Firenze!
Without a doubt the most beautiful place I have ever been, and it has not diminished at all in the 18 months since I've been here.
I have been quite ill, which makes getting around an immensely unenjoyable task. Straight off the train in Florence, I was surprised at how well I remembered the city as I could find my way to the main square. Unfortunately, my hostel was HIDDEN and it took me a very long time to find it.
It was well worth the torturous journey though - this hostel was unbelievably nice.
As soon as I arrived they served their free "snacks" and sangria (effectively dinner), I did not have to sleep in a bunk bed and I actually had some space to myself for once. My room literally smelt of roses.
My only full day in Florence was a monday (the day when all the museums are closed). This actually turned out to be a stroke of immense luck, because I have already seen all the museums and didn't want to spend 7 hours in a queue when I only had one day. Since everybody else did want to see them, they had all gone to Sienna or Pisa for the day and I had the city almost to myself.
All too soon it was time to go to Milan, though. In typical Italian style, the trains decided to have a holiday, and only eurostars were running. So I queued for 2 hours to buy a eurostar ticket which saved me half an hour on my journey, cost me 3x as much and was then delayed by 2 hours anyway. Italians...
But I arrived in Milan, made it to my hostel, and slept for 4 days.
There was a wonderful thunderstorm every night I was in Milan, the view from my balcony was perfect.
Then, on my last day in Milan, finally feeling a little better, I ventured outside and saw the duomo (got nothin' on Florence!) and the city centre. Quite pretty.
To avoid queuing for 3 hours for a train, I cleverly decided to buy my ticket to Nice online.
Unfortunately, there was a queue to collect tickets booked online. And, I did not have the code to collect it that nobody told me I needed.
This all took some time to sort out... needless to say I JUST made it onto the train in time, so I didn't have any time to buy food for the 6 hour journey (and I hadn't eaten in 24 hours at least...)
So as soon as I arrived in Nice I bought the first thing I could - what the French call a 'cheeseburger'. It was served by a guy wearing a "everything's bigger in Texas" t-shirt. It was unbelievably good.
