Florence

Florence was my second favourite Italian city. We arrived on train and caught a taxi to our hotel which was about no more than a 5 minute walk from the train station. But we didn't know that at the time. The hotel, Hotel Universo, was awesome and arty, I highly recommend it. Every room is different and every floor has a different style. We landed with 'floral' and our room was black silver and a bit of orange. After checking in we went for a walk around and a bit of an expensive lunch all before our afternoon tour.
The tour started off really nice. We had a bus trip up through the country side where we could see a bit more of Tuscany with the sunflower fields and all. Also from the top of the hill we could see down into Florence, sadly the bus was never allowed to stop. The road was extremely narrow both up and down however on the way down our driver managed to hit a post, he kept going. By now, about 45 minutes into the tour another man and us all started to drift off to sleep. It was incredibly hard to stay awake and it just got worse as we then started walking towards the museum. The guide was incredibly boring and just droned on and on about places like this.
We finally get to the museum and whats the main focus? Jesus and Mary art. I couldn't have been more thrilled... Don't get me wrong I actually don't mind Jesus and Mary portraits I think they're quite nice but there were 100's in here and they all looked the same! The stand out painting in the museum was The Birth of Venus, I've always loved this picture and it was really cool to see the original and it was much larger than I imagined. The guide however kept talking and sweating and then he kinda just ended things and left us there. Three people had already left the tour which I think gave him a clear indication of some things. Sophie and I just wanted to get out and another member of our tour, an American film graduate, needed help getting back to the train station. This guy, I must mention, had the Dark Mark tattooed on his arm. Hehe, odd but cool. We made it back to the station and then to our hotel after Sophie paid something like 7€ for an ice cream. I told you it was expensive in Florence.

The next day was my birthday, yipee. It wasn't a very good birthday, but it was a good day. In the morning I got a pretty star necklace and lotto tickets from the Andersons which was the only present I actually got that day. But that's all ok, we went for a walk around after breakfast and to a bridge with lots of shops on it. They were all jewellery shops too.
We kept walking up along the river and found these locks which we put on the fence by people who loved each other. So, no Kieran, I'm sorry but it wasn't just someone who really loved their bike.
Then we found this cat! At first we thought he was stuck, then we figured out we wasn't but he was just down by the river on the little edge of the wall. Just chilling. Weird Italian cat.
Soon enough it was time for our next tour which would be taking us out to Pisa. As soon as we got off the bus in the carpark near the town entrance we were bombarded with people selling bags, water, umbrellas (again like in Rome) and all that. Really, they would stand at the door of the bus so it was hard to get out then follow you till you left the park. Once we were inside the city walls they were all gone and we could admire the tower and cathedral in peace. First impression was that the tower leans more than I imagined. We changed over tour guides and were taken into the cathedral where we could Galileo Galilee's light. It was here that he first realised (during church) that it had taken the light the same amount of time to get from one end of the swing to the centre point on each sides. Clever clever.
The cathedral is also on a slant like the tower. If you had a ball and put it on the ground on the inside it would roll in the same direction as the tower of Pisa does. Also this is the reason the light above doesn't hang in the direct centre of Jesus face in the painting, because its on a tilt. The guide thought this was the easiest question in the world but none of us got it. A little fact though, the Baptistery at the front leans in the other direction, so the ball would roll in the opposite direction to which the leaning tower leans.
We didn't go inside the tower because there wasn't enough time but walking around was interesting. You could see the cables holding it up and everything. Sophie made me do the horrible tourist photo like the other 100 people.
I think this next photo is really good because it shows how much it leans away from the church.
When we got back into Florence we went for a little walk and to buy a nutella crepe for soph and some of these fruit cups that the stores were selling. Basically a giant plastic cup with cut up fruits in it. Main point is we saw this guy who had two fully dogs in the back basket of his bike and they even had little seat belt things. It was so cute.
Our last day in Florence was the funnest by far. In the morning we went for a look inside this church, it was okay but the outside is much better with the green tiles and all.
Then we walked up 100's of stairs, again, to get to the top of this bell tower.
To see these views...
It was spectacular up there, a full look of Florence. I'd show more pictures but they all kind of look the same with the red roofs. In the afternoon came the most anticipated part of Florence, the Segway tour! Believe me, they really are as fun as they look. At first everyone was a bit wobbly. We were teamed up with a man and his two kids from Holland so there was 6 in the group. We were all taught how to stop, reverse, park and drive. When I first hopped on I was surprised by how lightweight they were. I always imagined them to be heavy and that you really had to push them forward but in the end the slightest movement had you going. Once everyone was ready we went off and everybody was staring at us and asking where they could get them from. We went to heaps of places during the tour even to a square where the guide had her first apartment, first concert and first kiss.
At the end of the tour I could barley feel my feet, the easy way of getting round actually hurt. None of us crashed or had an accident, though the guide ran over an old Chinese mans foot. He wasn't impressed. We were given an extra 10 minutes at the end where we could do whatever we wanted so we all zoomed off. We ended up at a piazza that we were at before and the lady had told us not to ride over it however somehow my segway ended up on the edge then I had no control. It just sped forward on the tiles and I couldn't slow it down. Eventually I got to the edge but that was the only problem I had.

That night we just took it easy again and had dinner in the piazza out front of our hotel. We originally just went out for some chips but ended up getting a whole meal. It was nice to be out there though as the piazzas are really popular meeting points so lots of different people were there. And this was the end of Florence.