Florence

Our next Italian city was Florence. Florence was a big, concrete, sweaty city after the quiet alleys of Venice. Florence did have it's charms though, we just had to look a little harder. Being the primary center for the Renaissance Florence had tons of museums, that after a long frusterating wait in line did have some beautiful pieces in them, most notably "David" by Michelangelo. He basically has a museum dedicated to the one peice and it is truly beautiful. (All the girls swore they'd hang a picture of him on their walls).

My favourite memories from Florence though are of the bicycling tour of Tuscany that we did. We had a great group of people, all Americans and Canadians, and biking through the rolling hills of vineyards and olive trees was truly breathtaking. For a short break we visited a vineyard that was owned by a Prince and produced some of the best Chianti wine. The tasting was delicious, we only wished we didn't have 20 km of biking to do afterwards. We also finally tasted some great Tuscan cooking, complete with Tiramisu for desert. A perfect day!

View of Florence

Tuscany bikers!

Yum, grapes!

We finally made it up the hill!

Florence bridge full of Gold shops