When the train system in Europe works it is mighty fine. It was a short ride to Pisa where we walked the streets to the leaning tower, collecting some delicious goods on the way for a picnic with a view. We sat and enjoyed our lunch and marvelled the architecture. We watched all the tourists take their creative shots, kicking, holding up, picking up and punching the tower then strolled back to the station bound for Florence.
We were greeted at Piccolo Principe B&B by Riccardo, what a lovely man! Riccardo showed us the apartment (which had a king size bed and 2 single beds upstairs), a beautiful patio where we would enjoy our breakfast in the morn and wine of an evening and a relaxation lounge with meditation music! He was extremely hospitable and very sweet going to all measures to accommodate us, he even went to the shop especially to get eggs in the morning as we asked him about gluten free breakfast options.
We spent Saturday exploring Florence, we wondered through the centre marvelling the Dome and a copy of David. We visited the Gucci museum (our kinda museum) it was amazing to see the progression of fashion through the different era's and the way Guccio Gucci marketed his product for the rich and famous! We then visited the world famous Uffuzi museum with pieces of art from the likes of bercello, ........ We marvelled their works however, we had very little idea of what they represented. We think they were so famous that they didn't need an explanation, so we ended up making up stories from the pictures which was much more entertaining.
We arrived in Venice from Florence by train to sweltering heat and humidity, luckily for us Venice was so picturesque we were distracted from this. We had learned from our travels thus far to investigate the location of our accommodation before arriving. Having looked up the location of our hotel and seeing that it was only a 10 minute stroll from the station we decided to walk. After crossing the fifth canal and feeling like we had been turned about several times we decided to consult the map again and start over. After another 20 minutes and some assistance from the locals we finally found our hotel.
Once we had settled in we decided to set off to meet Margot, Phil, Erica, Nathan and Millie who had already kicked off their day with a few wines at a restaurant. We had been informed that you could walk the majority of Venice in 20 minutes and Margot had given us 3 street names, one bridge name and a name of a canal they were near. We thought how hard could this be?! At worst it could take us 20mins which would get us there to have lunch, at this stage we were getting a little peckish. Not really thinking of how hard it was to get to the hotel from the station (only 10 minutes away) we set off to find them with a map and a blue dot on the eye phone. We soon realised that none of the streets we had been given were on the map or on google maps or the bridge or the canal?? We then got a land mark from Marg and thought if we go there we would probably just find them.....? After 30 minutes we had crossed 5 bridges seen 7 canals none of them with any resemblance to any names we had been given. Initially we were enjoying the walk it was beautiful strolling through the winding streets and over the bridges, taking happy snaps at every opportunity (selfies!). After another 20 minutes we were getting real hungry! We then suddenly noticed one of the names that Margot had told us but it was spelt slightly different?? We thought possibly after a few wines (and Margot's history in these circumstances) this could be mistaken we took our chances and headed there.... It was like finding a needle in a hay stack. We had found them finally! We enjoyed an afternoon and evening with everyone mixing sightseeing with indulging we saw Rialto Bridge and St Marcos Square, after dinner at a cute little local spot we enjoyed a bottle of Prosecco whilst sitting at the canal edge, delightful. On Monday morning we met Erica and Nath and the four of us embarked on a romantic gondola (pergola? In Erica's words) ride.
