Day Eleven: Florence to Rome

As expected, there were quite a few grey faces this morning when we had to load our bags onto the bus. Probably not a good thing considering the first thing we did was head to have our group photo taken. Sad, seeing as Steve won’t be in it. Though I’m sure we can photoshop him in later!

Then down into the city of Florence it was to go to Leonardo’s Leather Works where we had a very animated guide telling us how to make real leather boxes, and also how to shop for leather without getting ripped off. It’s amazing what retailers can get away with when trying to sell you something. We had a look at the jewelry, which consisted of some 18 carat gold pieces, but it all seemed a little bit out of range, even at factory prices.

Being the capital of the Renaissance, we had a walking tour of Florence that took us through the Piazza della Signoria, last remaining old bridge, crossed intersection and marble Santa Maria Del Fiore, which was the first dome not to be built with a wooden support. Our tour leader was extremely informative, though extremely talkative. We walked to a pizzeria where we had pizza for lunch, which was actually quite disappointing, before walking up to the Academia. But while we made it to the building where the statue of David is held, we didn’t really have enough time to go inside, so we contented ourselves with the replicas lined everywhere and headed back to meet the tour, where we got there just in time. 

Then it was onto the bus with Jorge to head to Rome. We had a service stop halfway through, then arrived in Rome and drove around to see some of the sights, including the Victor Emmanuel monument and Colosseum. After battling our way through more street vendors, we ate an included dinner opposite the Colosseum. On the way to the hotel we stopped in the middle of the Vatican City square, the smallest country in the world, and saw the two lights in the Papal residence that meant that Pope Benedict was home.

It was a long day between packing our bags on the coach and arriving at the hotel, so we opted for an early nights sleep to actually get more than 8 hours.