About 15mins into our trip it was discovered that the airconditioning had broken down (and our bus was new). There was nothing we could do but sit it out in a very hot bus and heavy traffic. It ended up taking us 2 hours to get into Florence and we were all very relieved to get off the hot stuffy bus. Our tour guide was Rosa and she took us to the Academy Gallery to see Michelangelo's statue of David. It took Michelangelo from 1501 to 1504 to carve David and he is 5.17meters high with such detail. You can't take photos of the original so we had to settle for the replica which is outside in the Piazza del Duomo...
After spending quite a bit of time with David we walked along a street to the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (Duomo) cathedral church.
We didn't go inside as Rosa said this chuch is much more spectacular outside with its Gothic style and shades of pink and green...
Opposite this is the Baptistry with huge gilded bronze doors...
We then had to go to a leather demonstration and store which was super boring and expensive. We were then free for a few hours to explore ourselves. First we went and found the Ponte Vecchio bridge. It was built in 1345 and the shops on it were butchers shops and they threw all their scraps into the river. Now it is lots of jewellers and other shops...
The shopping in Florence was great and we managed to find a few things to buy. We met up with everybody but the bus still wasn't quite ready so we got a bit of extra time to enjoy an icecream in a bit of shade. Back in Montecatini we went to the shops to get some perfume Sarah had spotted the day before. Then we went on another optional tour. This was to a restaurant high on a hill overlooking the town and countryside. We needed an escort car to get the bus up there.
It was a beautiful (and big) meal and we bought a bottle of wine to bring home. Ernesta may have had one too many wines and thought she could drive the bus back down...
Back to our room to pack for the next days big trip.
Happy Birthday Mumxxx
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