Salzburg to the Czech Republic

The day we left Salzburg started early for Michelle and me as we woke early for her to catch an 8:30 flight. The night before, while we waited for the laundry, Michelle booked a taxi for the trip to the airport. So the next morning we got up, she finished packing and had breakfast (which she bought from a supermarket the day before as the hostel breakfast didn't start early enough), woke André up to say goodbye, and we headed out the front to wait for the taxi that was due to arrive at 7.

A few minutes after 7 and the taxi hadn't turned up. But then Michelle got a call from the driver who had clearly gotten confused and, we think, went to the other hotel on the cliff where our hostel was located. A few minutes later he turned up though, and she got to the airport without any other dramas.

I decided to go back to bed then because breakfast wasn't served until 9 anyway. When we did get up, we had time to finish packing and have breakfast and didn't leave until a bit after 10. We had arranged to take a shuttle bus from Salzburg to our next destination, Cesky Krumlov. It was a last-minute arrangement, but the cost was cheaper than a train, especially as we got a discounted last-minute deal, and the trip was simpler. We had arranged to be picked up in front of another hostel in town as vehicles aren't allowed up in the park where our hostel was (unless they have a permit which taxis like Michelle's did).

We were a little surprised to be met by a driver with a spacious car rather than an actual shuttle bus and we were the only passengers. Our driver, Daniel, was very friendly though, and eager to tell us all about his hometown of Cesky Krumlov. For only the second time on our trip, we had the opportunity to see the countryside from the road rather than from a train. As we drove, Daniel told us about how the Czech Republic is still working to recover from communism, and how the community in Cesky Krumlov is excited that tourists have begun to notice them. He was also very critical of the EU's demands that the Czech Republic adopt the euro within six years, especially considering the current condition of the euro.

Even from the car, we could see how communism has left its mark on the country. We passed an unused border checkpoint, and Daniel slowed down for us to take a photo of the relatively new EU Czech Republic entry sign, not the old checkpoint ("that is just ugly grey building!"). Many things also just look run down and haven't been maintained as well as in other countries and the trains are visibly much older.

We got to Cesky Krumlov just before 3pm, and Daniel dropped us right to the hostel where we had to check in for our pension (guest house). Check-in was easy enough, and the lady took us down the road, across the river and up a small hill to the pension we were booked into. There were five rooms on the guesthouse, each with its own bathroom (we hadn't had a bathroom to ourselves since Tignes!) and a shared kitchen and dining room. Our room was spacious and looked out onto rooftops of houses down towards the river, and a large high-set church across the river. Shortly after we dropped our things off, we went for a walk to get some groceries and have lunch. We were reminded just how cheap things are in the Czech republic when we bought a loaf of bread, 4 apples, 2 oranges, 1L juice, 0.5L beer, three yoghurts, butter, chips, and two muesli bars for around $15.

We chose a restaurant right on the town square (The Old Inn) for lunch where André had a salmon pasta dish and beer while I had marinated chicken with a large side salad and huge garlic bread for about the equivalent of $20. The food was excellent as well. Very happy with bellies full of excellent food for a good price we headed back to our pension. It was such a late lunch and such a large meal that we didn't even bother having dinner!

Salzburg - Castles and Palaces

On our last full day in Salzburg we set out to see two of the most famous places in Salzburg- Schloss Hellbrünn and Hohensalzburg (Fortress Salzburg). Breakfast was the standard for the hostel- German bread with cheese and cold meats, jam and juice. I decided on the first day I wasn't a fan of the German bread, but we had a few of the chocolate croissants leftover from Florence so I had those with cheese, ham and juice.

Salzburg's bus system is similar to Italy's in that you can buy tickets from tobacconists, newsstands etc. However unlike in Italy, you can still buy tickets on the bus, it's just more expensive. Unfortunately we generally got stuck buying tickets on the bus because there was nowhere near our hostel that sold them. So after the 332 steps down the cliff (we only paid for the elevator on the days we were carrying our packs), we jumped on a bus out to Schloss Hellbrünn (Hellbrünn Palace). The palace itself is not terribly impressive (it's pretty, but not in great condition and not very big), but the real attraction at Hellbrünn are the trick fountains. The palace and fountains were built around 500 years ago by the prince archbishop of Salzburg as a day residence, so there are no bedrooms there. The extensive grounds include a network of fountains, including secret hidden fountains perfectly placed for the archbishop to play pranks on his friends. Our guide clearly loves his job, demonstrating the trick fountains both when we were expecting it and when we weren't! Michelle and I figured out straight away though to look for the dry patches on the ground where the fountains obviously don't reach, and stand there!

