The last weekend

We just got off our last train and arrived in Rome. We will be leaving from here to go home on Monday. Stivo, Bethany and Jess went to get a snack... I snacked on my peanut butter during the train ride so I decided I'd take advantage of the free internet here at the hostel.

Florence

Well, we made it to Florence eventually, just not quite on time. Our reservations at the famous Uffizi Gallery were at 230 and we made it town about 5. So basically we went to dinner and then to bed because we were all pretty exhausted. The tasty wine from the tap here is cheap but so good, I think it acts as a pretty darn good sleep aid too.

I lingered a little longer downtown to watch the end of the Barcelona/Manchester United game at an Irish pub. There were some really obnoxious Aussie Barca fans that I thought were totally going to get killed by some angry englishmen. I waited around long enough after the game to see if a fight would start, but when nothing happened I peaced out for bed.

Biking

On Thursday I was a little worn out of city sightseeing so I did a bike tour through some of the Tuscan hills. Bethany, Stivo and Jess stayed in town and saw the city and were able to get into the Uffizi Gallery with our reservations from the day before. Bethany broke down and finally bought a souvenir... a cute leather bag. I'm sure she's still twitching from actually spending money on something other than food or transportation so you might not want to bring it up :)

The bike tour stopped at a working winery that had been around for 800 years. I wont get into details but I thought the process was really cool. They also made olive oil there too and people, I could really go on about that but I will try not to bore you with tales of olive oil. Lets just say it's pretty sweet how they make it and the olive oil they gave us to try was SO GOOD, like, biting right into the best olive you've ever tasted, but in liquid form. Thats not a great description, I know, but maybe you get the idea.

The scenery was also amazing, like Napa Valley but more ... um... just more. More hills as far as you could see, more little castles and vineyards.

In the city

The city was really beautiful. I wish I could have spent more time there.



I was walking around in the evening and felt like I was in Van Gogh's Starry night painting. There were people holding hands everywhere.. normally I would have felt like puking, but it seemed ok in Florence.

I forgot to mention, the best part about the bike tour though was the price of admission ended up including dinner as well :) We went to a restaurant just above the city that overlooked all the Florence lights. You know me, it was a bit of a romance overload, but what can I say? When in Rome Florence...