Jonty Ruha
Florence has been by far the nicest city we have visited in Europe to date; the people are quite noticeably more polite and the city is generally more beautiful which is most likely due to the lack of rubbish and graffiti in the streets.
On our first day in Florence we travelled to Pisa, which had been one of the places I wanted to travel to most prior to the trip. When we arrived it was as amazing as I imagined the leaning tower is quite astonishing when you're standing below looking up, it seems like at any moment it could fall over. The funniest part about the tower was watching all the tourists put their hands up in a mock triumphant attempt at holding the tower up only to have Hamish run around giving them high fives, a couple didn't take it so well but mostly his cheekiness was taken well.
The hotel along the water front was quite an improvement from our past accomodations which had been adjacent to a "sex shop" in Athens and a noisy hostel on a highly graffitied street in Rome. The area was nice and the view from the fourth floor was amazing, we could see half the city as well as all the wildlife bustling in the river, which surprisingly included a troop of otters. The rooms were quite spacious and the beds were very comfortable and for once we had a shower that didn't flood! The next day was followed by another stream of churches which I usually detest but the modest interior of the Florentine churches was a little bit more respectable (the roofs were wooden compared to the opulent golden roofs of every church in Rome!!)
After the usual busy morning visiting the cities major tourist attractions and churches we headed for the markets of Florence and as we entered I had no intention to spend more than 150 euros however after I haggled an op shop owner down to 10 euro for a nike long sleeve shirt which would have costed 90 euro at a nike store, I got a little trigger happy and when I saw the leather jackets 6 of my mates had bought I couldn't not buy one could I? So I consider it 250 euros well spent as I haggled the owner down from 350 euros which took nearly 20 minutes and it does look amazing. And considering that Arthur spend 520 euro I think I did quite well. The rest of the market was underwhelming mostly people trying to sell fake things for outrageous prices, one "merchant" was attempting to sell "legitimate fakes" for 20% the price of the real thing…
On our first day in Florence we travelled to Pisa, which had been one of the places I wanted to travel to most prior to the trip. When we arrived it was as amazing as I imagined the leaning tower is quite astonishing when you're standing below looking up, it seems like at any moment it could fall over. The funniest part about the tower was watching all the tourists put their hands up in a mock triumphant attempt at holding the tower up only to have Hamish run around giving them high fives, a couple didn't take it so well but mostly his cheekiness was taken well.
The hotel along the water front was quite an improvement from our past accomodations which had been adjacent to a "sex shop" in Athens and a noisy hostel on a highly graffitied street in Rome. The area was nice and the view from the fourth floor was amazing, we could see half the city as well as all the wildlife bustling in the river, which surprisingly included a troop of otters. The rooms were quite spacious and the beds were very comfortable and for once we had a shower that didn't flood! The next day was followed by another stream of churches which I usually detest but the modest interior of the Florentine churches was a little bit more respectable (the roofs were wooden compared to the opulent golden roofs of every church in Rome!!)
After the usual busy morning visiting the cities major tourist attractions and churches we headed for the markets of Florence and as we entered I had no intention to spend more than 150 euros however after I haggled an op shop owner down to 10 euro for a nike long sleeve shirt which would have costed 90 euro at a nike store, I got a little trigger happy and when I saw the leather jackets 6 of my mates had bought I couldn't not buy one could I? So I consider it 250 euros well spent as I haggled the owner down from 350 euros which took nearly 20 minutes and it does look amazing. And considering that Arthur spend 520 euro I think I did quite well. The rest of the market was underwhelming mostly people trying to sell fake things for outrageous prices, one "merchant" was attempting to sell "legitimate fakes" for 20% the price of the real thing…