We had lunch back in the old town where we went on a hunt for 'Salzburgers' that we saw advertised on our first day. It didn't take too long to find the same food stand, and it was worth the search- one of the best burgers I've ever had! After lunch we took the funicular up the hill to Hohensalzburg, the castle you can see from nearly anywhere in Salzburg. It was interesting not just in itself, but also because it gave a really good history of the city too, which was first mentioned as a settlement in the 900s, and the fortress was built not long after that!

We ended up not being able to spend quite as much time up there as we would have liked because it closed. We had to do laundry anyway, so went back to the hostel to get our washing and went on a hunt for a laundromat. We had a map and knew specifically where we were going, but the problem came after we put the washing on and wanted to find dinner. We were well out of the tourist area and it was past 9pm, so many places were closed. We walked up and down the street, avoiding the pizza place because we overdosed on pizza in Italy, only to be told several times that kitchens had already closed. So back to the pizza place it was. It actually turned out to be pretty good pizza, and the Indian owner was friendly and chatted to us while the pizza cooked.

We returned, with our pizza, to the laundromat fifteen minutes before closing only to discover our clothes had not been dried in the dual washer-drier which was also supposed to dry them. Then André realised he had only put it on a wash cycle, not wash and dry. This was possibly fortunate as we realized there were some things in the wash that shouldn't be put in a drier. So we had to pull all the washing out, throw it into a drier, and put the drier on the hottest and fastest cycle possible. For future reference: 90 degrees for ten minutes dries everything. Even jeans. It was finished by 10, at which point the machines automatically turn off, so we were able to relax and eat our dinner. Then when we finally got back to the hostel near 11 we realised Michelle still had to pack for her 8:30 flight the next morning. Oh well.

Ice Caves

We chose our second day in Salzburg to take a day trip to visit the Eisriesenwelt ice caves. The caves are near Werfen, a little town about 45 minutes' train ride from Salzburg. So we got a bus to the train station in Salzburg and hopped on a train to Werfen. From the train station we walked about ten minutes to the car park where the shuttle bus to the caves picks you up. The bus wasn't too expensive, 6 euros each for the return trip.

But the trip doesn't end at the end of the bus ride. It drops you at the visitor centre where you buy your tickets, and from there, it's a 15 to 20 minute walk, uphill, to the bottom of the cable car. If you're super keen you can skip the cable car and hike up, but it's your choice between a three minute cable car ride or an extra two to three hours of walking. Literally. I know what I'd choose. Because then, at the top of the cable car, you have another 10 to 15 minute walk. Still uphill. We stopped at the top of the cable car for lunch (Austrian Mac and cheese for André and toasted sandwiches with side salads for me and Michelle) before continuing up to the caves.

They warn you that it's zero degrees inside the caves regardless of the outside temperature, so we came prepared. We emptied out my backpack (easy when you have packing cubes!) and André carried it for the day with our jackets, scarves, beanies and gloves in it. At the entrance to the cave we put the extra layers on except for the gloves. Disappointingly we discovered the tours were only in German with a printed English translation on a piece of paper. This can be difficult to read when there is no electrical lighting in the caves, only the gas- yes, gas- lanterns they gave us to carry. What is this, the 1800s? Do they not have head lamps or at least battery operated hand held torches? Nothing on the website suggests you should bring your own torches either.

You are also not allowed to take photos in the caves. According to the website it's so that guides don't get 'blinded by flashes' (which wouldn't be necessary if the place was lit better) and so nobody slows the tour down because tours leave 'every six minutes' - they don't, they leave every half hour. So by ten minutes into the tour, we were not very impressed- no electric lighting so we couldn't even appreciate the ice formations properly (could just see them via our lanterns and the magnesium flares the guide lit), hand-held gas lanterns, no English speaking guide and no photos. However a bit further into the caves the pace slowed a bit and the guide climbed in behind many ice formations to light longer-lasting flares. Permanent electrical lights still would have been more effective, but we were able to see things better. André also managed to get some video on his phone but got told off about half way through the tour! I started reading the translation but was also carrying a lantern so passed the translation to Michelle to read. So I basically went through it without any commentary, but it was still interesting and very different to anything I've seen before. Everything its covered in ice. In many places you can see the rock through the ice- it's so clear it's like looking through water. There are enormous frozen waterfalls, some 'pouring' down through holes in the ceiling to form ice columns, others 'flowing' down through the cave. Some tunnels were so low even I had to duck my head. And because it's ice and re-forms every year, nobody cares much if you touch it either (although there are large long-lasting formations that do break over time). We went about a kilometre into the cave network, which extends a further 41km into the mountain.

