A Room with a View

After leaving Montalcino, we headed to the brighter lights of Florence. There were probably more tourists there per square km than anywhere else we have been so far! Despite that, we endeavoured to expand our cultural horizons with a visit to David, Michelangelo's famous statue. A visit to the Duomo, Florence's main cathedral was another highlight, though as always, queueing was required at all locations. Museo dell'Opera was selected out of the many available museums for us to visit, so that Adam could see the statue Michelangelo started to carve for his own tomb, before he changed his mind and attacked it with a hammer. Oh the artistic temperament!

A few other required tourist experiences (a walk across the Ponte Vecchio to look in the windows of the jewellers shops...tourist traps for sure...and a spot of window shopping), plus the mandatory food and wine experiences, and we left feeling that we had made the most of our 3 nights. Due to our landlady warning us about the local cafes and their pricing policy, we became masters of the standing up espresso coffee and brioche for breakfast, to avoid the five fold! increase in price if you sat at a table.

We are now settled in a stunning village in a valley, right on the Mediterranean, called Riomaggiore. It is part of five little villages called the Cinque Terre, which are renowned for their stunning location. We are staying in an apartment high up in the village, with vast ocean views, as well as an eagle eye view down onto the residents. We are both very excited to be able to prepare meals again (yay! cornflakes for breakfast), and celebrated with the biggest T bone we have ever seen, and a bottle of Chianti Classico. Today we have caught the train to the other end of the Cinque Terre, to a bigger town by the name of Monterosso. We really need to make an effort to get up a little earlier, as there is a long siesta from about 1-5 pm, when all the shops close, and that is about the time we tend to arrive at our day's destination.

It is still beautiful and sunny, and the jumpers we brought with us have been unnecessary baggage weight for at least 4 months now. We had enough of constantly trying to arrange accommodation 1 or 2 stops ahead, so we came up with a firm itinerary and have booked all accommodation until we return home at the end of Oct (we know it is not the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants approach favoured by others we know, but we are very happy!)

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