Very nice city and summer feeling about it. Wandered about the city and found the most amazing huge church that is finished in green pink and white marble all over. Beautiful dinner out at a cool restaurant that left us so stuffed we could barely stumble home.
Florence is home to some amazing art galleries, including
Michel Angelos statue of "David" (from David and Goliath). Lucky for us the city has recreated a copy of the statue, and it is in the town square, so that saved us an hours queue and 10euros!
Next day we climbed up the dome of the church, which was a maze of stairs and tiny paths that you had to share with those coming down as well, so the congestion added to the fun! The views were outstanding over the red tiled roofs of the city and the surrounding countryside.
Of course we had a quick peek inside the main cathedral also and saw the paintings on the inside of the dome depicting heaven and hell etc, all very interesting the interpretations
We also went for a lovely evening picnic to some steps overlooking the city at sunset. The way home passed by a few gelato shops, so we just had to stop in for a treat!
Florence is also the place to get leather goods, so thanks to some smooth talking salesman we now have bags that are a few kg heavier of jackets that are far too hot to wear here, but no doubt will come in handy in winter sometime.
Then we got a regional train to Lucca. Felt more like a shaklock oven than a carriage, as the air con wasn't working and it was 35 deg outside. So we sweated our way through beautiful country to the 16 th century walled city of Lucca.
It is known as the city of 100 church's and most of them seem to be downtown. Very cute tiny streets with quaint restaurants and cafes. Got out for a bike ride around the city wall and to the river for a swim before the midday heat took over
Next up is an italian cooking class for us all, making dinner and then wine tasting to follow, so lucky its in that order or our food could turn out to be a bit of a shambles!
Here's a pic of last nites desserts..... Yes they were yummy :) Some chocolate and ricotta pie and a tiramisu, with cafe macchiato to finish.
Pisa is the next tourist trap on the menu, the wonky bell tower on the lean. Turns out that it's not the only thing there that is a bit wonky, the church is as well, and probably the baptistery. Quite nice to see and take some silly photos of us trying to hold it up, straighten it upon whatever else you want to do.
Tonight we go to an opera of Pucinni (from Lucca) in a church. Part of the ticket is to have a look at some of the remains under the current church. They have dug up the basement and found five different layers of foundations of where various people haven decided to do some major renovations, starting with an ancient roman bath house at the bottom and working its way up to a catholic church at the top.
Next up is la spetzia and cinque terre!
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Location:Italy
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