If you have the opportunity to see other ice caves that are better set up it probably isn't worth the cost and effort to get to Eisriesenwelt, but as we'll probably never have the opportunity to see something similar again, it still ended up being a good experience.

Salzburg

We got into Salzburg late afternoon. After a little bit of trouble figuring out buses we visited an Info Centre where a lady there pointed us towards the right bus and explained how to get to our hostel. We got off our bus at the bottom of a cliff, where we got on an elevator to the top of the cliff where our hostel was!

All did not go smoothly straight away though. The girl who was checking us in realised her boss had double-booked our room. We had booked a double room for André and me, and a dorm bed for Michelle. Somehow, they had double booked the only double room in the whole place. The girl was able to rearrange some bed assignments to at least have the three of us in the same room, and also offered us the first night free. With the offer of a free night-and the fact it had such a great view being at the top of a cliff behind the old town- we decided to stay. We didn't want to sit around looking for somewhere else to stay when we had somewhere cheap and interesting to stay anyway.

On our first night we took a bit of a walk around the park on the cliff where our hostel was situated. We found a small food outlet where we bought wurst hotdogs and André had a beer while Michelle and I shared something called an apple spritz. It turned out to be similar to appletiser, but not as sweet. We had other spritzes while in Austria and figured out they were just juices with mineral water. We had a bottled one that evening but often in restaurants they are offered as the juice alone or with mineral water as a spritz.

As we headed back to the hostel for bed we could hear music coming up from the old town below. Someone joked that it was the nuns rocking out, but we discovered the next morning that we had arrived in the middle of a music festival. It was all woodwind and brass bands playing a mixture of traditional music and covers of popular music like Queen. It was right in the middle of the old town, and meant there were lots of food stands set up. Our first day was also a Saturday, which meant there were the normal Saturday markets running. So we spent the morning looking through the markets and shops of the old town where we got an apfel bezel (apple pretzel) big enough for the three of us to share for morning tea, and then stumbled across the music festival while looking for the information centre. We stopped there and got lunch (wurstl, schnitzel, chips, semmel, beer and coke) from one of the stands and ate at one of the dozens of tables they had laid out in front of the stage. Clearly Europe doesn't have the same attitude to sun protection as Australia does- all the tables were spread out in the sun, which was actually a bit of a nice change after London and Paris had been so cold and drizzly and Florence and Venice's weather had been temperamental too. We also noted a lot of people in town still wear traditional dress. Most don't, but enough do that in a crowded shopping street you'll see several people walking around with lederhosen or drindles on, which we found quite amusing.

In the afternoon we went for a walk up behind the old town to see Nonnberg Abbey where scenes from The Sound of Music were filmed, and where the real Maria started her training. We could only walk around it, and didn't really recognise anything from the movie. We just decided we would have to watch the movie again when we get home! In our walk through the old town we had also seen the fountain where they filmed Maria's 'I have confidence' scene. Afterwards we crossed the river and walked along it to see Schloss Mirabell's gardens which Salzburg is famous for. A few other Sound of Music scenes were filmed there including the children and Maria singing 'Doe, a deer'.

We had a proper Austrian meal for dinner that night. André had Berner wurstl, which is a wurstl wrapped in bacon, while Michelle and I both had tirder gröstl, which is chopped beef and pork (we suspected these were beef and pork sausages) with chopped roasted potatoes served with a fried egg on top. Both meals came with a side salad which was served first (something we have found standard in counties with German influence) and was very tasty. It had cold potato in it too, and while that sounds weird with a green salad and I normally don't even like potato salad, it worked well.

Our first day in Salzburg already made it one of our favourite places.

Venice

Our stay in Venice was quite relaxed compared to some of the other places we stayed. There really isn't a lot to do in Venice and it's all contained in a small area close together. It's mainly gondolas, glass, masks and shopping, shopping usually related to the first three items on that list.

