With this in mind we decided not to bother with lunch, as we were full up on ice cream.

After the ice cream we headed for the one bridge that survived the war (the ponte vecchio), which was one of the main sites. The bridge used to be home to butchers but in an effort to lift up the city’s image they were evicted and replaced with gold and silver merchants. Saw a nice watch when window-shopping, but 30 thousand euros’ was just a bit out of my price range.

All the main sites down we headed back to camp for happy hour in the bar. This turned out to be a bit of a waste of money as it was 2 euro’s for a small beer but in the market which was meters away it was 1.15 euro for a 660ml cold beer so everyone just walked to the market, bought a beer and walked back to the bar with it in hand. After a few beers we headed back to the van for some dinner, which was pasta with broccoli and chorizo.

Once the sun had completely set we headed up to the piazzale michelangiolo which had great views of the city at night. That concluded our stay in Florence. Tomorrow we would head for Rome stopping off along the way. 

Florence at night

Day 16 – 7th August

Arose early to have breakfast at the site. We bought some fresh eggs from the site shop so had fried eggs on toast. After breakfast we let our food go down fully as our moms always told you before heading for a swim in the sea. The sea was a bit choppy so we kept the swim pretty short. After the swim we packed up the van, paid the bill (40 euro’s) and got on the road. Although this was one of the most expensive sites we stayed at, it was well worth it for the location and private beach and the price did include electric hook up which meant cold beers which, as I have mentioned before you can’t put a price on when its 30 degrees.

Back on the road again we headed for a brief stop in Pisa to get the text book photo and then the plan was to head to Florence.

We made decent time on the auto strade so were in Pisa by lunch time. We parked up about 3km from the tower and jumped on the bikes to cycle to the tower. 

As you would expect the tower was packed with tourists. We took a few photos and then got a quick bite to eat which could only be one thing, Pizza!

The pizza was nice but not the best I’ve had but I’m sure the more time I spend in Italy the closer I will get to the prefect pizza.

Back on the road again we had about 150km to Florence, which seemed to fly by although we were cruising at about 60-65mph. Once in Florence we headed for the campsite that was recommended in the Lonely Planet book which we had been using most of the trip. The site was very busy upon arrival. We parked up and went to reception.  Luckily for us they had space and we were soon directed to our pitch. When we parked up we realised that our 10m electric hook up cable would not reach to hookup point so we asked if we could be moved to another pitch was fine luckily and meant another few days of cold beers.

After setting up our home we did some much needed washing as I only brought clothes for 5 days and was running distinctly low on clean stuff. After stocking up on beer we chilled in the evening sun with a few games of cards ready for a day of walking round Florence.