On our first day, the first order of business was to find a laundromat. We found one that wasn't self service and wouldn't have our washing back to us for two days. Fortunately as we were saying no and getting ready to leave, an English backpacker came in and told us about a normal self-service laundromat. We didn't have too much trouble finding it, and the machines were fast. While the washing was on we went for a wander and found a bakery/ confectioner who sold enormous meringues. We had seen large meringues before, but they normally looked like those grocery-store 'fake' ones. These looked like proper home-made meringues and were a bit cheaper, so decided to give them a go. And they were good! About the size of my hand, they were too big to eat all in one go so we had to save the rest for later. Michelle had a chocolate one, André's was plain and I had a strawberry one.

Most of the rest of the day was spent looking through markets and shops. We did the tourist thing andd went to see San Marco's Square, which I was thoroughly underwhelmed by. The buildings were all dirty, although it looked like they were in the process of cleaning them, possibly for the America's Cup which we saw being advertised everywhere. We found a great little place for lunch where André got pizza and decided it was the new best pizza he's had on the trip.

Just before tea we decided to go for a gondola trip. It was 80 euros, which was what we expected, and between the three of us not too expensive. It was late afternoon on a weekday, so while there were other gondolas out on the water, it wasn't too busy. It was very peaceful and relaxing and gave us the chance to see parts of buildings and areas we wouldn't have seen otherwise.

On our second day we spent half the morning first looking for a post office to send souvenirs home, and then when we discovered how poorly stocked they were, a shop that sold bubble wrap. We didn't find any bubble wrap so just used newspaper, but by then the post offices had closed anyway (about lunch time!). After having some lunch we bought ourselves leather gloves from one of the market stalls, as we had found a lot of places in Europe, while they might not be too cold during the day, can get quite cold at night, and neither André nor I brought gloves with us!

Afterwards we bought vaporetti (water bus) passes and headed over to Murano to see a glass making demonstration. I've seen glass blowing before but this guy also sculpted a glass horse for us which was impressive to watch. I was surprised to note many of the buildings in Murano look more modern than in Venice, and the streets are much wider with more space, and cleaner. It also seems very residential which also surprised me. We had a look in a few glass shops, and while I was surprised that a lot of the prices were not exorbitant, I also saw things for considerably more than I had seen them being sold in Venice. I might have actually bought one or two things if it weren't for the problem of carrying or posting them home! That evening we took a vaporetti up and down the grand canal for a bit of sight-seeing before having a late dinner at a restaurant right near our hotel. It seemed a bit touristy and pretty empty, but it was late and a lot of other places were closing! The food was good though.

The next day we moved on to Salzburg. We were having problems figuring out the connections online, so the day before we dropped by the train station to get a staff member to help us book the right trains. We ended up having to get a monorail from the main Venice train station to a larger transport depot, from which point we got on a bus to Villach in Austria.

When we arrived in Villach we spotted a post office, so I went in to send the parcel of presents and souvenirs while Michelle and André went to look for some lunch, agreeing to meet on the train platform. I sent off the parcel no problem, and headed back to the train station. I found the right platform, with our train already there, and waited for André and Michelle. And waited. And watched the hands on the clock tick by. Departure time. Doors began to close. I heard somebody yell, and saw Michelle and André running from the other end of the platform. I ran towards them, we hit the button on the closest door and it opened for us. Jumped on and the train began moving about one minute later as we walked through the train to find our correct carriage and seats!

Pisa to Venice

Back when I was still planning our trip, I thought we might go from Rome to Florence via Pisa, that is, get a train from Rome to Pisa, spend the day there, then get a train on to Florence for the evening. Well, with the booking of trains a few days before we needed to leave Rome, of course I forgot that plan. And we didn't have time to visit Pisa while we were in Florence. So, we reversed the original plan. We decided to visit Pisa before moving on to Venice. Pisa is not far from Florence, about an hour on the train, so even though it is west of Florence while Venice is east, it didn't cause any problems.


We had a bit of a late start to the day because we knew we didn't have a time that we had to be on the train. Trains run regularly from Florence to Pisa so we decided not to book one. We had another breakfast from the minimart in our campsite — croissants, yoghurt, bananas, juice, cereal — and eventually got onto a train to Pisa. We got to Pisa about lunchtime and actually had some difficulty getting to the leaning tower, which we really shouldn't have as it's basically down one road from the train station, but we followed a sign that must have been moved and so took a bit of a detour! We got there eventually though and walked around the tower and its other associated buildings like the church and baptistry. We didn't go into any of them or up the tower, but it was fun just to see them and take photos — of the buildings and of the scores of people lined up with their hands up in the air, having photos taken 'supporting' the leaning tower! We got a late lunch close by — between the three of us we shared a huge pizza, salad and fries and Michelle confused the poor waiter by ordering lemonade, which he wasn't familiar with, explaining it as lemon soda, which he did know, and then changing it to pineapple juice when I ordered one! The prices were very good, as most Italian food is, especially considering we were one street away from the leaning tower, although the drinks were a bit on the exy side, also something we have found is typical in many places where the food is cheap!


After a few hours in Pisa we had to be on the train back to Florence in time to catch a train on to Venice. Fortunately we had no train problems there, although for some bizarre reason the booking system for the Florence to Venice train did not let us choose our seats and assigned us two together and one further down the train. We assumed the other seats must have been all booked, but the carriage was 90% empty, including the seats beside Andre and me. It was nice to be back on a highspeed train though, as the trains to Florence from Rome and between Florence and Pisa were all lower speed regional trains. We pulled into Venice's St Lucia train station at about 8pm as the sun was setting. I was surprised to find Venice was a little cool, something I had not expected for a coastal (island!) town. One of our first impressions after walking out of the train station was how wonderful it was to be in a town where we wouldn't be subjected to sirens as we had in Florence, Rome, Paris and London, because there were no cars! (An impression that was blasted to smithereens on our last day, which I will get to later!) 

In most of the places we stayed, after about a day I began to get a basic feel for the area around where we stayed and had some inner navigational ability. I never achieved that in Venice, other than the street and square immediately at the end of our street! But with a map we found our accommodation easily enough and got checked in. We headed out for a late dinner and found a place close by with pretty cheap food, but true to previous experience, the drinks prices were through the roof. Andre decided to try a beer  —  I think I've only ever known him to drink beer about twice  —  and actually quite liked it, but it cost 7 euros. My main meal cost 8! And they added a 12% service charge on! 12%! Needless to say we didn't go back there during the rest of our stay in Venice, which I will blog about later, as it is now past 11 and I have to go to bed!

Florence

After five nights in Rome we moved up the coast to Florence. This was one of the simplest legs of the trip, just one train the whole way. We were in a compartment with four others (two small children shared a seat). It was a noisier, slower, older train than others we've been on, but the seats were more comfortable than some others.  We were a little worried at first that the train wasn't airconditioned, as Rome was pretty warm and when the train was stopped the airconditioning was off. But once the train started moving the aircon came through and it was all good.

Florence was very warm too when we arrived, probably about 30 degrees. We had some trouble finding our bus, as the bus stops had changed since the instructions we had were written. It was right by the train station though, and we found a news stand nearby that sold tickets. In many Italian cities you can't buy bus tickets on the bus and need to buy them beforehand, normally from tobacconists or newsstands. This can be a pain after hours or on Sundays when such places are closed, so it's good to buy a bunch at once if you know you're going to be taking a few bus trips.

We couldn't tell from the bus map if it stopped outside our caravan park or not, so we got off a stop too early at Piazzale Michelangelo. This wasn't a bad thing though, as the view from the Piazzale is excellent - and nearly matched by the view from the deck at the campsite. We only had to walk about another 200m (if that) to reach the campsite. We were staying in a three-bed permanent tent, about half way down the campsite (which is on a hill to the south of the historical centre of the city). From the tent there wasn't much view, but at the top of the campsite at the bar/restaurant the view was excellent. We spent our first afternoon at the Piazzale taking photos of the view and watching a few dozen kites, including one enormous one that would have been a good 5m squared, with tails. We got burgers from a snack stand for dinner (cheap but pretty lousy food) then spent the evening having drinks on the deck at the campsite.

Our first full day in Florence ended up being cold and drizzly. In the morning I bought some breakfast items from the campsite minimarket - chocolate-filled and jam-filled croissants (which we had discovered in our B&B in Rome), yoghurt, juice poppers, and cereal. This was our sole day to explore the city, so we spent time walking around, seeing the Ponte Vecchio, markets, Duomo, and other impressive buildings, and visited the Accademia (to see Michelangelo's David) and a Leonardo da Vinci museum. We decided to skip the Uffizi due to time contraints - we decided we'd seen enough art museums for now and were more interested in Leonardo da Vinci and specifically wanted to see David. Florence is a very pretty city, prettier than Rome. Rome is big and imposing and impressive, but Florence is pretty.

For dinner we had pizza and salad on our campsite deck - the pizza was reaonable, a good base but the toppings were a bit average, so still not as good as the pizza we discovered on our last night in Rome. The plastic 'walls' had been fastened down around the deck though due to the cold wind that had been around all day, so the view wasn't quite as nice as it had been the night before. We got hot chocolates after dinner, and WOW, they were the best hot chocolates ever! It was like drinking hot chocolate cream! We needed them as the evening was very cold. In fact all three nights in Florence were cold, something the locals told us was very unusual, which was unlucky as we were in a tent! Andre and I squished into one bed one night (we had a bunk bed and one single) to keep warm but it was a bit uncomfortable so the next night we went back to separate beds, though half way through the night I woke up so cold even with two blankets that I considered moving into his bed again!

For our second (and last) full day in Florence, we had booked a bus tour of the Tuscan countryside. We just had croissants for breakfast as the minimart wasn't open yet and I'd bought two packets the day beforehand, so we had spares! For our tour we met outside a cafe at 8:45am and drove out of Florence a little after 9. Our first stop was Siena, a medieval walled city. We were supposed to have an hour of free time before our guided tour, but due to some elderly americans who complained very loudly about going "too fast" and "not being able to see" the guide, we took much longer to get into the town centre (as it's car-free, the buses have to park outside and we walked in). This meant we only ended up with about half an hour of free time, so we didn't go very far. We then had a local take us on a tour of the town, through the cobblestone streets and into the elaborately decorated cathedral (covered in marble, including a parquetry-type marble floor, the only one of its type in the world). After the tour was lunchtime, where we had the option of eating at a place reserved by the guide with others from the tour. It was eleven euros each and basically all you can eat pasta, cold meats & cheese, salad, bread (served with olive oil and balsamic vinegar), wine and water so we decided it was a pretty good deal. It was a good opportunity to meet some of the other travellers on the tour, and we chatted with some Indians, Americans from Oklahoma and Canadians.

After lunch we left Siena and moved on to Monteriggioni, which can't even be classified as a village - it's really just a castle on a hill surrounded by farmland. We only had an hour there, enough time to climb the wall and look at the view over the countryside and look through the shops that now inhabit the castle walls, before we moved on to a winery for some wine and olive oil taste-testing which Andre had been looking forward to all day! We met some other Canadians there, Duy and Anita, and swapped gelateria recommendations with them - they were heading to Rome so we recommended Giolitti's, and they had just left Venice so recommended a gelateria there! I didn't mind the white wine that we tasted but wasn't a fan of either of the reds, but I never like red wine. We didn't buy any of the wine or oil there, but did buy some of the lavender honey that they also produce - I'm hoping we don't have too much trouble getting it back into Australia!

Our last stop was San Gimignano, another medieval walled town on a hill, known for its towers that can be seen from all across the countryside. Again we only had an hour there - not enough to explore it really as it is much larger than Monteriggioni and could be classified as a small town, but we did taste some of the gelato there and bought some postcards.

On our return to Florence we decided to try and find a restaurant that Duy had recommended for dinner. Easier said than done. It took us more than an hour as Andre had recorded the restaurant name on his phone, and his phone battery had gone flat. So we had to find a cafe with a power point where we could plug the phone in to check the restaurant details. That took long enough, but then Google Maps pinned the wrong spot on our map (even with the correct address), and TripAdvisor flatout gave the wrong address. We ended up finding it eventually though and we ended up not being extremely impressed. Andre said his steak was excellent, but Michelle and I got lasagna which, while it tasted good, had next to no meat in it and no tomato sauce at all - not sure if that's traditional or not, but none of the other lasagna we had in Italy was like that. We did have very tasty bruschetta though. The late dinner meant we didn't have a chance to do any laundry as we'd wanted and were up late clearing photos off our SD card onto Andre's phone.

We did enjoy our time in Florence, even though it was cold we liked semi-camping as something different to the B&Bs, hotels and apartments we'd had up to that point.